Thing 17: Podcasts
I Listened to the podcast The Poetic Voice by Houghton Mifflin. I chose to hear about American poet Galway Kinnell (I actually recently met him at a writing conference in NYC). The ease and accessibility of listening to this podcast was pretty cool (for lack of a better word). These Podcasts definitely could be used in the classroom. Instantly, I attempted to subscribe to the podcast but could not do so through iTunes (I tried to do this for an hour but to no avail), but I did add it to my Google Reader. I have to admit, I know my students may not be as excited by these Podcasts as I am, but I have realized that when they witness my own excitement, it becomes contagious.
Some students have extreme difficulties reading texts (especially long ones) on their own and often buy recorded versions. Sometimes the recorded versions are not readily available or too expensive. It may be motivating for students to create their own podcasts of part of entire texts we are reading. Perhaps they can record their favorite passages from a specific text. Then they can really become engaged in the reading process and use their theatric abilities to create sound effects, etc.
