MP3 players are ubiquitous in the high school environment, but believe me, the kids in my school are not tuning in to podcasts. Are they anywhere? I’d love to hear some stories. Anyway, even though the NYCDOE forbids students to carry cellphones and music players, at class change kids are quick on the draw to pop their tell-tale white ear buds in at the drop of a hat to catch a tune while passing classes. There has been press about the educational uses of iPods.  Librarians throughout the NYC school system discuss on their listserv the uses of iPods in their school libraries.  But what does it take to get students to actually listen to podcasts?

I have a 30G video iPod with absolutely no music on it. Not sure what that says about me, but I am fond of listening to  select podcasts when I’m on the go.  I regularly listen to a number of IT podcasts. Cranky Geeks and Security Now are two of them that come to mind that I would like to share with my ITGS students. I hesitate because as listen to Security Now this morning I find myself pausing the podcast to Google the key terms discussed. It occurs to me, that’s what I want my students to do. I want them to be active participants in their own education. Oh how they love to ask questions during a mini-lesson. While listening to a podcast they can multi-task as they ask and answer their own questions while listening.

I can tell by classroom demeanor that my ITGS students are keenly interested in IT security. I think they would love the episode of Security Now that I listened to this morning. But would they? How long can someone sustain a interest in listening when there is so much that is new and unfamiliar? Each time Steve Gibson and Leo Leporte introduced a new product or concept in the show I was too often asking myself, “What’s that?”  What keeps me listening is that I Google the terms as I listen, and pause the pundits while I catch up enough to follow the thread of their conversations. Would my students take the time to do that? Would they enjoy it? I’m not sure. So today I made a Trailfire of my searching to be a companion to the podcast. (Trailfire is a mashup tool that allows the web surfer to leave virtual notes in the margins of the webpages she visits and store the trail of notes for later access or to share with others. It even allows a wiki feature to invite others to interject their notes into the “mother” trail.) I will ask my students to listen to the podcast  and follow along with Trailfire. Maybe then they will get hooked on this mode of learning.

Please share your experiences of using podcasts in the classroom.

Image Credits: “RSS + MP3 V.2″ by Alan Joyce
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/everythingdigital/8453832/)
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

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Tags: trailfire, security, podcast, Security Now, Leo Leporte, Steve Gibson, education, high school, ITGS,