Podcasts in the Classroom

Podcasts can be used in a variety of ways in the classroom. In my own fifth grade classroom, I think that the value in podcasting would be less in teacher-created podcasts and more in favor of student-created podcasts. I think that podcasts would be an excellent way for students to share what they have learned about a concept or to share responses to their reading in the form of a book review. I think that it would be a great way for students to share group work or create an audio play using sound effects, scripts and descriptive writing. Students could share their writing via podcast in a unique twist on an author share. The great value in this is that their writing could extend beyond the walls of the classroom and be shared with others across the nation and world. Students could create a podcast to explain the steps needed to complete any number of tasks. This would be great practice for "how to" writing prompts. Again, I think that my students would much prefer to create their own podcasts to listening to ones that I have created. The key to teacher created podcasts, I think, is to keep them entertaining, concise and under 5 minutes. They should be very specific in nature so that kids can go to the information needed rather than half-listen to a lot of blah blah blah before they get to the question/answer they are looking for.