Week 9 - Thing #21 Podcasting

I have used iTunes to locate podcasts before, but I was unaware that there were other podcasting search tools. The best of the ones we looked at, in my opinion, were Yahoo Podcasts
and the Educational Podcast Network (EPN). Podcast.net seemed slow and I had trouble loading several of the titles that I clicked on. I'm not very patient during the discovery process, so if I didn't hear something pretty quickly I was on to another link. I didn't like Podcastalley.com for educational purposes because some of the "featured podcasts" on the home page were not appropriate for student use, so I don't know that I would introduce it to students.

Using Yahoo Podcasts I was able to find several interesting podcasts on children's and young adult literature:

• Childrensbookradio is described as a podcast and children's book directory dedicated to sharing children's books. Its intended audience is parents, teachers and children.
• Book Voyages is a podcast about children's literature from the point of view of a school librarian.
• Kara's Free Audiobooks - I thought this was a really great idea for a podcast. Kara reads aloud from classic public-domain children's literature, and podcasts the stories for your delight and amusement!
• YA Bookcast reviews the latest and best young adult titles.

Subscribing to these podcasts with Google Reader was pretty easy, but you do have to have a little knowledge in order to do it. Yahoo Podcasts displays a subscribe button very prominently, but it directs you to login to a Yahoo account. For Bloglines or Google Reader, you have to look for the RSS feed link.

Probably the most useful podcast I found was David Warlick's Connect Learning, which I located via the EPN site. This is one that I might actually listen to on a frequent basis. Other beneficial podcasts are the ones produced by SirsiDynix on all sorts of cutting edge technology. These are great and useful as well. The problem is finding the time to listen!

Image citation:
Tanglao, Roland. "Wanna Podcast?" Roland's Photostream. 10 Sep 2007. 11 May 2005 .