Podcasts

I'm going to make a prediction on the next best and most exciting technology to enhance teaching--podcasts. For years I've been listening to npr news and taking the latest news item into the classroom to make relevant the day's topic. The problem is that most of the students weren't listening to the same news. Occasionally I'd buy a tape of the day's news and weeks later use the story in class. With the advent of audio streaming I started trying to feed the stories via the classroom computer, but 90% of the time the link would break or the college pipe would be too small to accommodate the audio feed. Frustration all around.

Well, thanks to Apple with their iPods and iTunes (and other innovators I'm sure) all this frustration will be a distant memory. Now I can "subscribe" to various news programs, download episodes on my computer and either play them directly from my computer or via my iPod. These "podcasts" are becoming available for many programs - my favorite so far is Science Friday on NPR's Talk of the Nation. I subscribe to the show, which means that my iTunes automatically grabs each week's show and then I selective download the stories I want. I update my iPod, listen to the shows on my commute home, and then, bring them into the appropriate class. Instant relevancy.

Cool.