Due to advances in media technology, elementary students are now able to engage in artistic mediums such as film and radio production. As these forms of media are highly produced and consumed within much of north American culture, they have arguably become more culturally relevant than traditional means of artistic and communicative self expression such as writing and drawing. Amidst such artistic genres and means of communicating is the podcast: a series of audio or video files which are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast). Although webcasting is often differentiated from podcasting by its use of streaming as opposed to downloaded content, for the ease of our discussion here both forms of content acquisition will be considered under the umbrella of podcasting. For the elementary school classroom podcasting provides students with an extremely diverse means of creative expression through genres like news reports, sitcoms, radio dramas, documentary productions, music shows and more. To view some interesting ways that both children and adults are using this medium check out the links below.
Kids:
this link comes from KCR, a community owned radio station in Nelson B.C
this is a site designed to make it easier for children to create and publish their own podcasts
Grown Ups:
this is an extremely interesting series on the history and philosophy of science
To really get down with podcasting, join host Cass Tutsch for a weekly installment of funk, soul and rare grooves!
Great sites Dawson! The first one made me wonder if it would be difficult to take a class to the local radio station for a field trip...then have a radio personality give students tips on engaging listeners, script vs off the cuff, etc.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the inspiration!