Audioboom!

Screenshot from Audioboom.com, October 17, 2016.

The educational resource that I explored was Audioboom, which is a site for podcasts.  I have mixed reactions about this platform.  I do believe that podcasts are a unique way of getting different perspectives into the classroom and allow for students to hear people speak besides their own teacher.  There are plenty of interesting podcasts that discuss and what I enjoy is how the categories are so fast.  You can basically search for any topic or genre and there will be hundreds of podcasts related.  The issue that I found though was being able to narrow the topic further to look for specific themes or idea that you may be discussing in the classroom.  I think that you would really need to do some digging in order to find podcasts that fit with what you would like to discuss in class.  Further, I am not sure that I would allow my students to use this platform by themselves because I cannot find any filter to make sure the content is appropriate for their age level.  If there was a way to create a teacher lock for content I think it could be interesting to set the students loose and see what they are able to find.  I tried a few different searches which all produced really broad results.  To be fair, you can see from the image, my first search was just "ukulele" so the response was vast but i found it difficult to find key words that would narrow the search but still produce results.  For example, I also searched "Canadian Teacher Podcasts" and only 6 posts were found.  I think it would take some time to learn how to navigate the site and learn to sort through what is relevant.  Additionally, I did not realize that you cannot just start creating your own podcast, you actually have to apply to receive one so if that is your intention you might have a bit of a process!