Podcasts

Zooee Mama, I feel spectacular.  I've been thinking so much this week about how much I love listening to Podcasts on NPR.org and other news stations.  Even tonight I was listening to several podcasts as I followed the election business around the country.  I have never understood how to create a podcast, but now I'm feeling a lot more excited about trying that.  I loved the ideas we were given on our class voicethread; Brother West talked about using podcasts to enhance book clubs and dramatic elements of Language Arts.  I am SO excited to use this idea as I meet next month with my book club students.  We are all reading Dystopian novels, and I am really pushing toward individual understanding of the qualities that, together, create a perfect society.  If I were to have the students create podcasts FROM that perfect society, as though they were news reporters, I think it would just add so much to the project and so much more depth to their reading and understanding of their novels.  I'm already very impressed with the computer know-how my students have, and I think this assignment would be one they would go crazy over!  In terms of using podcasts for reader's theatres, I think this would help to make some of our novels much more interactive.  I'm so excited to try all of this out.