Podcasts

I subscribe to a number of Podcasts for fun, like "This American Life" with Ira Glass on NPR. I download them to my iPod and listen to them in the car on the way to work in the morning. This is the best way for me to hear the show - I am usually at work when it comes out on the radio. I also subscribe to a couple of children's books related Podcasts including the fabulous Just One More Book. Not only is the Podcast great, but they have this amazing website where you can listen to the Podcasts. It has been around for a while so there is quite an organized collection on the site. You can search for Podcasts by category, by title or by author. Pretty amazing!

I had not thought about using Podcasts with students until this class. I had only thought of it in terms of learning more professionally or for entertainment. I think I would use Nancy Keane's Booktalk podcast with students. I like that they are short and to the point. I like that they are listed by title. I also like that all the podcasts are listed on the site and the kids can go and click on titles that interest them. I think if I was going to use it with students to sell them on books that I would have to create a list of links to titles we actually have in our collection. Otherwise they are going to listen to books, find something they want to read and then be disappointed if we don't have it in the library.