Podcasting

One of the latest online techonology communication tools is podcasting. Apparently, it has been around for the past year, yet until I read about in the January 2005 edition of eSchool News, I had never heard of it (you can register to have online access to past articles). Designed by a 13 year old boy who excells at computers, podcasting takes pre-recorded RSS files and provides a way of making these files accessible on the internet for uploading to ipods, mp3 players, cell phones, blogs, etc. Here's a short description about podcasting from the article.

"A descendant of web logs, or blogs, podcasts are pre-recorded audio files that can be posted to text-based blogs in the form of MP3 music files. (For more on blogs, see the new eSN Ed-Tech Insider) The recordings, similar to amateur radio broadcasts--except not live--can be accessed from a traditional desktop or laptop computer or downloaded to a handheld device, such as Apple's popular iPod, for busy users who prefer to listen on the go."

I am just amazed at how quickly things advance, change, fade away, etc, in the technology field/business. As I read further, it describes the ability of teachers to record their class lectures and download for students to access at a later time. Imagine students having the capability to access a site and upload their teacher speaking the assignments or class lectures while riding the bus. Thus expanding the phrase "filling your minutes". The instruction of foreign language is a good example of providing students with audio to practice with. Texts and articles that are read and uploaded to listen to rather than reading. Radio broadcasts saved for anytime listening, not just the moment it is broadcast on radiowaves.

Curious, I did a google search for "podcasting" and found multiple entries and found a number on how to set up podcasts. I found a podcasting tutorial page at FeedForAll, a feed creation tool site. Looking these over, it seems fairly simplistic to do. Even our blogger site offers audio recording from your cell phone to your blog site, using audioblogger. So I wonder if this is next venue for advertisers and spam? Why not, they access everything else. G-Metrics.com present a recent look a the numbers of podcasting events from the google site, which shows a steady increase of activity.

I mentioned it to my junior in high school and she gave me the "you are so out of it look" and said, "I already knew about that." this is so new, yet it makes me feel so out of the loop in regards to new technology. How will educators be able to keep up with the changes and possiblities, when everything new seems old for the students? It tires me out thinking about it.