Saturday, January 21, 2012

Is it a new resource of teaching and learning for the “Digital Generation”?


    Nowadays teaching and learning has become easier due to new technologies used in educational settings. So far in my blog I’ve discussed a notion of “Digital Generation” and the importance of some new technologies such as blogs. But now I’m trying to provide an overview about what podcasting is and what’s its impact on teaching especially teaching English. Podcasts seem to be ideal resources for language teachers, especially English language teachers, because almost all possible topics imaginable can be found in podcasts and most of podcasts are recorded in English.
     Podcasting consists of two words “iPod” and “broadcasting”. Podcasts are basically audio files available mainly for free and which can be listened to on a computer or any portable playback device that reads MP3 files. Podcasting is becoming more and more popular, mainly because of the fact that anyone who has a computer and an access to the Internet can download and also create their own podcasts very easily. In other words podcasts offer alternative way of delivering the content. The most exiting thing is that all this one can do for free which gives an opportunity for larger community to access it.  
     Podcasting is being used in a variety of ways in educational settings. Traditionally, it can be used to distribute lecture material. However, there is concern that if the material is downloadable the students will stop showing up to classes.
According to the article (Windham C, 2007) students used podcasting in their classroom setting and outside of it responded positively and identified some advantages to podcasting technology. They are as follows:


  •       The opportunity to access course materials at hand twenty four hours
  •           The chance to create the podcasts’ content in a way that the students like
  •      The mobility of using the materials wherever they want (in the bus, at the gym, etc.) 
  •        Its possibilities are infinite if one has an idea there is always, at least, one way to carry it out.

Teaching Tools - Podcasting with Michael Johnson



Recently I found an interesting article telling about the uselessness of reading books. Maybe it's time to change the way of reading the books into the listening them? Who knows :)

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-study-books-dont-take-you-anywhere,20595/








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