This article is a response to Don Wettrick’s article on Medium, Can Podcasts Change Education?
Podcasts can take you and your students anywhere.
As a podcaster, I believe everyone has something to say and should experience the joy of creating a podcast and sharing it with the world. I do this twice-monthly as the host of the House of #EdTech Podcast and co-host PodcastPD, once per month co-hosting the shiftED Podcast, and behind the scenes producing the Google Teacher Tribe Podcast.
Funny, I could have just as easily written, “As a teacher, I believe every student has something to say should experience sharing with the world.”
Podcasting is THAT powerful. Even if someone hates the sound of their own voice they should experience the creative process that goes into creating digital audio (or video) content.
In 2015, I realized there were a lot of great education podcasts being created so being a new podcast junkie I started the Education Podcast Network to bring together the best in education podcasts. With over 15 podcasts on the network, there is a podcast for your educational interests and areas of desired growth.
The popularity of podcasts is not just making a difference for teachers. Teachers who are podcast consumers are finding ways to bring podcasts into their classrooms as well. Since the great majority of podcasts are free to consume podcasts are a natural fit for teacher’s lessons (and budgets).
With as little as your mobile device or your student's devices you can begin to create a podcast. Tools like Spreaker and Mixlr make it easy to open an app and begin recording or even broadcasting live and then making the content available via a podcast.
If you or your students wrote a book it would prove quite difficult to get your book available alongside New York Times Best Sellers. With a podcast, your content can be listed on iTunes and appear right alongside some of the best.
In addition to being more easily discoverable than other forms of digital content, podcasts offer such a variety. No two podcasts are the same. For example, I listen to FIVE podcasts about podcasting, and the hosts, while they agree on certain aspects of ‘how-to’ they have differing opinions on other aspects of this medium. That variety makes me well-rounded with regard to my knowledge of podcasting.
Variety is a critical component of education as well. There is a push to create more opportunities for student voice and choice.
Give students podcasting as a choice and you’ll also give them the platform to demonstrate not only their learning but their passions as well. The same goes for you too should you decide to create a podcast too.
