Creating Podcasts

Teachers, you now feel comfortable with podcasting enough to say what it is, where you can find them, and how you can listen to them. But, you are still unsure of how they can be helpful to you and your students in the classroom. Depending on the grade level that you teach, you may find that a podcast is more helpful when you or your students are the creators. This can be done in a few different ways. The program Garageband, available for Macs, can be used to import recorded audio files to be saved as an mp3 file and uploaded to the Internet for sharing. Or, websites like podOmatic allow its users to record through their site. The completed recording would then be shared through the personal page the user has created.

But what do I say?? Here are some ideas:

• Elementary Teachers
• Create your own listening center for any book in your room! Whether students have excelled at reading or still need assistance, they all like to be read to. Now, you can personally read and record any book in your classroom library then share with your students while you are busy giving individual attention to one of their peers.
• Tell about your day! Take a few minutes at the end of each school day to remember the day's events and lessons. Upload the podcast to the class website so parents at home can become a part of the classroom.
• Mini-lessons! Record mini-lessons for a variety of topics that the students can use to review both at school and at home.
  

• Students
• Review! Students can create their own study guides for a topic that they have just learned. For example, in math the students are learning their multiplication facts. In pairs, students create a podcast reviewing their assigned fact. Gather the class together to listen to all of the podcasts and review all of their multiplication facts.
• Guided Tour! Take a tour of the classroom, school building or school grounds and record what you see. This could be an assignment where students imagine what the school building looked like in the 1800s as a social students activity or an assignment when the students actually look at the classroom to learn about their surroundings on the first day.
• Practice Fluency! Students can read and record the book they are currently reading in reading group to work on fluency. After the student is finished, and they playback the recording they can hear for themselves the speed in which they read.
• Book Review! Read a good book lately? Share a short synopsis and reasons why kids like you might want to read this book.
  

Teachers, before you begin podcasting check out this short video with more ideas on integrating podcasts in your classroom.