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April 30, 2006

ipod

iPods as teaching tool: making podcasts

Posted Apr. 30, ’06, 2:28 PM PT by Scott Silverman
Category | iPod

ipodinschoolSchool districts and teachers everywhere are finding ways to incorporate iPods into the classroom as teaching tools. They can be great mediums to carry foreign language audio files on, or just a device to carry class lectures on. But the most recent round of iPods-in-schools is discovering another potential use for iPods: podcasting.

At a middle school in Arlington, VA, students stay after school to create their very own podcasts, containing original poetry, essays, and stories, all mixed to music and other sounds. Another school in Arlington, this time an elementary school, uses podcasts to broadcast student reports about the monuments in Washington. One student controls the computer, while another served as the director, and a third recited her report into a microphone. This podcast was discovered by a elementary school in Scotland, and now the two schools “podcast each other.”

Yet another teacher uses podcasts to make recordings of vocabulary words, where they listen to the words over and over. They then create their own podcasts of the words, comparing their pronunciation to the teacher’s.

Podcasting in schools is becoming more and more popular, but still only a small percentage of teachers actually utilize iPods and podcasting in class. However, the potential which iPods possess for assisting learning is undeniable, and will find its way into more and more classrooms in the coming years.


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