Podcasting with my students

This week, I used podcasting with my kids through the Gabcast program. It was awesome. My students shared the poetry that they had written during our poetry unit in their podcasts.
The kids loved it--the recording,listening, and sharing with others. I was so excited I showed everyone--the librarian, the computer lab assistant, other teachers on my floor, etc. Everyone was so impressed and they asked me to show them how to do it as well--which is great! I ran down to the office to show my principal and assistant principal--they were impressed too, but the first thing that they said was " you said the kids' last names--do they all have Internet permission for last names---I guess I was just caught up in the moment that I didn't even think about it---what a downer--they're just so "administrative"---why couldn't they say "wow these are great poems--your kids did so well--how innovative to use podcasting--anything!"

I'm not going to let that discourage me though. My kids loved it and that's what counts so I will definitely use it again. Some of the kids were so funny recording. When I asked Phillip in the classroom if he would record one of his poems in the library on the phone, his whole face turned red! Ty (the cool kid in my class) froze on the phone and just handed it back to me! I was most proud of Keynari. Keynari has a major stuttering problem. He knows he has to use "his controls" that the speech therapist has shown him, but most of the time he does not. He wanted to do such a good job on this that he practiced and really used his controls well and did a great job!

I see so many other uses for podcasts in the classroom--books on MP3, summaries of content units, interviews, book reports, etc. I even taught our grade level's part-time Title I assistant how to record and she helped some of my kids to record. I think this would be a great tool to use in the classroom and easy to implement.