I have been hearing about teachers wanting to use Podcasts...

During the course of the last few classes, I have been hearing about teachers wanting to use podcasts in their lessons and writing about podcasts in their blogs, even though we had not been formally introduced to the technology in the classroom. I wondered what was it about podcasts that seemed so interesting? I decided to be try to find out more about podcasts. Surprisingly, this Web 2.0 tool seems to offer a lot of possibilities to teachers and students.


First of all, the term "podcast" is a portmanteau ( a blend of two words or morphemes) of the words "pod" which means "playable on demand" and "cast" from the word "broadcasting". A podcast is a media file that is distributed over the internet using syndication feeds. You can set up syndication for your website and expose your content for the world to see using RSS feeds. These can be used for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. Podcasting therefore, is RSS that is used to collect, organize and distribute audio files. RSS feeds contain what is called an enclosure tag which is used to include certain types of files. The files in an enclosure tag may be an image, a data file, a video file or an audio file. Podcasting specifically refers to RSS feeds that contain audio files in their enclosure tags.The user employs a type of software known as an aggregator sometimes called a podcatcher or a podcast receiver to subscribe and manage their feeds.

One benefit of podcasting is the fact that users can sync content with their media player and listen at a time and place suitable to them and have radio on demand. While this technology is not limited to music, it is the area that has the most attention.


How can I publish a podcast? In three simple steps my voice can be broadcasted or heard:

1. Create the audio content and post it on the website for listeners.
2. Create or edit an existing RSS feed including a link to the audio file in the "enclosure" file of a RSS 2.0 feed, uploading it to a website.
3. Tell all that a podcast is available.

Podcasts offer immense possibilities to educators. They can enable students and teachers to share information with anyone anytime. If a student is absent he /she can download the podcast of the recorded lesson. Teachers can also create podcasts and use them as tools for students before teaching which would be the equivalent of reading the text before the lesson. Educators can also use podcasts to communicate with parents and members of the community. Teachers can record book talks, vocabulary, foreign language lessons, musical performances, debates. It can also be a tool for publishing students' oral presentations.

Some say podcasting can be considered a m-learning strategy for teaching and learning since it focuses on learning with mobile devices where the learner is not at a fixed predetermined location.

I hope this blog will give some insight into what is a podcast, how it works and some of the educational uses of podcasts.