Today I presented Podcasting 101 to teachers at the Maggie Walker Governor’s School in Richmond. Going through my archives, I found this interesting blog post from my older JohnHendron.net site from 2005:

For those of you not in the know, podcasting is a technique whereby folks create multimedia content (almost exclusively audio, but also video) and folks easily download this content via a RSS newsfeed. The idea, naturally, is to listen to this content on your iPod or other branded MP3 player. The technology has nothing specifically tied to Apple’s iPod, but rather to RSS 2.0 which allows the embedding of attachments in a newsfeed.

At NECC 2005 in Philadelphia the buzz was all over podcasting. It was spoken in kind with words such as “revolution” and the idea of teachers, educators, and of course students “podcasting” (as a verb) was just about poised to happen. The excitement doubled when it was learned that Apple had woven the subscription of podcasts within the lastest (buggy) release of iTunes 4.9.

Here’s a positive aspect of podcasts: they’re more human, more real than simple text… You not only get to read what I say, but you can hear my own voice, too. You get to hear me, and all the nuances and inflections that I might bring to the party with my ideas.

Yet, my friends, I think this podcasting is severly overhyped the more I think about it. Jason Scott has been collecting all the podcasts and already has over 2 year’s worth of content saved up. His “project” has gathered the attention of the national press. But there goes my rub: who has the time or patience to listen to that much content? Someone elsewhere said it best when he said “I think there are more people making podcasts than listening to them…”

Let’s face it, text has audio beat in many ways. There isn’t misunderstanding as long as grammar is good, it’s economical, and we can easily scan the words for the content we need. Scanning audio requires us to know the content beforehand, and skip to the section that needs our attention.

One guy at NECC suggested that searches of audio content may be coming down the pike sooner than later, but still… I can read without headphones, I can use simpler technology to read than I need to listen. With a cheap computer, I can write. With an expensive set up I can podcast (to a level that will please a majority of users), and we both need a fast Internet connection to post and receive podcasts.

I think the fact that podcasting is easy to do, and that just about anyone can do it is exciting, but… I believe that podcasting in education will simply be a emulation of radio shows that are easier to produce, and at a cheaper cost, than real radio. I also believe putting content in a podcast format for digestion by students is interesting, but sadly, we already know audio isn’t the strongest medium for learning and that we don’t learn most effectively strapped to an iPod in a dark room for hours and hours.

It’s cool, yes. But podcasting doesn’t deserve all the hype I saw at this year’s NECC. Let’s see where we are in a year.

Okay, it’s February, 2007. I missed the point, I think, back in the summer of ‘05. It’s the production of the podcast product where the learning takes place. Duh. I hope that point got across today with those teachers in Richmond.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Interesting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.