Podcasts

Wikipedia defines a Podcast as "an episode series of digital audio or video files which a user can download and listen to.  It is often available for subscription, so that new episodes are automatically downloaded via web syndication to the user's own local computer, mobile application, or  portable media player." Podcasts have become very popular with librarians, teachers, administrators, and parents. It is a great tool to use at school which will allow administrators, teachers and librarians to promote their school, classroom or library.  Parents and students can tune in at their convenience to listen to what is happening in the classroom, in the library, or at school in general.
 I found a great article that talks about the best education podcasts of 2017,
https://www.edutopia.org/article/best-education-podcasts-2017  it contains great podcasts that we can listen to as educators.
 Since I needed to create a podcast I explored several different options available to create my own podcast.  The three podcast that I explored were Podbean, SoundCloud, and Pod-O-matic.

I found PodBean the easiest to use, I have used it before and just logged in to my account and created my podcast.  First time users will find it very user-friendly, they can sign up easily with Facebook, Twitter, and a Google account.  Once they create their account and sign in it is very easy to create a podcast.  I created my podcast from my iPhone and was able to publish it from my phone as well.  I created an example of how teachers can use Podcasts to communicate with parents.   Teachers can have students talk about what they are learning in the classroom, students can explain themselves to their parents what they will be learning each week.  In the podcast I created my son is speaking about what he was actually learning in his classroom last week and he also spoke about special events  that were happening at school. Parents can log in at their convenience to listen to the podcast and be informed about what is happening in their child's classroom.

 This is a picture of my 5 year old son who spoke in the podcast. He absolutely loved helping me, he enjoyed speaking about what he was learning in class.
The following is my podcast:
https://mariagedinburg71.podbean.com/e/podcast-5391/

SoundCloud allows users to create a free account, it is very easy to create an account using an email.  It allows users to 180 minutes for free and if more time is needed the user can upgrade their account for a small fee.   When I logged in I found it pleasing to look, easy to navigate, and easy to create a podcast. I did create a podcast on SoundCloud, but definitely prefer Podbean.  I think I prefer Podbean because I was able to create and publish the podcast a lot faster.

Pod-O-Matic allows users to sign up using their email or Facebook account.  Once there account is created it offers users the option of using the free account or upgrading to the Pro account for a monthly fee of $8.32.  This monthly fee will allow users to use 2GB of storage which I feel this is more for serious podcast users.  Pod-O-Matic was easy to navigate, but in my opinion it was not as easy as Soundcloud and Podbean.  One feature that I did find great was when students create their own podcast it shows the five steps the user will take to get the podcast published




Overall all three of these podcast websites are great, but my absolute favorite was Podbean.  It was so easy to create my podcast with my son and publish it quickly.  Even though Podbean was my favorite any of these websites will allow teachers and librarians to create a podcast with students and use them in different ways.