Profcasting

Adrian Miles coins the term “profcasting” about academic podcasting:

One of the reasons podcasting has had such an easy adoption within universities is that the form fits so comfortably within existing teaching models. […] The problems with it, […] It is asymmetric (I talk to you, you listen), it constructs the learner as passive, and it struggles to provide room for clarification and commentary (dialogue). On the other hand it can be very effective for those students who cannot attend the lecture […]

Then he suggests that academic podcasting should learn from radio:

So in profcasting, instead of having the expert deliver the lecture, imagine three of the experts having an informed, directed conversation about the topic of the week. […] the material would be compelling and generally much stronger than the direct lecture.

What I think is most important is that we remember that moving on to using a new medium also involves changing the storytelling (but not the message).