Podcasts

I looked at several podcast sites. The first one was Worthington's site that had several readings of different picture books. I listened to The Mitten. It had very poor sound quality, but then I listend to The Night Before Christmas. It was much better. This just goes to show that not all podcasts at the same site are of the best or worst quality.

I also tried to go to the Thomas Ford Library Click a Story because I thought that would be great for using at my elementary school, but the link was broken.

I also went to Denver Public Library's site and listened to the bookIt's Quacking Time. I was interested in this because this past spring I read that book to my Kindergarten classes. After listening to this, I think the younger children would need the book with the pictures. Although, this could be useful in a center where students could listen to the audio while looking at the book themselves. I also liked this site because it stated that they had permission to post the podcast from the specific copyright holders.

There was another site that I saw. It was a site that did book talks. I listend to Skulduggery Pleasant. This book talk seemed more interesting than the others because the audio quality was good and because they also provided short clips of music used in transitioning the sections of the podcast.

I don't see elementary students using podcasts too much, other than what I mentioned above. It also seemed evident that many elementary school librarians had not ventured to using podcasts, as all the school podcasts listed on the wiki were high schools. I think the book talks would be good for patrons, but I am not sold on if they would be interesting enough to hold their attention. I got the following idea from another librarian in my district, but I might try this year to work with a teacher that does biography projects to have her students create a podcast talking about their person. Then, when parents come to Open House, a highlight of Open House is walking into the classroom and hearing their child's report.