Week 9 - Thing 21

Heading into the final things for this journey by exploring podcasts. Some of the links I couldn't access, were no longer working, and Yahoo discontinued their podcast services last October, so I set off on my own. I found a very good website "Podcasting 101 for Librarians" that had some interesting podcasts for sign up - Podcast Pickle, for one. Topics about any and everything you can think of to listen to when and where ever you are. Very cool. But...

Honestly, I ponder the limits of exactly how much and how many and how often any of these things are really useful/necessary/valid/or just plain fun. Many of the pages I visited with podcasts had a message like "I hope to keep this updated" with an update of 2006. Enthusiastic when started; interest wanes after a bit. Real life gets in the way.

The podcast I linked to was Nancy Keane's book talks, a whole page of book talks for kids, great stuff from a pro at it. I don't want podcasts sent to me; I don't want them piling up reminding me there is that much more to do. Sometimes, I just like to do things the old fashioned way. If I want it, I'll look for it when I need it. I guess it is rather a bit like downsizing all of your possessions when you get older.

However, uses for school are numerous for both students and teachers - orientation, book talks, tutorials, oral histories, gallery walks, to name a few applications. We have Audacity on our laptops; I've only played with it, but I can see this being a very useful tool in many, many ways.