Monday, May 2, 2011

Podcasts for Practical Education

With today's technology, just about anyone can record and publish a podcast.  And in today's society, just about everyone does.  This can make those of us that are more cynical about publicity and the tendency of today's public to broadcast everything about their lives not engage with podcasts in general.  However, recent course requirements have made me take another look at most technologies, including podcasts.

Having explored a number of educationally-geared podcasts, I now can see how many of them would be useful in the classroom.  For example, I found a podcast detailing how to say goodbye in English.  This would be very useful for a class of low level ELLs.  It would help with vocabulary and pronunciation, as well as with pragmatics.  I especially like the pragmatics possibilities associated with this type of podcast, because pragmatics are often neglected by teachers, and are more difficult to teach than straightforward vocabulary and grammar.

A podcast of this type can be used for listening skills, such as with a cloze activity.  It can also be used as an example before setting up similar situations for students to orally practice as well.  It can be used to reinforce reading by giving the students the the text to follow along, as well.  And these are only options to follow with this specific podcast.  Other options abound depending the podcast chosen.

The bottom line is, all of us cynical people who assume we know what technology is used for, and that it has no place in our classrooms, need to reevaluate.  If we fail to do so, we are missing opportunities to engage our students in new and exciting ways.