Module 5 A sod with a pod

I have been familiar with Podcasts and Vodcasts for some time.  They are handy resources for my areas of teaching - Religious Education and History.  I have used YouTube in the classroom on more than a few occasions and found it an excellent way of stimulating discussions, helping to concretise book-text learning through the visual and aural media.  My only reservation about pod and vodcasts lies in creating an over dependence on them rather than integrating them into the repertoire of teaching resources and skills.

What follows are two examples of vod and podcasts that could be used in the classroom.

Studies of Religion - Preliminary Course - Topic 1: Nature of Religion and Belief - stimulus from YouTube:



I used this in my Year 11 class to do several things. 
1.  Shock - here we are in a RE class and he's showing stuff about an atheist!
2.  Is religion reasonable?  Does Richard Dawkins have a case?
3.  Can we examine the subject of religion objectively?
4.  Whether you are a believer or not, you can study religion and make reasonable and intelligent statements about it.  And you can argue, using logic, against the position of someone like Dawkins.

It was an interesting exercise - responses ran hot!  There were no passive observers.

Studies of Religion - HSC Course - Topic 1 Religion and Belief in Australia post-1945 - significance of ANZAC Day in Australian life under the point of contemporary expressions of religion; secularism.

Different Voices - Four Reflections for Anzac Day - Encounter on the ABC broadcast on ANZAC Day 2010.

The discussion from this broadcast raises the issue of the cross-overs between religion and religious expression in Australia and secular / civil culture.