Week 4- Podcasts

In my opinion, podcasts are simply an audio recording that has been published online. Like an RSS feed, which allows you to subscribe to certain texts (like blogs or websites), podcasts allow you to subscribe to an audio recording (for example, an itunes podcast) and every new episode that appears will be automatically downloaded to where the listener wants them.

Podcasting, according to http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=91805 can be used for:

"1. Self-Guided Walking Tours- Informational content.

2. Music- Band promotional clips and interviews.

3. Talk Shows- Industry or organizational news, investor news, sportscasts, news coverage and commentaries.

4. Training- Instructional information materials.

5. Story- Story telling for children or the visually-impaired."


Other ideas that I thought could be useful for podcasts are for students with subjects like science where they need to take note of what happens during an experiment. Rather than quickly scribbling down notes, the students could record their observations so that they also can refer to them later.

Another idea is that teachers may be able to use podcasts to record any major discussions or session if they know that a student is going to be absent for an amount of time which will involve a lot of catch up work.

Earlier in the year I was absent from Uni, due to health reasons, for approximately 6 weeks. Without the podcasts and video recordings of many of the classes I would not have been able to keep up-to-date with the activities, tasks and assignments.

In the Japanese classroom, the teacher could use podcasts as weekly listening activities or even the listening exams at the end of the term. This will enable them to play the recording as many times as needed with all pronounciation the same each time. Often when reading out a passage more than once (or even without practice), mistakes might be made by the reader which in turn confuses the listener. Having a recording would ensure that this didn't happen because the teacher can make sure, before the day, that the recording is accurate and easily able to be interpreted.

I have not yet been able to create my own podcast, due to site problem, but will continue to try with the website so that I can test how simple or difficult podcasts are to create. This will help me conclude as to whether they would be practical for school students to use.