The article in today’s Dallas Morning News, “With school podcasts, upgraded learning is ready for download,” provides an excellent overview of podcasting’s current and potential uses in K-12 education. The article’s author, Katherine Leal Unmuth, contacted me by phone for an interview about podcasting following my keynote presentation at ESC10 in Richardson several weeks ago on “The Vocabulary of 21st Century Learning.”
This quotation from the article reflects the powerful potential for podcasting to be used as a part of the writing and publishing process in schools to help motivate students to communicate in the 21st Century:
“We have kiddos that say their grandparents are listening in other countries and states,” said Sylvia Ingrim, the fourth-grade writing teacher. “My daughter is in California, and my grandson is able to listen to my students’ stories. My sister and mother in Lubbock have heard them, too.” One student reported that relatives in Argentina were tuning in. “To me, it’s another form of recognition,” said Deaisha’s mother, Lashawnda Coleman. “It gives the student the chance to get their project out there and gets them exposed to speaking out loud and reading out loud.” Ten-year-old Dustin George wrote a tribute to his friend, whose family listened to the podcast. “I just like to express the story,” Dustin said. “There’s a certain way I like to say it to put feeling in.”
I agree with Dustin, there is a special “magic” present when we listen to the human voice. Podcasting enables expression and communication at a different level than people can achieve with only text-based writing.
If you have not previously registered on the Dallas Morning News website, you can use the bugmenot.com website to circumvent registration. Many thanks to Katherine for writing this well-researched and balanced article about educational podcasting! 🙂
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