You Are Never Alone

I doubt that you need much description about what podcasting is, but just in case you do, here is a quick video from those clever people at Common Craft.

Here are some snippets from Australian educators about how they manage podcasting.

I have bought all members of the History Department an Easy Speak microphone, and I have one available for loan to staff or students through the Library. The microphone costs about $80.00. It connects to the computer through a usb cable, which also charges it. You can hang it around your neck and record what you say as you say it. The quality is remarkably good. I have uploaded the files I have made in my Year 12 class to our Intranet and onto my ning (both locations are only available to my students).

Here's a performance that Adrian Bruce created with his son of a poem called The Haunted House.  If you follow the links in that post, you will pick up some ideas from Adrian about integrating audio production into the classroom. Be sure to check out the Ace Podcasts created by his students.

Alastair Gumley sent me the following examples of podcasts and vodcasts being produced by teachers and students in an ongoing project..

For General Podcast and Vodcast (was work-in-action) for students and staff - some YouTube items are "secure" and not accessible by general public for AUP reasons: https://sites.google.com/site/pod2009site/ 
For LOTE Teachers: https://sites.google.com/site/lotepod09/ 
For Science Teachers: https://sites.google.com/site/learninkscipod/ and http://www.pageflakes.com/learninK/30117866

From another teacher:

I have been using podcasts in one of my classes for several years now, some are just free ones I have found online and others I made myself using "audacity'.

Making the podcast is quite easy but time-consuming as you need to organise your 'speech' , edit out mistakes etc. The biggest mistake I made early on was to make them tooooo long, anything over about 10mins. and the attention span of the students begins to wander!! Short, sharp and clearly spoken and if you can add in other voices even better.

Some of mine are combination of my voice and extracts from radio podcasts etc.

I initially did them to help one dyslexic student but found they were useful for all the class in catering for different learning styles and toprovide variety in the content input. Some students really liked them as used them for revision etc. Other really didn't make that much use of them. Have used them in class to help student practice notetaking, for revision before some  assessment and to provide extended content that I didn't have time to do in class time.

If you need to check out what you are allowed and not allowed to do, in terms of copyright, then check the Smart Copy website.