Podcasts as Professional Development

Like most teachers I have a TON of grading to do. With essays to read and lessons to plan, I don’t always have a lot of time to spend reading professional development books. I’ve tried listening to audio books, but I don’t have time to search for the audio version and when I do find one, a lot of the information is outdated. I’m always trying to learn and grow as a teacher, but often other things get in the way of that.
Then a few years ago I found the solution. Podcasts. A podcast is an audio or video recording about a given topic. There are thousands of podcasts over everything from the NFL to Harry Potter. I’ve been listening to podcasts for a while, but it wasn’t until recently that I discovered some great podcasts related to education.
The advantage of listening to podcasts is they are often quick (most of the ones I listen to are 10-45 minutes), and they are always current. They are also free on itunes. My phone automatically downloads the latest edition, so I don’t even have to think about it. When I want to listen to it, it is already updated to my phone.
Here are some of the podcasts I listen to:

1. The TeacherCast Broadcasting Network- This podcast has great tech tips.  Every week they focus on a new tech tool with a panel of educators and tech innovators.
2. Talks with Teachers– This podcast is hosted by Brian Sztabnik. In it he interviews teachers from a wide range of areas including teachers from various subject areas, administrators, and library media specialists.
3. InnovatED- Tomorrow’s Education Innovations Today– This podcast focuses on new education trends.
4. Every Classroom Matters with the Cool Cat Teacher- In this podcast Vicki Davis interviews teachers about teaching strategies. I’ve learned about everything from flipped learning to gasification of teaching from this podcast. It is also short only about 10 minutes per episode.
5. NCTE Language Arts Podcast
6. The EntreLeadership Podcast– This one isn’t strictly tied to education, but I think a lot of the leadership philosophies have various applications in the classroom.

To download a podcast just go to iTunes and search podcasts. Once you find the podcast you want you can either download individual podcasts or click subscribe and it will update the podcasts every time a new episode is posted.