I can tell you how you can use podcast technology in teaching because a couple of years ago a setup podcast and vodcast technology for the College of Health Science and School of nursing. For the podcast there are several ways to do it. One way is with a USB voice recorder, there are several brands and with different functionalities, but there are some key features that you might want to consider.
I recommend that your voice recorder have the following features.
· USB connectivity. This is very important as would make easier to transfer the audio files to your computer. If the voice recorder is USB 3.0 even better, because it will transfer the files faster.
· MP3 format. Make sure the voice recorder saves the audio files in MP3 format. MP3 is an audio compress format that will not take too much space in your computer, especially if your class last more than 50 mins.
After class you can easily upload your class podcast to your website, or to your blob using podomatic or archive.org.
For the vodcast I used an application called echo360, is not free but it offers a wide variety of features. Echo360 is a web based application that helps your organize your podcasts. It records your voice and what ever is in your screen. For instance, if you were doing a presentation in MS Power Point, it would save whatever is shown in the screen, plus your voice. I would recommend buying a wireless microphone, that way you can walk across the classroom and it would still record your voice. One of the great features that echo360 offers is that you can just schedule your class online. Let say that you teach MWF from 1:00pm to 2:00 pm. You can program to automatically create the podcast on a semester basis based on those parameters. For instance, you would tell it, save from 1:00 – 2:00 pm MWF from January 8, 2011 to May 10, 2011. It will automatically start recording during that time frame and it will post it for you into a website for your students, it also has the feature that at the end of the class to send an email to all of your students a link to the podcast, and they will be able to listen or download the podcast.
I could tell you so many stories about how podcast technology helps students. For instance, if one of your students missed a class, he or she can always get the podcast from the day missed, he or she will be able to listen to it and catch up with the class. Podcast technology also plays a huge important role on online courses. No matter what grade level, topic you teach podcast is great resource for your students.
Check out their website and watch the video on the home page, so you can get an idea how this works.
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