Reflections on creating a podcast

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this process. In another class, I had an opportunity to create a podcast for an assignment, but I decided not to do it. I thought that creating a podcast was just not a big deal and wouldn't provide any additional understanding than writing a paper would. The process of podcasting as a tool for helping students improve their writing was lost on me. I am happy to announce, though, that I am a convert! This process showed me how much this can help students.

I started my podcast by reading a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, one of my favorite poets. I was just in the mood to read some poetry, so that's what I decided my podcast was going to be about. Just in the process of reading the poem a few times into the microphone brought me new levels of understanding in the poem. Of course, poetry is typically meant to be read out loud, but it's often difficult to ensure that students really did read the poems you assign them a few times aloud. This process of having them record their readings in a podcast is a good way to ensure that they do. This goes for any stories or plays. Students may not even realize how reading out loud is enhancing their understanding, so that part of creating a podcast about a piece of literature is important.

Next, I read a page-long statement/analysis about the poem. This is the part of the process that I really became sold on the podcast idea, especially as a way of enhancing writing skills. I consider myself a fairly good writer and don't often read my work out loud before handing it in. I know I should, but I guess I have convinced myself that I don't need to. However, as I read my work into the mic, I was constantly changing things, realizing that how something sounded in my head was completely different from how it sounded out loud. Again, this is a difficult thing to convince students of, but having them engage with the process of recording podcasts could really help them recognize how to edit their writing.

I realize that podcasting can also be done without a script. I think that that would also be very useful, as a way of having students just talk out their ideas and listen back to them as a way of generating ideas for a paper or a project.

I also included music in my podcast. I wasn't planning on doing that, but I heard a classmate's podcast the other day and he had included music. I felt that the whole thing was more engaging to listen to with soft music in the background and it reveals something about the author. I used Sigur Ros's song "Gong" because it is one of my favorites. Being able to include this element made the whole thing seem more personalized and helped me feel more attached to the project.