Thing 19

I enjoy NPR podcasts because they allow me to keep up with some of my favorite shows. Two of my favorites are Talk of the Nation http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=5 and All Songs Considered http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510019
While discussions can sometimes be heated on Talk of the Nation, I think that my students would benefit from hearing mostly informed adults disagree on matters of public policy in a generally civil tone. I think that students who only get their news from cable tend to imbibe extreme language like mother's milk and often fail to listen charitably to different points of view. I can imagine using All Songs considered to discourage piracy and file sharing because so many indie tracks are available and so many interviews with up and coming artists. In my experience, students are less likely to cheat an artists of their derserved royalties if they have heard their life story and hear them sing in studio. My students tend to excuse piracy when they believe that multinational conglomerates are charging usurious prices or unnecessarily complicating their ability to share the tunes with their friends (DRM). So both podcasts would be used to teach good digital citizenship.