Podcasting: a handy educational tool

Inam Abidi Amrohvi lists its benefits and usage

For most people podcasting is all about an audio file that can be played on a digital player. It's certainly much more than that. Podcasting has evolved into a powerful medium that can be used by news services, subject experts, musicians and in several other areas.

The podcasting revolution piggy-backed on the success of Apple's IPod to an extent, but it's now on its own. As per Edison Media Research's US survey, 22 per cent of the people heard of podcasting in 2006.

That figure rose to 37 per cent last year. This figure will double in the next two years according to the company. This shows that there's a definite interest in podcasting today!

Why the name?

The term podcasting was first coined in 2004 in a newspaper article in The Guardian. Ben Hammersley, author of the article, used the term for audioblogging or amateur internet radio. The word quickly gained popularity. Most probably it's a combination of Apple's much popular iPod and 'broadcast'.

Podcasting must have been a result of the immense popularity of blogging and the creation of RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The Webopedia defines RSS as a format used for content distribution; mostly used in distributing news headlines on the web.

A website that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher.

A user that can read RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content can include data such as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates and excerpts from discussion forums.

More than just a media file
Podcasting is actually posting a media file (mostly in MP3 format) on to the internet, which can be downloaded and accessed by other users either on a computer or a digital media player. It is mostly used for content that is updated frequently, for e.g., radio programmes.

Special software, like Juice Receiver (formerly ipodder), can automatically find and download the podcasts of your choice to your PC.

Among the major users, many big news agencies have already started making their content available as podcasts and others are following suit. The technology involved is comparatively cheap and the audience reach is huge.

MIT explores podcasting

• MIT's Foreign Languages and Literatures (FL&L) section is exploring the possibilities of using podcasting in their foreign language teaching.
  
• Several professors in the section have already incorporated podcasting into their curricula. The idea is to make better use of the mobile devices that have become more of a fashion accessory, students carry them all the time. So with lectures as podcast, one can surely spare a few minutes for language learning.
  
• The language department later discovered that they could combine the different podcasts to produce a single coherent narrative, to create more effective instructional tools for the course.
  
• The best part with podcasting is the relative ease of use, and more importantly when you want to.
  
• Tong Chen a Chinese lecturer records short paragraphs as podcasts. The students then transcribe the audio material and wait for the corrected transcriptions. Once they receive them, they re-record the material and send the audio clips to the lecturer for further correction.
  
• Podcasting provides an informal way for teachers and students to further their learning in a community environment. Classrooms around the world can benefit from the thousands of audio programmes produced by radio stations, experts, educators and other individuals. You can subscribe to these programmes for free and listen at your leisure.

The writer is a guru of tech who runs a trading company in Dubai.

Top 10 podcasts

• Mobtown Ska Sounds: A podcast dedicated to Jamaican music
• WNYC's On The Media: A weekly programme from National Public Radio and WNYC, New York Public Radio.
• BBC - Today: The Today programme is BBC radio's leading news and current affairs programme.
• Science Friday: A weekly podcast of audio from the public radio "Science Friday" programme. The call-in show is heard on NPR stations across the US.
• The Naked Scientists Radio Show: A live weekly audience-interactive science radio talk show broadcast live on BBC Radio, and on the net, and archived online.

- Source: podcastingnews.com