Great Podcasts
After you listen to the great Podcasts from GEC Computers in the Classroom, where do you turn for your next sources of audio information?
You can keep your eyes open while surfing on the Internet and you'll find all kinds of them. With a cheap microphone and a computer, more and more people want to broadcast their own radio programs.
There is a sense in some camps that the term "podcast" was originated by Apple Computer and referred to something specific about their iPod. In reality, a podcast is simply an audio file that you share over the internet. By syndicating it, people can subscribe to your service if you're a provider or you can subscribe to someone else's service if they're providing it.
Regardless, it's a great concept and if you put your podcast on some device (including your desktop computer), you can stay up with the latest and the greatest.
Given all of the above, it should come as no surprise that one of the big sources for podcasting comes from Apple itself. You can easily access them from iTunes, a free download from the Apple website. http://www.apple.com/itunes. Do you need a portable devise to listen? Certainly not -- play them directly through iTunes.
After you load iTunes, click on the iTunes store icon. Your computer will connect online to the Apple iTunes store. Here there are lots of things for free and for pay. We're going to focus on the "for free" stuff. Much of the podcasts fall into that category.
Once at the store, click on Podcasts and choose the type that you want. In my case, I'm going to choose Technology.
From the collection of podcasts, choose the one that you want by "Subscribing" to it. You'll be asked to confirm that this is what you want and iTunes will download the most recent episode to your computer. From the iTunes menu, select Podcasts and you can view what you've just downloaded.
Lest you think this form of multimedia is all about technology and computers, take a look around the podcasts that are available to you.
In particular, check out Kids and Family. You can even download audio books for kids.
Professionally, there's even a category for Education. You can even learn to speak Italian online! This isn't just another example; it shows the power of syndication and repeated podcasts from a source. Participate lesson upon lesson to learn a particular skill.
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