Podcasting as the Newest Teaching Assistant in Today’s Classroom

Walk down any street, through any mall or into many schoolyards and the picture will be primarily the same—students of all ages walking around with wires coming out of their ears. In the past, students could always be found carrying portable CD players. The ever-present toy of today is the iPod, MP3 player or cell phone equipped with an MP3 player. Children today are hooked on technology. According to Lydia Lum (2006), one of the common sights on college campuses is iPod’s characteristic white earbuds nestled in the ears of the students. Education is placed into a situation where adjustments must be made to keep up with the changing scene. In an effort to address technology in the classroom, podcasting has entered the world of education.
For years, teachers have taken advantage of audio and video streaming by using such sites as www.unitedstreaming.com which is a product of Discovery Education. Now, podcasting is rapidly increasing in popularity as a new teaching tool for the classroom. Charles Doe (2007) seems to feel that this technology is filling the educational arena nearly as fast as it entered the technology mainstream because it allows students and teachers to easily share information.What exactly is podcasting? “Podcasting is an automated technology that allows listeners to subscribe and listen to digitally recorded audio shows” (Flanagan & Calandra, 2005). The term podcasting has entered the world as a combination of the terms iPod, the music player from Apple, and broadcasting (Ralph & Olsen, 2007). Basically, since students of today are rapidly becoming more auditory learners, the easiest way to deliver information to them is to place it on an everyday tool that the students are familiar with using. This does not mean that every youth and teacher in America should run out and buy an iPod. The material can be downloaded to any MP3 player type device including phones with MP3 capabilities, or listened to on the computer (Ralph & Olsen, 2007). Many libraries have also planned for this. The only necessary expenditure at this point is your own set of ear phones.