Podcasting and Collaborative Learning

So after reading the class material for this week, I have a new view of podcasting in the classroom. And it links up to my previous blog about incorporating orality into literate culture.
Podcasts are the perfect way for students to focus their intellectual ideas using a medium that they are familiar and comfortable with: technology. It is now easier than ever for students to access material online with computers everywhere (school, home, the library and at other friend's houses), smart phones, and iPads. Not only can podcasts be used to tap into the students' love for technology, but it also serves as a way to connect those students to other cultures and influences outside of the classroom. By being exposed to these different world views and cultures, the students will become less ethnocentric in their view of themselves in relation to the world around them and realize that everything that happens happens as a result of something else happening in the world outside of their sights.
With podcasts, outside of the basic requirements of what needs to be included in the podcast, the students have complete freedom in how and in what way they want to express their thoughts and ideas on the book report or other assignment that they are using the podcast for. You can learn a lot about a student from what they do with their podcast. From what the student puts in their podcast to how they arrange it, the entire podcast has the touch of the student and therefore their own personality imbedded within the work. This becomes an extension of the student and something that they can take great pride in producing and presenting to others. I believe that being confident in your work is huge for a student. Without that drive from the student, the work will be lackluster and have very little passion behind it. If done the right way, podcasts can captivate a student's mind and make them want to work on it even when they are supposed to be doing something else. That pull of the student toward an activity is the mark of a good classroom assignment.