Thing 15: Podcasts

I've been listening to podcasts pretty regularly for about the last year. When I first found out about them I listened almost exclusively to live concerts/shows from around the world. I found out about Explosions in the Sky from a podcast. NPR has some great podcasts for that kinda stuff (ie. "All Songs Considered", "OTR", etc.). NPR's site is kinda like YouTube for radio broadcasts; easy to search, archived shows, weird variety. Science Weekly has some interesting podcasts. One of the first I listened to was an overview of Charles Darwin and his evolutionary theory. It was pretty amazing. That led to other "brainy" podcasts like one on "String Theory", bioethics, economics of conservation, etc.

I like that teachers are broadcasting lessons to their students. I like decentralizing information like this. Students don't need to be "in this room at this time". They can sit in on the lessons when and where it's most convenient for them. If questions arise they can post to the "comments" and have their questions answered by literally hundreds of other viewers. It's inexpensive to produce a podcast and you don't really need to have any significant technological background to get it out there.

Hey wait a minute. This is starting to sound like "16 Things"...and Web 2.0. Ohhhhh I totally stepped in it that time.

I am about 78% sure (and that's a pretty high percentage for me) that Walt W. would be crazy about podcasting. And if he did "podcast" he would call his show, "I Am He Who Podcasts Daily" and it would be available on the NPR site. His parents would tell all their friends that, "Yeah, Walt is doing that little podcast of his still. I guess it's pretty popular. That's what he tells us anyways", but they probably wouldn't listen to it all that often. Maybe like, a couple times a month. They're busy people ya know. You can sympathize with them a little, can't you?