Podcasting: So Easy a Third-Grader Can Do It

I must admit I did a spit take when my 9 year old granddaughter looked over my shoulder while I was doing some work in GarageBand and said “That what we use to make our podcast, Pa-Jay, do you want to see my Podcast?”
“Actually, it’s a Vodcast. Go to my school’s website and I’ll show you,,” she continued. Sure enough when I went to the Fox Hollow elementary school’s website, There was the third grade Podcast page, and there was my grand-daughter showing how to make cookies for all the interwebs to see. Her classmate and best friend, Maddy shows how to make chocolate ice cream from vanilla with a bit of alchemy involving cocoa powder. Phillip shows us how to get a girlfriend. Apparently the trick is to buy a potential girlfriend a ring for exactly $114, But first you have to look cool by wearing a long-sleeve button shirt and don’t tuck it in.
Technically the students are using Apple’s GarageBand to make “enhanced” Podcasts. All of the podcast have a title and a series of still images with a voice-over by the students and background music from the royalty-free music included with the iLife suite. And then thy are publishing the Podcasts to the school’s website using the iWeb application.
Apple is making a serious impact in higher education with it’s iTunesU initiative. It’s nice to see that podcasting is being used in primary education as well.
As a person that makes podcasts for a living it’s nice to know that at least my grand-daughter knows what I do, even if the rest of the family hasn’t quite figured it out.