Adventures in Podcasting

Podcast #1: Profiling the Students of Today

I think most teachers today would agree that our profession is becoming more challenging with each passing year due to the technologically-evolved student populations in our classrooms. The majority of our students are what Marc Prensky (2001) refers to as “digital natives” or “‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet” while many of today’s teachers are considered to be “digital immigrants” who “were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point…become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology” (p.1). In an effort to learn more about these digital natives, I interviewed a young man who is soon to be a junior in high school. I asked him an assortment of questions relating to his digital abilities and interests, and while I did not have access to any other students his age, I believe that his responses seem typical for his age and grade level.

Furthermore, I have created a podcast based on my questions and the student’s answers. While I had never produced a podcast before and felt somewhat apprehensive about the process, I wanted to gain some experience with this type of technology so that I can begin utilizing it in my classroom next year. In regard to the use of podcasting in the classroom, Will Richardson (2010) writes, “Before you get your students podcasting, I would urge you to try it out first…I think you need to experience what you are asking your students to do—not only so you can support their technical use, but also so you understand what Web publishing really feels like” (p. 117). Thankfully, I found podcasting to be extremely simple and can imagine my students having a lot of fun creating podcasts for our class. After creating my very first podcast, I now have a better understanding of both podcasting and the average day in the life of a digital native.

References

Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5).

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.