Podcasting - Fishing from a tent?

I write this blog entry whilst feeling really sick. Like the Romantics and the Beats, these piece is inspired whilst in a drug induced haze. I hasten to add this is not laudanum, opium or mescalin but Lemsip and paracetamol which are much more prosaic as is probably my entry on the theme of "podcasting"

Podcasts Experienced
I was familiar with the podcast as I had already experimented with the podcasts of Melvyn Bragg's "In our Time" For this reason and for ease as I cannot cope with any difficult today I went immediately to the BBC Podcast Directory. I am regular listener of Radios Four and Seven so the directory gave me opportunity to investigate the gamut of BBC broadcasting. The setting up of the feed was easy.The task of identifying something of interest is made easy by the search options of title, station and genres. This site fulfills the Reithian remit of the BBC to inform, educate and entertain and demonstrates how the BBC adoption of new technologies to support it original remit is worthy of its Trustee status and the license fee. These podcasts have high production values and are an archive of popular culture, represent a consensus of opinion and a thermometer of contemporary debate. They can be seen as authoritative. They support a corporate brand and ethos. These can be use as a resource for the researcher.

Next I looked at the "Podcasts from Oxford University"
Looking at this site I felt that, like the BBC site there was a strong brand identity and ethos reflected in their production, additionally I felt the University was attempting to make it research and resources accessible to wider audience and engage with new constituencies in recognition of what a university is in its fullest sense. I was impressed by the range of Podcasts which include both audio and visual media which highlighted the value of these media in the teaching of linguistics, foreign languages and art history. I love the irony encapsulated in the podcast entitled "Russian Ab Initio Students: Pre-course listening material" Modernity and tradition! The handy logos indicating copyright status are helpful. Unhelpfully, I tried to access and add to Google Reader a podcast from own college, a lecture by Tony Benn which I had attended which was remarkable for a humanism that was witty and passionate, honest and opinionated and stirred the soul to take up the baton and achieve things in the world and not succumb to complacency. I was unsuccessful. Feeling too sick to preserve with accessing this. As resource these podcasts are invaluable for learning and teaching.

Podcast Alley
Feeling more sick now. I had used Podcast Alley before. Podcast Alley reflects the popular end of the Podcast spectrum. Feeling weary I cursory explored the myriad of podcasts which revealed a few pionts for consideration. Typing in "Climate Change" I was alerted to the imprecision of the search mechanism getting references to "Changing career", "A Year of change" and "How to change your sex ..." Under those actually on climate change I found those by organisations, educational institutions, governments, lobbying groups, political parties, companies and enthusiastic individuals. These can of course be filtered by the domain name for example: OffsetCarbon.co.uk/Climate Change, www.Carbonbalanced.org, www.siemens.com/cities. As resource I feel the podcast of Podcast Alley shares many of the characteristics of the blog which I record in "Bloggy thoughts about Blogs" so I will leave this paragraph here and concentrate on feeling ill.

The Podcast as a Resource:
The podcast is an an invaluable information resource I feel. What struck at me at first was the power and significance of the human voice captured in its richness and intensity. The podcast captures the nuances of intonation, subtle changes of pace and emphasis of speaking voice which make it an tool of communication. All these are lost the printed versions of lectures and speeches of the past. Imagine hearing the original sermons of the Tractarians, the lectures of Ruskin, Dickens's public performances, the great political speeches of Gladstone and Disraeli as recorded in Handsard as a podcast. All of which can made available to the research of today. I recently read an the article "Sonic attack from a Florentine Flirt" by Robert Attar in his column "News from the Journals" in BBC History Magazine February 2010 pg. 17 and realised how important sound and its absence can be.

This led to me think that the podcast is a valuable medium for the preservation of the sounds that surround us. It records the auditory world that we inhabit that is instant and ephemeral. Once a word is spoken it is gone never to be recaptured in that original coalescence of thought and sound. The podcast captures this ephemerality for posterity. It seems, for the moment at least, to be an appropriate medium for the preservation of audio media which threatened by the transitory technologies of tape, CD, blue-ray, shellac and vinyl.

The podcast reveals the variety of forms and functions that auditory communication provides to the listener, the polemical and political and, the educational and entertaining. All these provide a valuable resource to researcher.

The auditory nature of the podcast can lend value and interest to the teaching of students, not only in providing information in the multi-media environment but transferable skills of listening and interpersonal communication skills.

The podcast offers new ways for the dissemination of information in the mobile environment letting us listen where and when we want to listen which perhaps brings to the fore new issues about our receptivity of the auditory world in which we live and how we listen and what we hear.

Must find an opportunity to read "Podcasting in Plain English"

Having written this blog I now going to lay back on the sofa and drowsily listen to the soothing tones of Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time". Thanks to the 23 Team for giving me something to do to wile away the hours of headache, nausea, rheumy eyes and prosaically runny nose!