What we already knew in the Aiken High School German classes was that there are many wonderful podcasts (like www.slowgerman.com) available to us. We very much enjoyed these podcasts and they became an important part of our curriculum.

What we quickly discovered was that we really enjoy making our own podcasts like this one:
  

Students usually put a lot of effort into this and we were able to pop their podcasts into Moodle and share, discuss and critique them in our class forums. 

Uploading our podcasts to Moodle also made it straightforward to subscribe to the podcasts via an RSS reader or iPod. (Read about that at http://docs.moodle.org/en/Podcast#Podcasting_in_Moodle.)

We are looking forward to continuing this next year, especially with our Advanced Placement German students.

It is easy to subscribe to an automatically-generated RSS feed in Moodle.

 Art Lader –  Aiken High School

P.S.  The students love making videos, too, but you have to convert to from the flv format in the following video to the mov or the mp4 format to play the vids in your ipod. You can easily convert at zamzar.com (blocked from school).

P.S.S. And if you export or convert PowerPoint presentations to the mov format , your iPod should be able to play them. – http://www.ahsgerman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/badenbaden2/badenbaden2.htm

Sorry for the delayed response.  I completed my masters this year, so between that and teaching, I found it hard to find time to search for valuable media online.  When I did spend time looking, I was discouraged from the amount of time it took to download the media and the fact that I always had to pay.  I would love to get a list of free downloadable sites that I could use for next year.  Working with my masters was actually beneficial in obtaining new ideas for how to use my iPod.  My professor and colleagues offered ideas such as digital book talks and book trailers which can be easily downloaded.  I have learned that the iPod is a powerful storage device and comes in handy when transferring media from home to school.  Throughout the year, I used my iPod for a variety of media resources.  I captured an episode from Spongebob on Procrastination which I showed my English III students before they began the research paper.  I was also able to find 1920s songs, which they don’t sell in Wal-Mart, for the Gatsby party.

Meredith Pickering, Silver Bluff High

I have loved the IPod in my classroom. I teach Economics and have used it to keep the students informed about our current economic crisis. My sociology class has benefited from the Frontline World podcasts when we discuss family, gender, and many other topics. At the end of the year I give my students a review of the year sheet to fill out about what they found most interesting, what should we have covered, etc. What the students were all replying back was how much they enjoyed the podcasts. This is an excellent way to reach the students that are so technology proficient themselves. I am excited to have the summer to come up with new ways to use it in my classroom next year. Thanks so much for the opportunity.

Kathleen Rogerson
South Aiken High School