Introducing Podcasts to the Classroom!

Using Podcasts in the classroom, has come into my life recently. I mean, really come into my life. Like, I cannot stop listening to them, an other digital stories. So, podcasts are these stories that might be fiction, nonfiction and many of them are biography’s. They are radio “listening” stories, that student’s tune into them.

Digital Stories. 

I have found them to be completely addicting and so have many students all around U.S. The fact that people are becoming so absorbed with them, opens a window of opportunity for teachers. We can use them to gain our students interests, and keep their interest might I add, and relate the stories to educational curricular content. Some teachers feel that students are learning, and what makes this so great, is that they don’t even know they are learning.

I think that one of the best factors relating to having podcasts in the classroom, is that the stories are so raw, and they relate to life as we know it now. I think that learning the classical stories are great, and all students should read those because they are full of history, opinions and they still bring about great discussion and facts. However, they do not relate to some of the real world problems that our youth are facing right now, and what they will have to deal with in the future.

I, like many other educators are sometimes skeptical about sharing all of this raw material in the classroom. However, we can still introduce the idea of podcasts and digital storytelling with more appropriate content in the classroom, but give students the resources to also view the stories that fit each students specific needs, on their own time. I think that they will view them on their own time, not just because they are interesting and relate to their lives, but because they want to know more, and they have questions. We know that having questions is the key to critical thinking and critical thinking is where real learning and memorization takes place!

I already have many great ideas of lessons that I could use podcasts and digital stories for. I feel like having students write their own ideas down and their own stories, and then make their own digital-story based on that, not only would express themselves and teach others about differences of other people, but also accepting those differences. As a future special education teacher, I feel this is really important for many of my students, and they feel the need to share, so what better way!

I found some great resources for digital storytelling. On that I use myself is “Storybird” and “Pow-toons” I literally digital story-tell for all of my college classes. So, this goes to show that you can make a story out of any learning material.

Here is an excellent example of digital storytelling, I would love for my students to see! (And a little comic relief!)