Podcasts...

"Podcasting is basically the creation and distribution of amateur radio" (Richardson, 2006, p. 112).  This digital tool can be shared by others online, and this is usually done through  a subscription.  A podcast can be used with in the primary classroom learning environment both by the teacher and by the students.  The need for technical expertise to make a podcast work is not a of a high requirement, nor is the need for a lot of technical equipment.  Brooks-Young (2010, p. 20) recalls when podcasting first became popular the need for a computer or a laptop was necessary along with headsets, microphones and access to software and Web sites to record and save the information to.  The remarkable advancements in mobile phones means that most of these devices have built in voice recording capabilities allowing the learners of this century to be able to create mobile phone-supported podcasts. 
Podcasts can be used in the classroom in the following ways:

• Field trips, excursions and even when conducting experiments, learners can save their notes in a spoken format and retrieved them latter.
• Teachers can pose questions and students can respond and reply to them.
• Record interviews and collect data and then post this to a classroom Web page.
• Students can also make recordings for parents about classroom news and even school news.

(Brooks-Young, 2010, p. 20)
A SWOT analysis can be viewed at my wiki page at http://annettemuncktonelearning.wikispaces.com/

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis,podcasts and other powerful web tool for classrooms. USA: Corwin Press.
Brooks-Young, S. (2010). Teaching with the tools kids use: Learning with web and mobile technologies. USA: Corwin Press.