e-tivity 6

Podcasts

A podcast is a multimedia file (audio or video) distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds. Podcasts can be downloaded onto personal computers and mobile devices like mp3 players so that users can listen to or watch the podcast whenever and wherever they want to. Some podcasts are also offered in streaming, i.e. you can listen to or watch it directly online. The term was coined by combining the word "broadcasting" (from radio and television) and "iPod" (the most popular mp3 player). The number of podcasts available online has grown exponentially in recent years. The BBC, radio RAI, NPR, etc. all offer podcasts of their most popular programs. But podcasting has grown beyond that. Many amateurs have also taken up podcasting producing their home-based radio programs and putting them online. Universities like Stanford and Duke in the United States now offer many lectures online in the form of podcasts. To sum up, there is now a quantity of freely downloadable high-quality materials available in English that learners could only dream of in the past. Imagine, you don’t have broadband at home, so you download the podcast at the Uni or an Internet point, upload it onto your mp3 player and listen to it whenever and wherever you want.

Purpose: To explore the world of podcasts to find several that you can use to practice your listening skills in English and to enter the world of podcasts by creating your own.

Task:

1 - Search for podcasts that might be useful for English listening practice. Do a search for the words “podcast” and another word like “English”, “education”, etc. in Google, del.icio.us and odeo.

2 – Find at least 3 that are good (unfortunately as is the case in the blogosphere, you’ve got to be critical!) and save them in del.icio.us.

3 – Take notes on what the podcasts you chose offer and how they could be helpful.

4 – Make a post to your personal blogs in which you list the urls of the podcasts you’ve chosen explaining why you’ve chosen them and upload an audio message created in odeo to the post (see post in course blog on using odeo) giving your impressions of the world of podcasts.

Respond: Read the other students’ messages and go visit at least one of the podcasts they have suggested. Then write a comment to their blogs giving your impressions.

Timeline: Friday, November 24 (task), Monday, November 27 (respond).

Here’s an example of a vocabulary learning podcast I found in odeo. You can either put the link or embed the player into your blog. You can also subscribe to the blog and podcast via RSS feeds.


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