Technology Hardware to Use in the Classroom

We all know integrating technology is not only beneficial to engage students in learning, but to also prepare them as productive, contributing citizens of the 21^st century. One piece of technology hardware that may be overlooked but can be quite useful in promoting pedagogical functions in the classroom is a microphone. A microphone can not only be fun for many students to use in the classroom, but it can also be used as a tool to support students’ creativity as they understand and evaluate their own learning via classroom podcasts.

Podcasts are a series of audio recordings, similar to talk radio, that are downloadable and accessed digitally. They can be shared within the classroom, throughout the school community, and even globally. Through podcasts, Riddle states that students are engaged in “discipline-based research, reading, and writing” skills and practice in “editing, oral reading, and present[ing],” (2010, para. 5). Podcasts in the classroom are a great technology integration tool for any grade level K-12 as it allows students to process what they’ve learned and articulate their learning in a creative, meaningful way. Bradbury even suggests that “[p]odcasting is about giving students a voice and showing them that we all have a story to be told,” (2016, p. 47). Podcasts are a great way to show students their voice has meaning and what they have to say is valuable.

Hennig states that students “have improved reading skills when combining listening with reading,” (2017, p. 30). This is important for students across all grade levels because they are simultaneously improving their reading, social, and listening skills.

According to Sebastian Dorok, podcasts are not produced and managed by some elaborate technological skill, but rather they are easy enough for anyone to learn if they are simply just shown how it works (Riddle, 2010, para. 18). Dorok also suggests podcasts provide “a new possibility for bringing education up-to-date—making the learning process simultaneously more exciting and simple,” (Riddle, 2010, para. 18).

Kearny, Schuck, Burden, and Aubusson express that students should generate their own learning contexts and should not be limited to just formal learning environments (2012, pp. 14-15). Setting up a classroom podcast allows students to create and communicate their own learning with others in a collaborative method and informal setting.