Podcast?

Have you ever done a podcast before?  I had heard the term and knew some of my family members have listened to international news via podcasts, but had never really explored the tool myself.  Basically a podcast is just a digital recording that is accessed on-line.  They are done in episodes about any number of topics and usually have a musical intro and outro.  They can take the form of an interview, a narrative, a radio show, jokes...the opportunities are endless.  Two freqently used venues to create podcast include Garage Band and Audacity.  Garage Band is for apple products (you can buy the app for $4.99) and Audacity is free open source software that can be downloaded on a pc.  Once you have the software all you need is a microphone for recording, you save the file as an mp3 (you will need to download a file converter), and then you are ready to upload your podcast to a website or blogsite. (archive.org)

So how is a podcast relevant to education?  Well before thinking up an assignment for using podcasts I would suggest getting familiar with the tool yourself.  Subscribe to some teacher podcasts (Check some out at the 10 best podcasts for teachers ) , listen to some student podcast(Do a Google search for a subject area you may be interested in)s, and try doing a few podcasts of your own (just for fun, you don't have to publish them). 

Students could do social studies reenactments via a podcast, story telling, interviews with famous people (past or present), interviews via Skype, travel stories for georgraphy, record lessons for absent students, music teachers can record recitals, narrate directions to students for projects or labs, have students practice foreign languages...

Have you ever listened to a podcast?  Done a podcast with students?