The world of Podcasts

Before writing this post and choosing the Websites to insert in Del.icio.us I thought it was a good idea to investigate on the Web in order to understand what a Podcast exactly is. The term was not new to me: I think that a lot of us have been using this kind of tools but just ignored their names. I took some time to look for extra information and I read various definitions of the term but I still think that the explanation I found in Wikipedia is the most exhausting and clear. According to it, a podcast “a digital media file, or a related collection of such files, which is distributed over the Internet using syndacation feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers”. Initially it was used to give people the opportunity to share their “radio-style shows” on the Net but lately it became a way to share also Church sermons, conferences, public safety messages, school lessons and so on. So podcasts are now used as a learning material and students of foreign languages can download files on their Ipods or whatever mp3player then listen to them and practice. Of course this is a great invention: nowadays technology gives us the possibility to explore the language even out of the classrooms and learners are becoming more and more independent. In the past we waited for our English teacher to enter the classroom with a tape and a tape recorder so that we could listen to the daily dialogue and then discuss about the content and then read its transcription in the book. Do you remember? I remember it. Sometimes I start wondering if in the future students will ever need teachers: will technology replace our professors? That would be scaring but it’s dramatically possible and maybe that is what is going to happen, maybe it’s happening right now while we are writing our blogs.
As far as I’m concerned I never used podcasts too much, I mean sometimes surfing on the Net I stopped and listened to some files in the BBC Website and did some exercises in some unknown “cyber listening laboratory” just to test my level of English. I have never downloaded audio files in my mp3player which were not songs but I’m becoming more aware of the utility of these tools and maybe in the future I’m going to overcome my distrust toward technology and I’m going to try it out but for the moment I limited myself to look for meaningful Websites that has something to do with podcasts and English. At first I tried with Google but as I typed the words “podcast” and “education” a thousand Websites appeared and I got scared and I immediately turned to Del.icio.us because in this way the field was restricted so I could focus only on some selected Websites. The first one is about learning Business English through some dialogues and conversation: it provides interesting exercises aiming to improve and enhance the knowledge of vocabulary and phrases dealing with business. The audio files are basically for professionals but I think they can be used by students as well. Englishcaster.com is both for students and educators: it offers English lessons podcast and other study materials. the Websites gives the opportunity to listen to, review and submit podcasts and other English study resources. Students and teachers can also give a mark to podcasts considering their quality and utility and this is quite interesting so you can take a look to the appraisal before listening to the file and you can ignore those that other users had judged as bad. The last Website offers various audio files about breaking news. There are exercises and quizzes which help students to understand the news and the main contents and in the end there is also the opportunity to read the whole text. Exercises seem to be a little bit banal considering our level of English but audio files seem to be good, moreover I liked the idea of a Website about news which was not the BBC or the CNN.

I'm looking forward to reading your comments, let me know what you think!

See you next week!