Podcasts

The first podcast I listened to was the SMARTBoard Lessons podcast, episode number 142. The subject of this particular podcast is teachers connecting in cross-country collaborations, a.k.a teachers getting together and sharing ideas. Host Ben Hazzard and co-host Joan Badger discuss Hazzard's website teachersconnecting.com and pdtogo.com/smart. At the beginning of the podcast, the 'session' was light as Badger and Hazzard discuss their hectic summers. As the podcast progresses, Ben and Joan discuss many great and useful websites for teachers, such as bighugelabs.com/flickr, that has many great tools and ideas to make lecturing and information interesting and easy to learn for the students. Joan and Ben expand on how they, and others, used bighugelabs.com for their own individual teaching needs.

Kidcast.tv is a podcast, hosted by Dan, was put together in a very similar manner as SMARTBoard. A little music was played at the beginning, the host comes in and introduces him/herself, and then they share their experiences relating to their subject. A little conversation may be held at first, such as their day or their exciting weekend, but for the most part the conversation is limited to the subject of the podcast at hand.

One thing that I noticed a lot while listening to the various podcasts is how conversational the tone of the podcasts are. It not so much as a stern, "Hey you! Listen to me teach or lecture!" It was a very calm and normal tone as they gave their insights and useful information. There were funny points that made you laugh in the podcasts as well as points when you pull your paper and pen out and write down the information being dished out.

Listening to these podcasts really, really helped me a lot as I'm thinking of how to piece together my future podcast. The host(s) spoke clearly and intelligently and the information was ready and accurate. But most of all, I learned that I don't have to be so nervous because the tone of the podcasts were more conversational than anything.