Podcasting

CONTENTS

Here are the contents of this session.  You can click to visit the different activites, or simply scroll down.

Why the 'pod' in 'podcasting?

Task 1:  What is podcasting according to GOOGLE?

You’ve heard the term, but can you actually give a defintion?  Remember the GOOGLE "define" and WORDLE combination?  Let's try it again.

1. Go to http://google.com
2. Enter this into the search box: define:podcast [NOTE:  This works for any word or concept that you need a definition for.]
3. What are the keywords that describe what a blog is?
• HINT:  Copy all the definitions from the GOOGLE search.  
• Paste them into http://www.wordle.net/create.  (Click the CREATE link, paste in your text, and then click GO.)
  
• Then set the MAXIMUM number of words to 50 (under the LAYOUT menu).

Task 2:  What is podcasting in plain English

1. Here is short video about 'Podcasting in plain English'.  How well did WORDLE pick out the key terms and concepts from GOOGLE?

Podcasting in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Task 3:  KWL

1. Take a moment to jot down some notes in your blog -- keep the post DRAFT at the moment:
• What do you already know about podcasting?
• What more do you want to know more about using podcasting to help you in teaching English?  in students learning English?
• At the end of the activity, you'll return to your blog post and add what you have learned from the activity.

Listening to a podcast

The Internet and the World Wide Web has made it possible to download, create and publish audio files. According to Wikipedia, “A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.” Podcasts are usually audio files that we download over the Internet and then play back on our computer or MP3 player. Podcasts usually include images as well as text.

Task:  How many different ways to listen

1. Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/
2. Check out their podcasts.  Can you find anything interesting to listen to?
   
3. There are five different ways are there to listen to the podcasts.  Can you match the different ways to the icons below?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
4. Jot your ideas down in TWITTER and use our class hashtag #CTE319.

Podcasting sites

Podomatic is one of the most popular sites to find, record and publish podcasts. 

• Let's take a look at one of these:  SplendidSpeaking is a good example of a high quality podcast channel for advanced English that is hosted on PODOMATIC.

Task 1:  Share a Splendid Speaking podcast

1. Visit the Splendid Speaking podcast site.
2. Find a podcast to share.
3. Click on the SHARE button - send it by email to a colleague in the class.
   
4. Open up your email and listen to the podcast your partner shared with you.

Task 2:  Create a link to the podcast in our class FACEBOOK group

1. With the same podcast as before, click on PERMALINK - this is the URL for the podcast
2. Go to our class FACEBOOK group and write a short note about the podcast, and then include a hyperlink using the PERMALINK

Task 3:  EMBED the podcast in your BLOG

1. With the same podcast as before, click on SHARE again.
2. Click on EMBED - you will be prompted to copy and paste some HTML code
3. Go to your BLOG and create a post.  Choose the HTML editing window and paste in the EMBED code.
4. Save your page.
5. When you view your page, you should see the podcasting player. 

What makes a good podcast?

Here is a simple checklist of criteria to evaluate the quality of a podcast: http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/pdf/evalpodcast.pdf

Assessing student podcasts

Task: Compare these two rubrics

1. Analyze one of the following rubrics:
   
• http://www.beaut.org.au/podcastrubric3.pdf
• http://www.uwstout.edu/static/profdev/rubrics/podcastrubric.html 
2. Make a list of the three things you like most about the rubric you chose.  Share the three aspects you like most in in TWITTER, and use our class hashtag #CTE319.
• Also pick one aspect of the rubric you think could be changed or improved. Share the aspect you think could be improved (or perhaps if something is missing) in our our TWEETCHATroom 
3. Look at the comments in the TWEETCHATroom.
• Create a rubric that you could use as part of a podcasting project with your students.
• You can work out a common framework and then amend to suit your own context according to the characteristics of your group of students that you are teaching.
4. Save your rubric for assessing student podcasts in your blog, and tag it 'assessment rubric' for future reference.

Follow up:  Over to you

Podcasts in teaching

1. Create a new blog post in your blog
• Consider some of the techniques you learned in finding, downloading and creating podcasts.
• List a few ways you could use podcasts in teaching.   Tag this with "teaching ideas"
2. Visit some of your colleagues' blogs (use the BLOGROLL in our FACEBOOK group) and find their blog post about teaching ideas for podcasts.

REFERENCES

Want to learn more about making a podcast?

• Visit this wiki http://dgrice.wikispaces.com/Podcasting with instructions about the basics of recording and publishing podcasts

This work by Kristina Smith & Steve Neufeld is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at kristinaweb20.pbworks.com.