Podcasting, the term which has resulted from the combination of the iPod and broadcasting, presents a potentially effective tool in the arsenal of the creative teacher.
The podcast can enable the teacher to present a concept in a variety of different ways, which potentially can provide the teacher with a wide array of differing presentations of the same concept. As a reusable tool, the podcast, once developed, can provide benefit numerous times, over a many year period.
The podcast may provide supplemental instructional benefit for the student who must miss class due to illness or injury. It can also provide a form of inexpensive review of any material which the student may have forgotten, or with which a student may be experiencing difficulty.
The podcast presents the possibility of collaborative or shared development and use among multiple teachers, thus allowing the creation of a particular lesson and its development in multiple languages. In schools in which the student body consists of students from a wide array of nationalities and first-spoken languages, this presents each such teacher with an effective tool in communicating a lesson in a way that may assist a student to overcome language-related difficulties.
Perhaps one of the greatest single benefits of Podcasting arises from the students' ready acceptance of current technology. The students in general already widely enjoy the use of portable electronic media. The podcast provides the teacher a convenient way to use the tool - computer or portable media player - that is already widely accepted and extensively used the students. The podcast, via the portable media player, itself already ubiquitous, presents a relatively low-cost, high tech instructional tool.
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