From Bjoern Hassler

The prime motivator for the use of podcasts within a course should be the achievement of the learning outcomes or specific objectives of a learning activity. A review of the current course structure and pedagogy will allow strengths and weaknesses to be identified. As a tutor you may wish to address a weakness with the introduction of podcasts. By addressing the questions on the pedagogical and technical issues and relating these to learning theory the tutor will be in a stronger position to assess whether the introduction of podcasts will help achieve the learning outcomes or objectives [1].

Contents 1 Podcasting Activities 2 The podcasting process 3 Styles of podcasting 4 Files, formats and sizes

1 Podcasting Activities

TUTOR INITIATED PODCASTS	STUDENT INITIATED PODCASTS
Entire lectures	Reflections on an activity
Visiting lecturer	Summary of key idea/theory
Pre lecture material	Discussion between two or more students of a pertinent issue/idea/theory
Seminar discussion	Assignment work – presentation, field report or project
Supplementary topics that you may not have time to cover in the lecture	Interview a specialist in a specific field
Supplementary topics explaining difficult/complex areas of course	Interview other students
Authentic audio materials	Podcast to encourage peer evaluation
Feedback to students on assignments
Summary of journal articles on a research topic
Record interviews with specialists in a specific field
Provide information for field trip activities
Provide administrative information
Interactive podcasts with tasks/questions and links to URL sites
Provide pronunciation of technical language or relevant sounds (e.g. Korotkoff sounds when measuring blood pressure)

2 The podcasting process

The means by which podcasts are created and released is simplified to three common steps:

Capture: The content itself needs to be recorded and digitised. This could be via a simple audio recorder through to a professional film crew.

Process: These files may need some editing work to improve quality, and then will need compressing into the smallest suitable file format.

Publish: These smaller files are then placed on a public web server and details about the content is added to a subscription system that supports RSS and podcasts.

3 Styles of podcasting

It is worth considering who your intended audience is when preparing to podcast, and also the style in which you wish to present your content. Whilst audio only recordings are much easier to do from a technical standpoint, the material being talked about needs to be easy to understand without visual references. Lecture recording is good as a reference aide for current students, but viewed out of context by someone from an unrelated field may prove difficult for them to understand. Screencasts - where a video is produced of a slideshow with a narrated soundtrack - are popular ways to provide helpful visual references without requiring camera work and allows the presenter to remain unseen whilst delivering an engaging talk.

4 Files, formats and sizes

Audio - is the most common form of podcast content. Files are encoded/compressed using the MP3 algorithm and typically produce hourlong recordings in files of 60Mb or under. For audio recordings where extra quality is required (e.g. music performances), larger file sizes with higher quality settings can be used.

Video - is a popular format for podcasts and offers a variety of uses ranging from camera footage of a performance, to captured slide presentations, to images/photos akin to a slide show. The format used is called MP4, and utilises the H264 video codec to compress the visual data. Typical outputs will be 640 pixels wide, in either a 4:3 or 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio, and use 700kbps of data, resulting in an hour’s video producing a file size of 350Mb.

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