19 April 2010

Thing 19: Podcasts = Love

How do I love thee, podcasts?  Let me count the ways:
  1. I love thee for thy convenience - there are a lot of radio broadcasts on NPR that I live and love to hear.  However, I'm not always actually in the car when they're on.  Podcasting has revolutionized the way I listen to these programs.  I subscribe to a number of them (including This American Life, which if you're not listening to, you're really, sorely missing out on), sync them on my iPod, and then I can listen at the gym, or in the car (even if they're not on the station), or even at home while I'm vacuuming or my husband's watching baseball.
  2. I love thee for thy entertainment value - Continuing in the same vein about my favorite NPR shows (not just This American Life, but also Car Talk and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me), I used to hate when I was slave to the radio and howling with laughter that I knew I'd have to retell and paraphrase whatever it was that made me so hysterical, and that I knew I wouldn't do it justice.  The new re-tell-ability (yes, I coined the phrase) is terrific, not just for giggles, but also because I've used a lot of them in class.
  3. I love thee for thy knowledge -  There are some fantastic podcasts that I've used in class, and legions more I need to look at for integration.  There are others I've used not to share with students but to deepen my own background about a text before I teach it.  Overall, I've been impressed by the quality of the humanities podcasts available through iTunes U, especially those created by museums and libraries. iTunes U, incidentally, also has what I think is the best directory system.  It's easy to search and provides just the right level of detail about the podcast.
  4. I love thee for thy cheapness - It's pretty cool that so many podcasts are free - I almost got carried away raving about how it's bringing knowledge to the people and breaking down some walls to information, but the truth is, you still need a computer to locate and hear the podcasts, so it's not nearly as proletariat as it could be, but it's a good start.

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad you mentioned that although many podcasts are free, the technology to listen to them is not.

    Where is that vocab wiki of yours? I need to look up "proletariat".

    ReplyDelete