Podcasts

The word podcast is used to refer to a non-musical audio or video broadcast that is distributed over the Internet. What differentiates a podcast from regular streaming audio or video is that the delivery method for podcasts is often done automatically through RSS.

In 2005, "podcast" was named the "[|word of the year]" by New Oxford American Dictionary and with the growth of podcasting over the last year and a half; it’s easy to see why. Podcasts take many forms, from short 1-10 minutes commentaries (like the ones used in this Learning 2.0 program) to much longer in person interviews or panel group discussions. There’s a podcast out there for just about every interest area and the best part about this technology is that **you don’t have to have an iPod or a MP3 player** to access them. Since podcasts use the MP3 file format, a popular compressed format for audio files, you really just need a PC (or portal device) with headphones or a speaker.

[|iTunes], the free downloadable application created by Apple is the directory finding service most associated with podcasts, but if you don’t have iTunes installed there are still plenty of options. There are many, many podcast directory and finding tools out there. Here are just three of the more popular ones that don’t, like iTunes, require a software download: o [|Podcast.net] o [|Podcastalley.com] o [|Yahoo Podcasts] . See also [|Educational Podcast Directory]

A few examples of k-12 Podcasts [] []

Create RSS for your podcast []

GCast []