Power of spoken words

It is perhaps most appropriate that the focus of our first subject special podcast is on English and literature. The power of spoken words not only is symbolic of the history of radio but also the advent of podcasting.

The latest podcast, entitled "Subject Special: English and literature" features a sample of podcast channels that are ideal for educational use with learners from 5-19 years of age. There are, for example, podcasts on reading, books, traditional and original stories, the etymology of words, sacred poetry from around the world and a tale about the Bard - William Shakespeare of course!

The seven podcast channels featured in our latest podcast are:

• Bobby Bucket Podcasts
• Book Voyages
• Storynory
• The Kedou Chronicles - A Little Bear's Podcast
• Podictionary Weekly
• Poetry Chaikhana
• Shakespeare-upon-iPod

Each of these, together with other podcast channels about English and literature, can be found in the subject category of our Podcast directory for educators. Links are provided to the websites for each podcaster, their RSS feed and any iTunes listing. Our latest podcast will also be included in the iTunes podcast directory - "Podcasts for educators".

The podcast only features a few of the many channles that are listed in our English and Literature category which cover a range of topics. Others include podcasts about fairy tales, short stories of famous American authors such as Mark Twain and H.G. Wells, poetry, learning English as a spoken language and for business, materials for creative writing as well as lectures, conversations and readings with a wide range of writers.

Despite the increase of video media that is now becoming available as podcasts, audio still retains a magical quality for the listener, young or old, and helps to stimulate your imagination. The advent of podcasting in this digital age now provides us with even more opportunities to marvel at the "power of spoken words". The work of podcasters in combining numerous topics provides us all with a rich and varied experience anytime, anywhere. Often original in scope, the podcasts are presented first hand and convey a real sense of purpose.

If you know of other good quality podcasts on English and literature topics that would be ideal for use with children and young people, then do please let us know or submit details about the podcast. We are always keen to showcase and promote educational podcasts from around the world.

---

Icebergs and Podcasts?

Are you asking what is the connection between icebergs and podcasts? Well, everyone knows that we only see the top of an iceberg floating on the sea, the vast proportion remains hidden out of sight. Podcasts listed in podcast channels are sometimes like icebergs too, especially when RSS feeds are listed in podcast directories.

As podcasting becomes more popular and used to retrieve information (albeit in an audio or video format), the number of podcasts can become large and unmanageable. Some podcasts feeds are now starting to contain more than 300 episodes. So using techniques to search and locate podcasts also becomes an important skill for children and young people to use.

In a previous posting, we suggested that providing an informative podcast description for a podcast was important to convey some sense of the audio or video content. This is where search facilities can then come into their own for retrieving relevant podcasts.

You will find that different podcast directories work in different ways. Some will provide facilities to search:

• the podcast channel titles and/or descriptions;
• the podcast episodes (titles and descriptions);
• for keywords (incorporated in the podcast directory or RSS feed);
• across all subject categories or within some categories.

By trial and error, teachers and learners will soon discover which podcast directories provide the most effective search facilities for the task in hand. Every process has its strengths and weaknesses. However, choose the podcast directory wisely. Searching some podcast directories may retrieve items that might not be "family friendly" and would, therefore, be unsuitable for use with children and young people.

In the podcast directory for educators, our approach is based on a single principle - to make the process as easy as possible for children and young people. Not every podcast is listed for a podcast channel because we decided to limit the number to between 15-20 podcasts. The feedback we had received suggested that teachers and learners find it more useful to include the descriptions rather than displaying a long list of podcast titles to scroll through first.

As a result, there are often more podcasts than those displayed on the screen. At the last count, the largest number of selected podcasts in just one channel in our directory was 89, meaning there is only 20 on display - hence the iceberg analogy! Now this is where search facilities can really come into their own.

If you have a group of children or young people undertaking research into a topic in a subject area, you can encourage them to search the podcast titles and descriptions within a subject area. Depending on the search criteria, this will usually locate a manageable number of podcasts to explore further in date order. You can watch a short demonstration of this process by selecting the "Searching for podcasts" option in our help pages section of the website.

Using our search facilities, the podcasts are listed in order with the newest first. You can also be confident that the content will be "family friendly" as all the podacsts are carefully selected for educational use. But like any search process this can sometimes produce surprising results - just like icebergs!

---

Podcasts on Curriculum Online

We are delighted to have been successful in our application to become a Registered Content Provider with Curriculum Online. This means that our podcast directory for educators, schools and colleges is now part of the UK-government's education initiative.



Launched by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in January 2003, Curriculum Online (www.curriculumonline.gov.uk) is a highly searchable, online catalogue of thousands of multimedia resources, all linked to the curriculum of subjects taught in schools in England.

Resources cover Foundation/Early Years to Key Stage 4, and SEN. It is the definitive list of all resources which can be bought with a school's eLC money (eLearning Credits). Many are free. eLCs are available to all Government-funded nursery, primary and secondary schools in England, up to and including Key Stage 4, as well as Foundation and SEN.

Users can search the website by subject, title, size of resource or supplier. They can also search specifically for SEN, Foundation or interactive whiteboard resources; or for free resources only. There is the also the option to browse resources relating to a National Curriculum Programme of Study or a QCA Scheme of Work.

---

Podcast titles and descriptions

Podcasters spend a lot of creative energy on creating and producing the audio/video content of their podcasts. In our reviews, we he have encountered some really imaginative, well scripted and interesting content that is suitable for use with children and young people.

However, sharing information about a podcast in the RSS Feed is also crucial. Take a look at this partial listing as the RSS Feed is presented on a web page from a podcast directory (based on a real example):

THE SCHOOL PODCAST: Episode 21
This is our weekly podcast for Friday 3 Feb. 2006.

THE SCHOOL PODCAST: Episode 20
This is our weekly podcast for Friday 27 Jan. 2006.

Whilst the information is factually accurate, there are no clues about the content or topic for the podcasts. This is the same whether the listing appears in a podcast directory on a website or in iTunes.

As the robots of search engines - such as Google and Yahoo - trawl the websites of podcast directories and the associated RSS Feeds, there is very little in this example that is unique to index. In the classroom, this can create a problem for students of all ages when they are searching, locating and evaluating information in podcasts using search engines or on iTunes.

Changing the titles and descriptions could present information that is more useful and retain some of the existing elements:

Episode 21: News and our History Topic
Students in Class 4 present this week's news and share information on our history topic about "World War II".

Episode 20: News and a Poetry Competion
Students in Class 5 present this week's school news and share readings submitted to the local Poetry Competion for 2006.

A search on the term "Poetry" in the title and/or description would bring up Episode 20 for example. Of course, the descriptions could include even more information - if appropriate. This is also true for the content of the subtitles and summaries required for the RSS Feeds in iTunes.

So, podcast titles and descriptions do matter. As well as becoming an effective "marketing tool", meaningful titles and descriptions can make information about any podcast useful and help to improve the user experience. After all, isn't the purpose of utilising all this technology infrastructure about making informed choices?

---