Teaching with Podcasts

Podcasting is a great tool for teachers and students. Students can identify with the information that they are being taught by seeing it in real world situations. The Discovery Channel offers a great opportunity to test this theory. Pose the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Introduce the video by pointing out how we are all dependent on other people and professions to make us successful. Teachers need book manufacturers, authors, printers, paper makers, pencil makers, crayon makers, computer technicians and programmers, etc in order to have materials to teach with. Grocery stores need farmers and factories to grow, harvest and make the food they sell. Take for example Cranberry Juice. Did you ever think about how we get it? Watch the Discovery Channel's QuickTime or iPod Podcast of Dirty Jobs: Cranberry Bogger to learn more.

Get your students interested in reading a particular genre or author's works by helping them get to know the person behind the books. PBS offers Meet the Authors

As a teacher, help yourself to understand the fundamentals of learning to read by checking out Public Broadcasting Systems podcasts on Reading Rockets

Exploration of the Web 2.0 Application

What role should distance based learning play in the education of students at the elementary through high school levels? There are many articles out there that explore this integration of the new Web into curriculum and learning. Research has been conducted on cyber learning. The article A Comprehensive Look at Distance Education in the K-12 Context explores the 5W’s (who, what, when, where, why/how) of distance education with primary and secondary level students. Kerry Lynn Rice from Boise State University summarized 85 articles and research studies that define distance education and break it down into five types of programs. Here, Rice explains the differences between statewide supplemental programs, district level supplemental programs, single district cyber schools and cyber charters. She offers clarification of the changes that are happening in the views of education and connects the seven main objectives of implementing that change through technology (Rice, 428) Rice explores the reasons educators are offering a distance education format and how these programs are utilized for remediation, supplemental education or to educate student who are unable to participate in a “brick and mortar” education setting such as students in juvenile detention centers or students who have been expelled from public schools. According to the research that Rice used to support her article, there is little difference between in-person education and distance education, at least as far as the success rates. The studies show that students are equally as likely to succeed in online courses as they are in live course; the students are also equally as likely to fail in either setting (Rice, 434). This is a very long article that quotes many sources of data and statistics but it is a great read if you want to get an unbiased look at the effectiveness of online education at a pre-college level. The article points out the similarities between adult distance education and like programs for the K-12 setting and gives great insight into what we can expect from Web 2.0 and its integration into education. As teacher who is integrating technology into the education of my students, I can recommend this article and encourage readers to follow up with some of the articles that Rice used to research what she wrote in this article.


Rice, KL (2006).A Comprehensive Look at Distance Education in the K-12 Context. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. 38:4, 425-448.