PodBean offers free audio and video podcast hosting, so that when you are finished making your amazing podcasts, you have somewhere to put them.  PodBean will also generate code for you so that you can embed one of those handy-dandy bars on your website.  PodBean also gives you access to tons of free educational (and entertaining) podcasts.  Some that might interest educators include: TED Talks, NOVA, Grammar Girl, CNN Student News, and Kidspeak.  (Kidspeak podcasts feature student-created tutorials for other students on topics such as Microsoft Word tips and long division).  Podcasts can  be streamed from your computer or downloaded for later viewing.  You can also subscribe to different "shows" to get updates when new podcasts are uploaded.

Note: Below, I am embedding a sample podcast.  It's an audio recording of one of my students reciting an original poem.  I plan on making more of these recording to post on our literary club's website.  This will give you an idea of what PodBean podcasts will look like on your own website or

ClustrMaps is a fun and informative widget that you can embed on your website, or the websites of your students.  Simply visit the ClustrMaps websites, enter the URL of the site you want to create a map for, and an HTML code will be generated for you.  ClustrMaps appears as a world map with red dots, varying in size based on the amount of visitors from a particular region.  Of course, since discovering ClustrMaps my blog has had an all-time low number of visitors (an extremely modest 14) but what's really interesting is that I had no idea people were visiting my website from their homes in Ireland, Australia and Singapore.  The idea of someone across the globe stumbling into my humble little blog is so neat!  As a student, I would be so excited to see how many people were viewing my writing portfolio, and where those readers might be located.  With that said, (shameless begging) please forward the URL for my blog to as many foreign countries as possible!  I want more dots!