Thing 19

I listened to several podcasts related to my role as a school social worker, including The Social Work Podcast, The Autism Podcast and a Bipolar Disorder Podcast.

The Social Work Podcast is hosted/presented by a gentleman who has a background in music (jazz), he is a professional social worker and a doctoral student and adjunct college professor. His voice is pleasant to listen to and he appears to be up to date with social work best practices and current issues.

The Autism Podcast that I viewed and listened to had an advertisement on the home page for a type of software that was developed for the iPhone or iPod Touch that provided visual schedules for autistic students.

The Bipolar Podcast found at realmentalhealth.com was sponsored by a pharmaceutical company (Astra Zeneca). They had psychiatrists and patients who had bipolar disorder discussing symptoms, treatment, etc.

Not being in a classroom setting some of these questions for Thing 19 were more of a challenge to answer. If I were in a classroom setting I might explore interesting and relevant podcasts during classtime including surveying students about their interests and finding podcasts for them to listen to (or vodcasts for them to view and listen to) related to their interests. I can see the usefulness for podcasts/vodcasts as a supplement to the content area that was being covered in class.

The quality of sound being transmitted (via speakers) would be an important factor in the use of podcasts for the classroom as would quality of the speaker's voice. Using podcasts or vodcasts should not be the primary means used to teach in a classroom (on an everyday basis) but the use of these as supplemental tools could be beneficial.