Mark Pentleton, an veteran podcaster from the Radio Lingua Network, spoke about his experiences in podcasting at the recent Isle of Wight Conference, a superb and thoroughly enjoyable CPD event organised by Joe Dale.
Mark spoke about about his early podcasting with the Partners in Excellence podcast – the PiEcast, the wonderfully soothing Verbcasts, and his most recent podcasting adventures with the fantastic Coffee Break series of language podcasts, the very popular One Minute Languages and the brand new Show Time Spanish.
Listen to Mark, below, talk about how to ensure you make a good podcast as he reflects on his experience. These are the main points raised by Mark:
- Learning in context – a podcast appeals to young audiences because it can be accessed using the technology they are used to.
- Secret learning – students can listen to podcasts anywhere. Nobody needs to know what they are really doing.
- Storage – the average mp3 players stores hundreds of hours worth of listening material, offering fantastic learning opportunities.
- Access – providing anytime access promotes learning. If it’s on their iPod, they might just listen to it!
- Just in time delivery – RSS (Really Simple Syndication) ensures new podcasts are delivered without any further intervention from podcaster or student.
- Learning by podcasting – Students learn most by making their own podcasts.
- CPD – Podcasting provides fantastic opportunities, not just for students, but also for professional development.
Listen to Mark as he discusses the topics raised above and some more.
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Don’t forget you can subscribe to these podcasts in iTunes. The podcasts are also available from PodOmatic.
Many thanks to Joe Dale for recording the session and to Mark for delivering it. If you want to listen to the whole of Mark Pentleton’s session on Podcasting at the Isle of Wight Conference, then go to Joe Dale’s blog Integrating ICT into the MFL Classroom.
What do you think? Are you already using podcasts? Would you consider starting?
Photo from Flickr
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This post is tagged Podcasting, Spanish
Hi Jose
Thank you very much for this post. I could not attend Mark’s session and I now know what I have missed…
Isabelle
http://isabellejones.blogspot.com
Mark is my hero. I want to be Mark when I grow up.
Hi José!
I enjoyed the summary you made in your post about the main points raised by Mark, especially the points “Secret learning”
, and “Learning by podcasting”.
I’m really thrilled about podcasting, I think it’s a revolution. We can produce audio or video contents and create our own audience. Now we have the chance to do it but we must do it properly. That means:
- Having a clear subject to speak of.
- Prepare and write some kind of script that guide us.
- Search for information that we’ll need.
- Rehearse a bit.
- Press the record button
- Edit and produce the audio or video.
I mean, I think it’s not just doing the last two points. And I think that I have not created any podcast yet because I don’t know what could I speak of (well, I should choose one of the many things that come to my mind). Another reason would be that podcasting implies certain frecuency creating new episodes, that means regularity. I wouldn’t like to create a single podcast or two and then, that’s it!
As a Computer Science Teacher, I have two options regarding podcasts:
1. Create my own podcasts about subjects I’m currently teaching so that my students can subscribe to them and learn in a different way.
2. Students create their own podcasts as part of the work of the subject they are doing.
I think that I could do both options but maybe it’s better to start just with option 1 and get enough experience to guide the students when they create their own ones.
Thank you Isabelle, Eleena and Carles for your comments.
@Carles I absolutely agree with you when you say that it’s better to gain experience podcasting before you expect your students to record their own.
In fact, some of the very valid points you have raised in your comment I covered in this earlier post. It seems we are in agreement