In response to questioning the use of Podcasting in education, I was forced to look into the many different ways that Podcasting could be used. One article I came across talked about the many ways that they could be used in the classroom and outside for student learning, public relations, and just basic parent communication. When thinking about Podcasting, I first thought about how students could benefit from Podcasting in the classroom themselves.
One idea mentioned was recording general classroom activities and making them available for view and listening to all. Students could review a song or an activity you did because they can hear their class actually doing it. The other way students themselves could record is creating assignments for a podcast such as creating a radio show for a subject you are talking about or having students publish a song that they created in a group. In the music classroom this is very valuable because, as mentioned in the article, music is a class that students can not hang on the refridgerator. Aside from productions put on, many don't understand what goes on in the classroom, and this is a way to do that. This goes along with the idea of using Podcasting for public relations. I often have students record songs they created but this idea of podcasting can allow the students to then show their parents what they created as well. Assessing an assignment like this would have to be done using a rubric that talked about different parts that I required, but for elementary students, I would be focusing on content of the podcast and not of recording quality or professionalism. This is a new medium for these younger students, and I view podcasting at this age to be more of an introductory stage. At the older levels, the rubric would include professionalism, quality of recording, and ability to publish where needed (i.e. Dropbox or Google Drive).
The other way that was mentioned was for teachers to create the podcasts for students. In this way, information can be disseminated from the actual class in forms of reviewing for students or supplying a class for students who are absent. One idea mentioned that would fit into my district's curriculum is creating videos for the recorder. Showing your fingers as you play a song that the students are working on. Being able to see this is very valuable for students to work from. Along these lines of the teacher creating podcasts, the article mentioned it as a parent and administration communication tool. Having a podcast that talks about what is happening monthly in the music room, talks about the expectations of the year, or provides dates for parents is a great way for communicating to them.
Aside from creating your own podcasts, the article lastly mentions the availability of many educational podcasts already published. Looking through different podcasts and picking out ones that will fit into your school's curriculum can serve some of these purposes as well. If you were going to create a podcast about how to read the notes on the staff, but there is already one created for that, then you save the time by finding it and sharing the link with your students.
After reading the article and thinking about what I would want to do with Podcasting in my room, I have many different ideas that I feel could work for me. I think that the idea of sharing student work is something that I am very excited about. Students in all grade levels create work that I record rather than have them perform live. By creating a podcast to display this work, students can go home and share with their parents what they created in music that day. This also lets the students get even more engaged because of the idea that they will hear themselves and their classmates in the final product. I am excited to get started.
Kerstetter, K. (2009). Educational applications of podcasting in the music classroom. Music Educators Journal, 95(4), 23-26.
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