PODCASTS in Education

Podcasting and Secondary Science.

A podcast is a multimedia file distributed over the Internet. This can be in the format of an audio file or a video file (vodcast). Podcasting's initial appeal was to allow individuals to distribute their own "radio shows," but the system quickly became used in a wide variety of other ways, including official and unofficial audio tours of famous places, conference meeting alerts and updates, by police to distribute public safety messages and of course, distribution of school lessons. With regards to the new GLOW Initiative, podcasting will be fundemental. Being a practical subject, there are many advantages to using podcasting in Science education. One fantastic illustration of their use is by the Highland council for the Intermediate 1 Biology Course. They have the three course units now available online. There are a series of lessons for each unit. Each online lesson consists of a short podcast, a PowerPoint presentation and a downloadable work sheet. Podcasting is something that is relatively new to myself and I am eager to trial run of a pod cast. My first thoughts would be during a dissection. My department and I are planning to run another fish dissection after the October break. Following the dissection, I would hope to post a podcast on the net. In the meantime if anyone has any suggestions, ideas or experiences they would like to share, I would be really interested to hear from you!

Check out these sites for some great examples of podcast use in Science education:
Teach with Tech
Bruce's Science Page
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