There are many ways that podcasts could be used in a classroom, both by the teacher and for the teacher. Podcasts that have already been created can be shared to a classroom or to parents or even to fellow teachers who could in turn learn from them. Teachers could also create their own podcasts in order to inform students or parents about upcoming events or to summarize a lesson.
Three very useful podcasting tools available are iTunes, Audioboo, and Audacity. The first, iTunes, is great for searching for pre-created podcasts that can be shared among many different people: fellow teachers, parents and students. Audioboo is another great tools to do this, and it is a little easier to use, in my opinion, because all it has is podcasts whereas iTunes has many different features. Along with what we already talked about, Audioboo is also very useful for making your own podcasts and sharing those as well. This is helpful when you can't find what you're looking for, don't like the ones you find, or have something very specific you want to say. This podcast can then be embedded to another site or shared. Audacity is on the opposite side of the spectrum as iTunes. A user could not find podcasts that have already been created with this tool but they would be able to create their own. One major difference between Audacity and Audioboo is the length in which a podcast can be made. Audioboo has a limit of three minutes for each podcast, but Audacity can be much longer. Here are the links to these three tools, just click on the one you want to go to:
Audacity
iTunes
Audioboo
Here are two examples of podcasts that I have created. One is a podcast made by Audioboo explaining a podcast that I found on iTunes, and the second is a podcast I made using Audacity then uploaded to Audioboo.
This is a summary of a podcast found on iTunes called Teen-Babble, Episode 2: "Are You Independant?"
This is a podcast I created using Audacity, and then uploaded it to Audioboo
