I agree with you Dan. In a way, I feel powerless when listening to podcasts…like I’m on the podcaster’s schedule, and I have no control over what the podcaster’s topics are nor how long he/she rambles on about them. Trying to skip through uninteresting sections of a podcast is frustrating, and while driving, can be dangerous. I’d much rather skim through my feed reader’s blog posts and only read what I’m interested in. I end up getting the same info in much less time. I’ll stick with NPR in the car, thanks.

On the other hand, I would argue that having students create podcasts can be a solid learning experience. For example, students might have to research a topic, summarize it in a concise and informative script, and then articulately record and edit their work. Essentially, they’d be learning something and then teaching it to others, which is a valuable exercise. I do sometimes wonder, though, if it’s worth the time. Is it just another tech-based classroom tool/toy? Is it a waste of time if nobody outside of the class ever listens to the podcasts? Personally, I don’t think so. I’d love to hear what others think.

I’m kinda on-board here, too. On the other hand, my listening and experimenting has been very limited, so I’m not ready to pass any judgment.

I’ve heard some ELL/foreign language teachers talk about the benefits, and I think I can see that.

I do enjoy podcasts (or videos, or podcast/slideshow combinations) of speakers and presentations that I want to hear/see, but can’t attend in person.

I also enjoy the podcasts over at TeachersTeachingTeachers.org because it’s a conversation that is often interesting but that I can’t always join “real time.”

The conversations on that site have made me consider doing some podcasting for the film club I sponsor. After watching a film, I distribute some reviews/critiques and we all (usually me and the students) sit around and talk. I think an *edited* recording of this conversation would be interesting/useful to students in the club who couldn’t make that meeting and parents (potentially). It might also serve as helpful insight/justification for the administration. (When we screened Fight Club, there were some concerns, but the conversation afterwards more than justified the viewing.)

So I do see some benefits, but I mostly agree with each of your four points. I wonder, though, if I might just be missing something …

I’m with you. I have three or four podcasts on my iPod that I keep meaning to listen to, but dang it, I just can’t. In the hour that I would listen to a podcast, I can read a couple dozen blog entries carefully (and I can make decisions about another few dozen that I don’t want to do more than skim.)

I did two or three podcasts on PTheory, but I came to the same conclusion you did…. plus, I noticed that I would podcast about an idea that I couldn’t get my thoughts together to blog about, which meant that it was even more of a blurt than my usual blog writing.

Where I think podcasts are useful for the adults are:
1) Conversations… when you have a good roundtable discussion where ideas are bouncing around, that’s interesting. It’s talk show.

2) Screencasting… there are tech tips that are better explained as a screencast than a write-up. The “Heavy-Metal Umlaut” screencast is the best example of how Wikipedia works that I’ve ever seen.

3) Some video-casting — I love watching Steve Jobs’ keynotes or the TEDTalks speechs…

4) Good interviews — a great interview can make someone really dig deep into ideas that don’t always come out in writing. I still think that Steve Hargadon’s questions for me when he interviewed me got me to articulate some ideas that had been rooting around in the brain. I don’t know if anyone else enjoyed it, but I went back to listen to what I said because I knew that some of what I said would form the genesis of a bunch of new posts and ideas.

But in the end, there’s still a TON of podcasting that I just can’t get into. A good podcast of an adult talking about a topic is very much the exception, not the rule.

Where I think podcasting is incredible is for our kids. The notion of developing performance skills, developing voice, developing media creation savvy is incredible. I watched what our kids did with their podcasts in English class, and I was blown away by the finished product. These kids are thinking about voice and authorship and real crafted performance in ways that wasn’t on my radar in 9th grade. I got into that in 11th grade when I did “TV Sports” for my high school, and those experiences were invaluable to my development. We can expand the opportunities for kids to experiment with their own voices with podcasting, and even if their audience is only their classmates and parents and friends, that’s still a huge improvement over the student teacher closed environment of the past.

But I’m not sure that 10,000 people need to listen to SLA students podcasting. In fact, I’m probably pretty sure they don’t.

No arguments here, although I do listen to several weekly podcasts (or “netcasts” as some would prefer to name them). The techno side of me enjoys listening to Leo Laporte at “TWIT” (This Week in Technology) and watching the video podcast at DL.TV (Ziff-Davis’s twice-a-week show). To me, they’re just delivering programming to me using a modernized medium — the first is a “radio show” that I can get in high fidelity via my laptop, and the second is a “television show,” but again using the Internet as the medium for delivery. I don’t own an ipod or similar device (my drive to/from work is also just five minutes like yours) but I enjoy the content at home on my laptop. I can even listen while I’m catching up on reading all of those verbose bloggers….

As for a better pedagogical rationale – I think that I’m in the same boat as you. As a math teacher, I struggle to come up with educational reasons to podcast – and I have to be honest in saying that I doubt that my students really care to hear my voice wafting through their earbuds when they’re at home over the weekend!

[I do enjoy the “MathGrad” podcast every few weeks — it’s a rather short seven or eight minute blurb on some reasonably interesting math topic by a doctoral candidate]

I’m not trying to deprecate them, but just not coming up with a good need for them in the school setting. In a “glass is half full” kind of way, I guess that I’m glad that the technology is available if I do need it sometime!

OK, I’ll bite, especially as all the comments so far just agree with Dan (yawn!).

a) I agree with Chris Lehman’s reason #2, #3, & #4, (not #1 unless they’re really intelligent, informed and or funny people conversing)
b) I’ve listened to scripted and unscripted podcasts and personally I prefer the former. Dave Warlick is an example. He also does interviews and podcasts some of his presentations, and those are more fun to listen to than to read.
c) Of course we can read faster than we can listen. So obviously, the time and place to listen to a podcast is when you don’t have access to the Internet and/or can’t read the blog. Duh. (Or when time is not a key issue. It isn’t always.) Or for listening to talks/presentations that can’t be read/don’t have a text. (Duh.)
d) Personally, I enjoy fitting faces and voices to people’s online writing, and one reason I enjoy listening to Dave Warlick’s podcast as well as read his blog from time to time is it helps me build a composite picture of the person and get to know them a little better (sound like a cop, don’t I?). Plus I just like that Carolina accent.

Dan, you crack me up, too, but maybe not for quite the same reasons as Nancy gives.. You really jump in there, feet first. Right there in para #2 you write I’ve listened to maaaaybe a couple of podcasts in my life. So, obviously this is a considered, researched opinion, right? I mean, I almost quit reading your post right there: gee, another unmarried marriage counselor, great. Who wants to read that kind of opinion? Vita brevis and all that. And all those people who do listen to podcasts, they’re all idiots, right?

Snark aside, tho, keep rattling the cages, man. We all need that from time to time.

[Edited by Dan to close an html tag.]

Thanks for the editing, Dan. I noticed my mistake too late and couldn’t fix it. I like preview buttons.

Yep, it’s not easy to just pull up the podcasts, which is part of my issue with Elgg as a school-blogging tool, but you can definitely listen to a bunch… enjoy:

SLA Elgg site

Dan,
While I am not an avid podcast listener, actually I think I may have listened to two total, I have to agree with many of your points and some of the others in the comments.

1. I can also read alot faster than I can listen. In the time it takes to listen to one 30-60 minute podcast I could have read 3-5 different full length articles.

2. I also have a 5 minute commute!!!!

3. One of the only reasons I think that I might want to listen to one is if it was a truly dynamic speaker that I just had to listen to and even then maybe I would just go to youtube and download the video (assuming it was there)

However, with all that said, I do see the possibility of using it to help kids who can’t seem to go anywhere without the IPOD plugged into their ears. Rick Scheibner had a post about “Grammar Gir” and her impact on the podcast world. My ELA teachers seemed to think that was interesting. Also I someday think that a teacher who records their lectures and class information could benefit from podcasting or even video podcasting. Students who were absent could get the work and follow along with the teacher at the same time. Thus allowing the student to be caught up, just not with the work but also with the class instruction. It would take an extremley techsavvy teacher to pull it off, hey what about Dan, but it may be worth it in the long run.

Brian
PS: I would link to stuff in the comments but I don’t know that much about HTMl

I think that there is another audience that we are overlooking here. What about students (and their teachers) who are not so “good” with text? While many of you hear are “expert” bloggers and blog readers, this is not the case for all. As teachers, we differentiate for our learners who are not strong in reading and/or writing skills. For them, the listening to a podcast may very well make understanding attainable. And the production of that podcast may be a very simple way for them to demonstrate that understanding.

Maybe not all subjects, maybe not all kids. But isn’t one of the fundamental ideas of web 2.0 accessibility and breaking down the barriers that kept all but the experts from participating. I love reading the blogs too, but let’s not forget that reading isn’t such an easy task for everyone.

As Dennis notes, some folks like to listen rather than read. I also think there’s power in a good interview. For example, the two DDDM interviews I’ve done so far on

http://www.castleconversations.org

have been well-received so far, both by my students and others (you’re a data guy, Dan: let me know what you think!). Hearing presentations I couldn’t attend, getting to hear people’s actual voices when usually I only interact them via text, being able to think and reflect via my iPod while biking or driving to work with a distant school district: these all have value for me. I do tend to like more structured podcasts (e.g., Steve Hargadon, presentations) but they don’t have to be so professionally-polished that they start to reek of inauthenticity…

I think the key for me is that it’s another tool. For me, personally, I haven’t gotten into podcasts either. But for other folks – it may be a way to learn and grow. I don’t want to toss out a tool just because it doesn’t work for me – it may be perfect for someone else. (I also have a short commute – I wonder if that might be the determining factor for a lot of folks.)

I also echo Chris’ and others’ comments about the voice – in both senses of that word – it gives our students. There’s a difference between reading what a student writes, and then hearing that same student actually speak it from the heart. The example I give my teachers is Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech (but you could pick others). If you read the text, it’s a good speech (maybe even a great speech). But I think most folks would agree that it doesn’t compare to hearing him deliver it . . .

Yeah, I watched Google’s Master Plan yesterday (or was it the day before). Saw it on Christian’s blog from your blog. I thought it was very well done. I talked with my staff a lot about those issues when I posted 2020 Vision – and shared EPIC 2014 with them at that time as well.

One of the things that scares me is that I’m still finding it hard to get them to think about all this (which was part of the purpose behind 2020 Vision). We’re so caught up in the day to day struggles of the classroom that it’s really hard to look forward a little bit. And if they aren’t aware of both the promise and the peril of Google and others, how can they help shape how it’s going to turn out?

Just came across CogDog’s list of “snazzy demos” for podcasting: http://cogdog.wikispaces.com/podcastdemo