Thing 11 - Podcasts

I'd previously used Podcasts through iTunes - I found the ones I enjoyed most were radio shows (such as Adam and Joe or Russell Brand - which possibly shows how long ago I listened to them!). I subscribed to a few TV show podcasts, but found them to be overly promotional with not enough content. Like Helen, I also found that I just ran out of time to listen to podcasts regularly - the average radio show can be a good couple of hours long, after all.


This Thing, however, introduced me to a few aspects of Podcasts which I hadn't previously considered:

• Google Reader: As mentioned above, I had used iTunes before. I worried that with RSS I would lose some of the ease-of-use (no automatic loading onto my MP3 player, etc.) I was accustomed to. I'm also not one to sit and listen to things - I much prefer to listen when am on the go (especially travelling somewhere - though as Helen mentioned, chortling quietly to yourself can earn you some funny looks!). I definitely found less impetus to actually download and listen to podcasts when I received them this way - however, with podcasts with a higher volume of broadcasts, it encouraged me to pick and choose which ones I actually downloaded. This way, at least, podcasts which made their way onto my hard drive or MP3 player were ones I had actively chosen to listen to.




• Educational Podcasts: I had heard of iTunes U before, but never really experimented with it. Despite the large and diverse amount of podcasts on offer however, I must admit that I got slightly distracted by some of the content for the next Thing and ended up subscribing to the RSS feeds of some of the downloadable video lectures through Yale Courses instead. Nonetheless, I think this podcasts are quite an interesting medium to use in an academic context - but the quality of different sources is, at the moment at least, rather varied.

Image courtesy of Apple.com