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Podcast Blog

One creator shapes the technology around us

The recent death of Apple’s creator and former CEO, Steve Jobs, brings about many blog discussions, podcast presentations and video uploads on YouTube about one of the technology world’s greatest loss. It seems rather fitting that many people found out about the death of Steve Jobs while surfing the net, working on a computer or catching up with friends on the social network site-Facebook.

The world of technology and computing has been advanced with the many products invented and influenced by him under his guidance at Apple. These innovations allowed Jobs to be one of the most respected technology creators allowing the technology to be used so that our lives would be better because of them .He had an aptitude for making technologies useful and fun while transforming commercial products that could be used in ordinary households by ordinary people.

Some of the innovations that shaped the technology industry today include:

• The first Apple Computer that revolutionized the classrooms in the early 1980’s

• Itunes and the ipod that made music and the Mp3 portable

• Iphone revolutionized the cell phone market with the first touch screen technology

• Apple TV products for home media consumption

• Apple iPad as the first tablet introducing portable computing and media needs

• Help developed the technology for the Podcast

These inventions developed by Apple and Steve Jobs have helped to pave the way for other computer, smartphones, broadcasting and wireless technology developments for future classrooms. These developments have dramatically changed how we communicate, teach, develop lesson plans, and interact socially and professionally as a culture.

One of the many inventions important to the media, broadcasting, business, teaching and learning environments has become known as the Podcast. The term,” Podcast” derives from Mr. Jobs’,” Original iPod” and the term, “Broadcast”. These words -POD and -CAST were combined together to create this useful tool for sharing information with the world around us!

What is a Podcast?

A podcast can be used in any environment but for this particular blog introduction I am describing it in terms of an educational setting. An educational Podcast is an audio and/or video (VODCAST) file that you can create or download from the Internet and listen on any media device including computers, tablets and smartphones. Again, originally it was used on the ipod device created my Steve Jobs because it was one of the first technology devices to allow portability.

What can Podcasts do in the classroom?

Since you can choose your type of podcast downloads many teachers can utilize them in the class to teach certain lessons as an additional source of classroom technology. Podcasts can also be created by your classroom to teach others what you are doing in your lessons and projects with the students (See Link on developing your own podcasts below). This is fairly easy as long as you have the proper technology to record and make an interesting conversation/broadcast about your subject choice.

There are many RSS feeds and Podcasting sites that you can use to search the latest subject and interest. The great thing about subscribing to your podcast is that it will always automatically update any new podcasts available to you. However, you can still choose to download any individual podcast that you think you may be able to use in your classroom without subscribing.

Many educational Podcasts can be found for free by doing a topic search in Google and downloading them onto a saved storage device. As podcasts can range in length and information so can the file size so make sure your have enough storage to fully download the complete file!

I have used podcasts with my theatre kids that we created and they absolutely loved the idea of writing and creating their own rather than downloading from some other source. Either way you use podcast in the classroom you are expanding new ideas and using the latest technology to create a fun classroom activity for your group.

Follow this link to learn how to create your own Podcasts that can be used in the classroom:



Classroom Podcast Sample:

[pic]Student Podcast Example



Other Podcast Resources:

Podcasting: A Definition

This Wikipedia article gives a good history of the phenomenon and provides helpful links to tools and examples.

Podcasting Today

A great tutorial on podcasting by David Penrose.

Podcasts: A New Twist on Net Radio 

Podcasting for Education 

Possible uses for podcasting in education.

Educational Podcasting Resources

This list ranges from "What is Podcasting?" to "How Do You Create Podcasts?"

Podcasting 101

Videos, links to tutorials, and suggestions on open source technology you can use.

Four Minutes on Podcasting 

An excellent movie called Four Minutes About Podcasting. It is about what a podcast is and how to get started listening to them.

How To: Podcasting 

A nice overview on podcasting by Engadget. This series of articles provides information on how to find and listen to podcasts as well as how to create them.

Podcasting Tools 

A great resource for all things related to podcasting. This site features "how to" articles, tools for creating and managing audio, and links to all the major podcast directories.

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