I have heard this site mentioned numerous times, but I never made it there until I was searching for podcasts on Martin Luther King, Jr. (we are studying the Civil Rights Movement). I found a "podcast" of the "I Have a Dream Speech", which was actually just an audio recording in Quicktime that the "podcaster" had found on the aforementioned site, American Rhetoric.
While the site does not contain podcasts, it is such a great resource for the classroom and could potentially be used in conjunction with podcasting under the fair use policy. It has links to over 5000 audio and video versions of famous American speeches, sermons, debates, interviews, and other "rhetoric". The site's owner also has great information regarding Fair Use and the legal implications of this site, and you can email him with questions on permissions.
As this site collects this type of audio, I have also run across a variety of sites that catalog another type of audio: podcasts. Sites such as Podcast.net and PodcastAlley catalog a variety of podcasts, while other sites collect educational podcasts such as the Educational Podcast Network. As I have been watching the Terminator and thinking more deeply about the future of technology, I am wondering where podcasting and other types of rhetoric, such as that from American Rhetoric, will meet.
I have recently read Ender's Game (and am currently reading Speaker for the Dead) and was impressed by how the online musings (similar to blogs and discussion forums) of children posing as adults changed the world. I am wondering if and when podcasts may become as powerful as books, speeches and video in affecting the world around them. While I considered myself just getting involved in podcasts, I can remember myself as an undergraduate listening to online broadcasts from a prisoner. I guess I was listening to podcasts back then, even though I didn't know it, and they had a very powerful effect on me. If powerful and influential individuals began blogging and podcasting, I think that some podcasts could potentially be as powerful and influential as Marting Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech or FDR's response to Pearl Harbor.
2 comments:
You seem to have really learned a lot through this blogging process. The resources you have found are amazing! I hope you move forward with what you have learned and really attempt to use it in the classroom. I have even taken some of your ideas for use next year in my classroom. Thanks for everything you have shared!!
Thank you! You have helped me synthesize my thoughts and I have really grown through this experience. I am actually considering continuing to blog once this course is over, as well as having my students do the same. It has been a really enriching experience.
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