cyborgsdodance

While I'm not as enthusiastic as Mike Dionne, who claims that podcasts come close to being the Holy Grail of utility in the classroom, I would agree that podcasts hold much potential in terms of increasing our awareness of the persuasive impact of sound in the multimodal messages we consume and produce daily. That said, I think we need to be critical of how we implement podcasts into our curriculum.

Evans, discusses using podcasts to supplement readings and analysis of literature. I'm sure that the new medium was motivational for students. Yet, I wonder how much the potential of the podcast mode of expression and genre of information delivery was harnessed.

What I worry about is that we will use this new tool only as a glorified voice recorder to produce and share vocal performances of text. While recording the voice has benefits in terms of language awareness and comprehension, it does not address all of the many other sounds that layer in between and on top of the voice to influence its meaning and delivery. Through a thoughtful consideration of the podcast genre, its community defined conventions and uses, we can better understand how podcast distribution is changing cultural flows of information.