Podcasting

I have listened to a lot of podcasts, but I have never made one myself. It's weird listening to myself talk.

I found a cool website that does podcasts about books that could be beneficial for a school library to listen to in order to find new books for the library.The 2011/2012 Isinglass Booktalk Podcasts are pretty cool. It is a real project that Hopkinton High School & Hopkinton Middle School Library students have been part of. 


The website says, "Welcome to our Library's podcast series. We chose Isinglass booktalks because the Isinglass Teen Read Award is such a great project. It is real! Actual 7th & 8th graders (as opposed to their parents, teachers, or their librarians...) nominate the books, read the books, and choose the winner each year. Our hats are off to the Barrington Public Library, Amy Inglis, and the teens who have spearheaded this effort since 2002."


I listened to the booktalk for Matched by Ally Condie. You can listen to it here. I've read the book and agreed with most of what the podcast stated. Overall, I learned that podcasting is a great way to get out information to a lot of people. And it is nice because it is a break from reading. In one of my classes, we got to listen to NPR stories instead of reading. It's nice to have multiple ways to learn about a subject. Plus, with NPR, there is usually a transcription of the story as well as the audio.

I like subscribing to podcasts via iTunes. One of my favorite podcasts I subscribe to is Stuff You Should Know by How Stuff Works. It is all about random facts and I love learning about random things. This podcast also gives you a great way to start conversations with random facts.