Getting with the Program

Learning to Podcast

Being a visual person (and a deaf educator), I don't always tune in to technologies and teaching tools that focus primarily on audio format. Up to now I've paid little attention to the whole podcasting phenom, but now that iPods and other handhelds have progressed to the point that video is not only feasible, but relatively easy to produce, I'm exploring the process of creating video podcasts as an educational tool. I'm also considering vlogs and video podcasts as a means of sharing those vlogs in a more portable format than simply posting them to YouTube.

One of the projects I'm working on is a plan to help students enhance their formal writing skills in preparation for the FCAT Florida Writes assessment by developing their own video podcasts. Planning, creating, and filming a script for one requires the same skills as the kind of writing called for the test. The students I'll be working with attend a boarding school so this format seems ideal in terms of being able to more easily share students' work with their friends and family members outside of school. The idea of creating a podcast is also more motivating for students than just sitting and writing practice essays in a copy book, and given the fact that students spoken expressive language tends to be richer than their level of writing ability, it is my expectation that the resulting scripts will be of a higher quality than the work found in their old composition books.

So...I've been learning to use the tools for creating a video podcast myself and now see even wider applications for them (and some other projects I'm working on) that I might've previously doubted just from reading books and research articles. I've had my ups and downs, and the first one I created is seriously amateurish and a bit embarrassing to look at now, but I think I've got it down.

On a trip to Costa Rica, I visited the Country Day School in San Jose, an international school serving local Costa Ricans and expats from around the globe. Steve Katz, the tech teacher there, has been doing some really cool things with his students that have helped to inspire me to get with the program and open up this form of communication and expression to the teachers and students I'll be working with. The students at CDS have their own show covering school news topics and life in SJ.

That's the beautiful thing about podcasting, as Lee Lefever points out: everyone can have their own show - not as a broadcast, but as a podcast. I don't think I'm up for my own show just yet, but I do have a lot to say about things and this just might be one more way for the little font in my head to bubble forth...courtesy of RSS.