Down the Rabbit Hole (Thing 21 - Podcasting)

Podcasting has great potential for many different applications. Its newness makes it vulnerable to the randomness that afflicts many of the current resources, and wide open to slick commercialism. As I've said before, more talk does not ensure better talk. The following are the results of my trip down the podcasting "rabbit holes" of a few sites as I try to plan my implementation of a podcast assignment for next quarter. My goal in structuring the assignment is to link the classroom with the Spanish-speaking community in the Twin Cities, and to link the podcasts to my webpage and the student-oriented Wiki that I am building.

But first, a review of the reference sources:

Let's start with the best: I have already been using the BBC podcasts all year for listening comprehension development. I also have them linked to my webpage so students can access them at any time. The people who produce those podcasts obviously not only speak well--they also know how to write well. That's why they don't just babble. The Educational Podcast Directory is a wonderful resource--content-rich, well-organized. The "Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication" sections are excellent for World Language teachers. I plan to spend a lot more time there. It would be exciting to be able to use Skype in MPS, as some nice models on the site illustrate.

Now, to the questionable:
Podcast.com was inaccessible; Podcast.net could not be located; Podcastalley.com featured links such as "Open Source Sex" and "Dan Carlin's Hardcore"; Yahoo Podcasts mostly highlighted popular music and did not seem particularly deep ; another was Podcast Awards, offering such winning links as "Midwest Teen Sex Show." Hmmmm...

As usual, check out all sites before recommending them to students! There are more sites "mushrooming" every day, but most look like advance "feelers" for commercial exploitation. Who knows how many of them may even be around in even six months' time.