Preparing for Podcasting

In preparation for my own podcasting, I've been listening to a couple podcasts that deal with education and technology.  I subscribed to the NPR education podcast (usually between fifteen and thirty minutes), because it provides a general overview of major issues dealing with education around the country.  Plus, I trust NPR's journalistic integrity, and feel comfortable with the information that is being made available.  One of the episodes dealt with budget shortfalls around the country and how it's affecting districts.  For example, the city of Philadelphia has to cut millions of dollars from its budget.  One has to wonder how technology is supposed to be incorporated into schools when districts have difficulty obtaining funding to maintain their schools

The second podcast I subscribed to is called Teach with Tech (usually a little over thirty minutes).  This podcast deals specifically with using technology in the classroom.  The most interesting part of one of the episodes I listened to was how teachers are incorporating video games into the classroom.  They had a guest who had used Second Life, a web-based virtual world, within the classroom.  I teach civics, geography, and world history so I immediately began to think about how one could use this in the classroom.  I think that there is potential using Second Life, but one also needs to think about the risks of allowing students to explore an online environment that may expose them to content that would be inappropriate.  I teach middle school, so this is something that would have to be very controlled and monitored if it was ever used in the classroom.

I found both podcasts to be interesting.  One was more a general education podcast, and the other was focused on instructional technology.  Both provided insights into educational issues that were relevant to teachers.  The NPR podcast provided information about how politics and economics are affecting education in society.  Teach with Tech provided some interesting ways to incorporate technology and definitely focused on some interesting issues like using web-based virtual worlds to facilitate learning.  This would be particularly useful for distributed learning communities since people are often separated by distance.  Second Life could provide an environment to meet and interact in a virtual world.  I really didn't find any substantial drawbacks to either of these podcasts.  I would suggest both podcasts to anyone who is interested in learning more about education and technology in society.