Podcasting for Teaching

and Learning

NITLE workshop

2007

Plan for the session

1. Background

2. Podcasting from start to finish

3. Pedagogical issues and cases

Podcasting background

How old is the term? February 12, 2004:

“With the benefit of hindsight, it all seems quite obvious. MP3 players, like Apple's iPod, in many pockets, audio production software cheap or free, and weblogging an established part of the internet…”

Podcasting background

How old is the term? February 12, 2004:

“… all the ingredients are there for a new boom in amateur radio.

But what to call it? Audioblogging? Podcasting? GuerillaMedia?”

(Ben Hammersley, The Guardian)

Podcasting background

Podcasting background

Podcasting background

Podcasting background

Context: the player• iPods and others• Ease of use• “net.gen”• Fetish• History: Walkman

and convergence

Podcasting background

Pew Internet and American Life project:

“More than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players and 29% of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web so that they could listen to audio files at a time of their choosing….”

Podcasting background

Pew Internet and American Life project:

“… That amounts to more than 6 million adults who have tried this new feature that allows internet “broadcasts” to be downloaded onto their portable listening device.”

(April 2005)

Podcasting background

Context: social demand for audio

• File-sharing persists

• Web audio grows• Net.gen again

Podcasting background

Context: did copyright policy spur podcasting?

Doc Searls on CARP:

“As it developed, Internet radio didn't die [in the early 2000s]. Instead, what happened was the growth of talk radio on the Net, mostly in the form of podcasting...”

Podcasting background

“… No doubt an unintended consequence of the CARP ruling (creating high bureaucratic and financial costs for broadcasting RIAA-sanctioned music on the Net) was the growth of podcasting.”

-Doc Searls, March 2007

(http://doc.weblogs.com/2007/03/04#riaaMovesToKillInternetRadio)

Podcasting background

Context: the file format, or “I want my MP3”

• Decent quality

• Workable size

• Portable

• Net.gen yet again

Podcasting background

Context: easier, popular tools for playing sound: hardware

• iPods• Laptops• Desktops

Podcasting background

Context: easier tools for recording sound: hardware

• Mikes• Phones• MP3 player

plugins

Podcasting background

• Increasing number of applications– Garageband, iMovie– Moviemaker– Audacity

Context: easier tools for recording and editing sound

Podcasting background

Context: the Apple effect– 2001 January: Apple unleashes iTunes– 2001 October: “ “ iPod– 2002 Windows compatible iTunes

launched

Podcasting background

Context: easier tools for distribution: syndication

• Really Simple Syndication, RSS

• Free, open standards (XML)

• Attached to blogs• Added to news media

Podcasting background

Protopodcasting

• Web audio

• Audioblogging• phoneblogging

Podcasting background

Protopodcasting

• Web audio

• Audioblogging• phoneblogging

(Orson Welles)

Podcasting background

Mainstream media leaps in• BBC• NPR

(http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php)

• Public radio in general (http://www.publicradiofan.com/podcasts.html)

Podcasting 101

Neologism tracking• godcasting• nanocasting• podfading

• vlogging • podsafe• podspamming• podvertising• porncasting

Podcasting 101

Structure of podcasting:

• Composition process

Podcasting 101

Structure of podcasting:

•Finding and downloading the stuff

Podcasting 101

Structure of podcasting:

•Hosting and maintaining the goods

Structure of podcasting:

• Altogether now

Podcasting 101

Structure of podcasting, in other words

• The sound file

• Laptop, desktop, mobile device, phone

• Editor

• Compressor

• Host

Podcasting 101

What is this Syndication?

Podcasting 101

Syndication example: Berkeley Science Groks

http://www.groks.net/

Podcasting 101

…where you find:

http://www.groks.net/groks.rss

Podcasting 101

…which, in your aggregator, automagically yields:

http://www.archive.org/download/groks190/groks101905_64kb.mp3

Podcasting 101

Syndication, therefore aggregation

Readers for a variety of platforms:

• Bloglines• NetNewsWire• Newsgator

Podcasting 101

Syndication, therefore podcatchers

• Juice• Songbird• Odeo

• iTunes

Podcasting 101

iPod meets iTunes for podcasts

Podcasting 101

• Syndication is optional for playing

(a mere file folder)

Pedagogy of podcasting

How does this connect with teaching and learning?

• Liberal arts pedagogies

• Affordances

• Cases + exploration

Pedagogy of podcasting

Classic digital pedagogy: timeshifting

• In- and out of class content

• Attendance issue

• Student-driven

• PS: the Betamax case (1984)

Pedagogy of podcasting

Classic digital pedagogy: repeatability

• Scrubbing

• Focus

• Student-driven

Pedagogy of podcasting

New forms: profcasting

• Bryn Mawr College: Michelle Francl, chemistry

• Duke: Classroom recording

Pedagogy of podcasting

Profcasting• Mary Washington

University: Gardner Campbell, English

• Duke: Course content dissemination

Pedagogy of podcasting

“Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus,Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school-boys and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices ;Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”

Pedagogy of podcasting

Studentcasting• Voice• Individual or team-

based• Constructivism

Response composition“As part of the culmination of the seminar, I recorded student readings of Donne’s work for later distribution as podcasts.”

Pedagogy of podcasting

Content podcasting on campus• Language lessons by iPod

(Middlebury College)• IT updates (Lafayette College ITS

Coffee Break)

Pedagogy of podcasting

Student program podcasting on campus

• War News Radio

(Swarthmore College)

Pedagogy of podcasting

Campus program podcasting

• Language Lab Unleashed (Oberlin College)

Pedagogy of podcasting

Campus podcasting• Allegheny College

http://webtools.allegheny.edu/podcast/ • Bowdoin College

http://www.bowdoin.edu/podcasts/ • Colgate University • Layafette College

https://ww2.lafayette.edu/~soapbox/podcast • Swarthmore College

http://acad.swarthmore.edu/podcast/

Pedagogy of podcasting

Focus on content

• Literary texts

• Oral history

• Critical phrasing

• Foreign language

• Music

• History

• Literature

• Lab sciences

Pedagogy of podcasting

Podcasts and research

• Duke: Field recording

Trudi Abel, “Digital Durham and the New South” (Duke University, 2006)

• New area for podcasting: information literacy

Pedagogy of podcasting

Podcasts and research• Public intellectual

– Out of the Past– Engines of Our

Ingenuity – In Our Time– University Channel

(Napoleon 101)

Pedagogy of podcasting

Instrumental to pedagogy: enhance other media• Handouts: Allegheny College, Gothcast

Pedagogy of podcasting

Enhance other media

Middlebury College, Barbara Ganley

Podcasting with…• Blogging• Digital storytelling• Photography• Study abroad

Pedagogy of podcasting

Enhance other mediaBeth Harris, Art History, Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNYPodcasting with…• Blogging• Flickr• Conversations

Pedagogy of podcasting

Enhance other media• Commentary on digital video

– Example: Battlestar Galactica DVD to Web

Pedagogy of podcasting

Instrumental: enhance other media

• Apple: “enhanced podcasting”

Pedagogy of podcasting

Influences on other social media

• Podcasting and videoblogging

Pedagogy of podcasting

Mixing and mashups

Pedagogy of podcasting

Mixing and mashups

• Long historical antecedents

• Constructivism

• Copyright

• Jenkins, Convergence Culture (2006)

Pedagogy of podcasting

Commentary on primary and secondary sources• Merrymount College, Artmobs

Pedagogy of podcasting

Podcasts and questions for research

• Information literacy

• Questions of access

• Archival problem

• Editing and sampling challenges

• Search

Podcasting: other issues

Copyright issues

• “podsafe”

• Public domain

• DiY (Garageband)

Podcasting: other issues

Copyright issues : content sources

• Freesound - short sound clips

Podcasting: other issues

Copyright issues: content sources

• Transom - downloadable shows and resources

• Disquiet - archive of links to ambient and electronic mp3s

• Amazon's free downloads

Podcasting: other issues

Copyright issues: content sources

• Garageband.com - indie music hosting

• iCompositions - free downloads, discussion for Garageband

• Magnatune - not free, but inexpensive, and pays artists

Podcasting: other issues

Copyright issues: mashups• Negativland• Some Assembly Required

Podcasting: other issues

Finding podcasts

• http://audio.weblogs.com/

• iPodder

• Odeo

Podcasting: other issues

Finding podcasts

• Podcast Alley

• Podcast Network

• Podcast News

Podcasting: other issues

Searching podcasts

• Podscope

• Podzinger

Podcasting: other issues

More emergent issues

• Collaborative composition

• Social software

• Editing from the Web?

Podcasting: other issues

• Audio comments

•(http://napoleon.thepodcastnetwork.com/)

Podcasting: other issues

Social podcasts• http://waxxi.us/

interactive.html • Podserve http://www.pod-

serve.com

Resources

Readings

• Bryan Alexander, “Podcasting and the Liberal Arts.” NITLE News, summer 2005.

• Gardner Campbell, “There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education.” ER Nov-Dec 2005.

Resources

Readings• Karine Joly, “The Power of Podcasts:

Universities explore mp3 technology as a new marketing tool.” University Business (July 2006), http://www.universitybusiness.com/page.cfm?p=1213

• Alan Levine, “Podcasting on the cheap.” CogDogBlog post/wiki, Spring 2006. http://cogdoghouse.wikispaces.com/PodcastOnTheCheap

Resources

Podcasts• Educause Learning Initiative, “It’s Pod

Mania!” Educause Pocket Edition (November 2005). http://connect.educause.edu/blog/dianao/it_s_pod_mania_educause_pocket_edition_2/1654 .

• Wired Webmonkey tutorial

Resources

NITLE

• Website, workshops, research

• http://nitle.org/index.php/nitle/laboratory/podcasting

• http://apps.nitle.org/blog/index.php?cat=41