Method 11
The first place I stopped was NPR. Of course, I found something interesting and downloaded it. I had to download Apple Itunes to play it. Since it was a radio program, there was no video, but I liked it and have saved it and bookmarked the page so that I can go back and subscribe.

I was surprised at how extensive the offerings are on the BBC site.

I found a few things at CNN that I would like to view. The one that I tried to download took much longer than the one from NPR, possibly because it also contains video.

I haven't tried it yet, but I am almost certain that the district will block podcasting.


Of the selection of library podcasts that I looked at, the two kinds that seem most useful to me, or rather, the two that I would be most likely to use, are the interviews with authors and the book talks. We are located in a rather remote area of Texas, and arranging author visits is expensive. I would like to encourage our students to develop book talks which could be accessed through our library page.

On Storynory, I found and listened to the Raven: http://storynory.com/2009/10/06/the-raven/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Storynory+(Storynory). Several teachers request this each October. How exciting to be able to give them a podcast of it. I will need to look for other readings that can complement the ELA curriculum.

I went to podcast alley and was surprised to find over 4000 selections under comedy. http://www.podcastalley.com/podcast_genres.php?pod_genre_id=6 It took me a minute or so to figure out how to play them because when you click the title, it gives you a choice of "subscribe," "vote," and "details."
You have to select details to get to the area to play the podcasts. I selected a couple, and these are not for children. They do have a kids and family section. I was surprised to see that roughly 1/3 of the items listed under religion and spirituality had witches or pagan in the title.

A search for "author" resulted in 200 hits. This is something that I will explore further to look for podcasts by or about some of our popular young adult authors. I think that this will be the first project with podcasting that I would like to work on for my library. I will need to search to see if someone has already compiled such a list.

A second project that I would like to work on is a collection of book talks. I will need to try this out at work to ensure that students will be able to access and play them.