I have been listening to some podcasts on my rss feed and I enjoy the radio sites that I don’t always get to hear when they broadcast live on the radio.  I am sure I will be able to answer the questions of usefulness in the classroom after I actually make a podcast.  I would think it would be nice to podcast lectures in the classroom,  parents day messages,  information for teams, etc.  All of these podcasts would be helpful to the parents that can’t get to meetings or kids that miss class.  Although I think it may make it too easy for parents and kids to start missing things if all they have to do is a click on a website and listen to the 30 minutes of information.    I personally would love to use the podcasts to learn another language.  I did listen to a few lessons on italian.   I had a lot of trouble figuring out itunes once I had everything downloaded.  I would have to get a few lessons in that software before I do much more with podcasting.