Audiocasting in the digital age
Part I: New technology offers students the chance to broadcast to the IPod
by Gary Clites
Scholastic journalism is all about learning by doing. Our students write and edit newspapers, design and publish yearbooks, and broadcast to their schools. Teaching audio broadcasting, however, has proven more problematic. Doing shows live during school has never proven functional, and while a handful of low-power school-based radio stations exist, their range is generally less than a mile making them useful only in the biggest cities where the population of a school lives in one self-contained neighborhood. Then there’s streaming audio over the Internet. A neat idea, but one with a very small following since most of us have proven completely uninterested in listening to the radio over our laptops.
A new technology offers communications educators a solution and a unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a brand new medium. We’ve all noticed the explosion in ownership of IPods and other digital audio players over the last few years. (I can honestly say that my IPod has become one of my most prized possessions.) What if your students could create audio programming, then deliver it directly to your school population via their IPods? A new system called IPodder makes exactly this scenario possible. In this issue, we’ll explore the new technology, next time a discussion of how to use it to create your own Podcasts.
Before we get to the nuts and bolts, a quick word on the technology. This type of programming is what’s being called in the broadcasting business “packetized data” or “on-demand” programming. The concept is that rather than streaming broadcasts continually to the audience as stations have done since the 1930’s, programs are stored in a central database, then uploaded to the receiver whenever the viewer or listener wants them. In this model, which many in the business believe represents the future of television and radio, networks would no longer schedule programs to run one time a week. Rather, they would make them available and the viewer would choose when to tune in. Already, larger cable providers are offering movies and programming on-demand to be uploaded to viewer’s TiVo recorders for viewing at off-schedule times. The cable industry sees the technology as their best weapon in competition with satellite providers who currently have no way of delivering off-schedule programming to subscribers.
IPodder is a utility program that downloads MP3-based audio programs automatically or on-demand to your computer whenever a new version of a particular show is available. Although it was initially developed specifically for the IPod, in October of 2004 a version was released which works with any digital audio device that is supported by Windows Media Player - which should cover most of them. In June, Apple made receiving podcasts that much more seamless by integrating podcasting into their free, popular cross-platform ITunes music management program (for information, visit www.apple.com/podcasting/; for a free download, visit www.apple.com/itunes/download/). So far, Apple offers all podcast downloads free.
The still fairly new IPodder technology was developed by former MTV VJ Adam Curry with assistance from Internet broadcasting expert Dave Winer and other programmers. Simply put, it allows users to download audio programs loaded onto the web in what is called RSS format (an acronym for Really Simple Syndication). To download a program, you simply point and click at the title of the show. After the file streams to your computer, you upload it to your digital audio device and listen to it at your leisure in the car, while jogging, etc.
The most comprehensive clearing house for these files was created by Curry and can be found at www.ipodder.org. The same site offers free downloads of IPodder (donations accepted) and links to other versions of the program both free and for sale (some, like IPodderX [ipodderx.com], cost money because they offer enhanced features). Other programming directories are springing up regularly, notably DigitalPodcast.com and Podcast.net. Their proliferation should remind the tech-savvy of the early days of the web when search engines like Google and Yahoo struggled for survival against dozens of alternatives.
The number of Podcasts available online is still relatively small. As of this writing, DigitalPodcast.com lists just over 2,600. Sounds like a lot, but not when you consider how narrowly focussed most of them are. The majority represent the work of amateurs, making them of wildly varying quality, but still very entertaining listening. As I write, more and more professional radiocasts are being offered as Podcasts, including popular titles like Air America’s The Al Franken Show, and the BBC’s In Our Time. A number of popular National Public Radio shows had just come online as this article was written.
What does all this have to do with you? The simplicity of the IPodder technology makes moving student-created audio programming onto the IPod a logical step for journalism teachers. While the democratic nature of the Internet will allow their work to compete side-by-side with that of the professionals. Want to create a weekly school-based news broadcast; a student talk show featuring the staff of the school newspaper discussing issues that matter to their readers; a half-hour program showcasing the work of talented young people in your school? IPodder can allow you to record, upload, and distribute that content via the Internet so that interested students can receive the programming on their home computers and listen on their MP3 players.
Almost exactly a decade ago, I began writing about the then-new World Wide Web and its applications in the journalism classroom. IPodder and the concept of distributing student work via packetized data over the ‘net offers just as fresh an opportunity to media teachers and an exciting chance for students to find new audiences while learning about cutting-edge computer distribution of programming.
Check the next issue for a more specific discussion of how your students can create podcasts for IPodder and distribute them via the Internet.
© Gary Clites, 2005