Abstract
On the cutting edge of current technologies are portable media, where users can download information and take it with them to digest it anytime, anywhere. Some of the newest ways of sharing portable information using the Internet are podcasting and vodcasting. Podcasts are a distribution of audio files such as radio programs or music videos, over the web. A derivative of the term (and idea) of podcast is “vodcast,” also commonly referred to as a video podcast. A vodcast functions in much the same way as a podcast, except that instead of users downloading only audio files, they also download corresponding video files to their portable media players. While one might think that podcasting and vodcasting have the ability to revolutionize education and training, these advances are not stand-alone panaceas. However they do offer an incredible educational advantage in that their multimedia aspects attend to a variety of learning needs.
TopPodcasts/Vodcasts And The Literature
While the phenomena of podcasting and vodcasting are fairly recent, there have been some academic literature and research published on these mediums as a tool to aid in teaching and learning in the classroom. Much of this literature was written by educators who have chosen to employ podcasting and/or vodcasting in their classrooms. Other articles and studies were composed by technology professionals that chose to examine podcasting and vodcasting in terms of education.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Enhanced Podcasting: A combination of a PowerPoint presentation and audio files.
Vodcast: Also referred to as a Video Podcast, is a syndicated web feed of audio and video files available through the Internet
Syndication: Allows other sites to display updated content and information via RSS feeds, Atom, and news aggregators
Web: A collection of linked hypertext documents accessed via browsers on the Internet.
Feeds: Look much like the URLs found on websites, but end with RSS or XML
Podcast: A syndicated web feed of audio files available through the Internet.
Screencasting: A combination of a PowerPoint presentation with video and audio files.