Leave it to my alma mater to put together a stellar use of podcasting to keep alumni connected to the institution:

Stanford on iTunes

The site is composed of a public site for alumni that includes
lectures, music, sports, and news. The system also supports a private
site that contains course materials for registered students.

To download you start at a page that allows you to select from a variety of topics:

I immediately went to the faculty lectures and found a wonderful
collection of things that were recorded at the 2005 reunion. At the top
of my listening list:

Larry Diamond: Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq
Ron Rebholz: Sex, Lies, and Theater: Shakespeare for Today
Multiple Authors: Presidential Politics and Foreign Policy

Now that this feed is in the podcast area of my iTunes, I can
browse through this material at my own pace and get immediate access on
my desktop to any new material as it is published.

This is a great application of podcasting for alumni. Now I hope
Stanford opens the channel up to alumni-created podcasts so that it can
truly be a model of Learning 2.0.

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I stopped by the Apple Store in Cambridge today and took a look at the video Ipods on display. I think they are a superb tool for mobile learning. At the Otter Group we are planning to load them up with video and audio graphics podcasts to replace distributing things via the web and on DVD. Aixa has put together this nice graphic to give you an idea of what a video Ipod might look like as a elearning course platform:

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From Chicago Tribune

Missed class? Try a podcast

Digital recordings of lectures allow college students with MP3 players to catch lessons or just catch up wherever and whenever they want

By Jodi S. Cohen

Chicago Tribune higher education reporter

October 20, 2005

When Purdue University senior Marcos Kohler skipped a physics class to attend a concert in Chicago, he didn't have to borrow a classmate's notes to catch up.

Instead, he connected his iPod to a computer, downloaded the lecture, and from the comfort of a campus coffee shop, listened to the two-hour discussion on particle physics.

“It re-creates the entire class experience,” said Kohler, 22, who missed another lecture at the West Lafayette, Ind., campus when he overslept for the 1:30 p.m. class. A video conference class would be even better, he said, but “to go from paper printouts to audio, this is a step in the right direction.”

It's a step that a small but growing number of professors are trying. By turning class lectures into podcasts–free audio recordings that students can download to their iPods or other portable players–students can skip the lecture hall but still hear the lecture. Supporters say podcasts help students who miss a class or want to review the material, while professors get points for being flexible and using the latest, hippest gadget.

More traditional academics fear that by listening to lectures on the run, students will miss out on learning that can happen only when students and instructors come together.

Professors have posted lecture notes, PowerPoint slides and other written class material online for years, but instructors only recently began testing the best uses of the popular audio technology.

At Drexel University in Philadelphia, a chemistry professor assigns podcasted lectures, recorded last semester, for homework, then uses class time to review problems. At the University of Michigan, lectures can be automatically delivered to dentistry students' computers or portable devices.

And at the University of Hawaii, hundreds of students in a computer science class are required to show up at a lecture hall only twice a semester–for the midterm and final. Instead of a textbook, they buy a small iPod at the bookstore, though most students already have one, the course professor said.

Universities have found other ways to test podcasting, using it to publicize campus news and broadcast Sunday mass.

A newscast about coming events at Allegheny College begins: “Sit back, relax, enjoy. If you're in the car, drive safely while you listen. If you're at the gym … stay focused on what you're doing and be safe.”

The California Institute of Technology admissions office last week released an 11-minute podcast for prospective students that leaves listeners with the impression that the school is nerdy, in a hip kind of way.

Rick Bischoff, admissions director at Caltech, said a podcast is a perfect way to grab the attention of busy high school seniors.

“I want high school students to listen and imagine, `That is a community I want to be part of.' Or say, `That doesn't sound like any place that I want to be a part of.'”

Some universities, such as Purdue and North Carolina's Duke University, have university-wide programs that make it easy for professors to podcast.

Purdue this fall introduced a podcasting service called BoilerCast that records and downloads lectures to the school Web site at professors' requests. About 60 professors are using the service, and their students can access the lectures as soon as 10 minutes after class.

Since Aug. 22, when the program began, the Web site has had more than 34,000 downloads, said Michael Gay, Purdue's manager of broadcast networks and services.

Erica Carlson, one professor podcasting her lectures, said attendance in her 22-student seminar class on thermal and statistical physics has not declined.

Carlson downloads her lectures to iTunes as well as the Purdue site. After she was featured on the home page of the iTunes Web site, the number of subscribers to her podcast shot up to 750 from 100. A history major e-mailed to say he enjoyed her lectures, as did an engineer who graduated from college years ago.

“When I saw the subscribership shoot up to 750, I started getting nervous. I love an audience, but an audience of 750 that I can't read or get feedback from is intimidating,” Carlson said.

Her two-hour class hasn't changed, she said.

“We run the course just like we did before. Just now it is more accessible.”

Duke University professor Richard Lucic, who has 27 students in an introductory computer science course, podcasts lectures and also requires students to listen to independent podcasts related to class topics.

The easy availability of his lectures hasn't affected attendance, he said, probably because class participation counts for 15 percent of a student's grade.

Meredith Tenison, a Duke senior in Lucic's class, has missed only one class but still downloads and listens to the lectures before writing weekly papers and putting together presentations required for the course.

“If there is a gap in my notes, I go back to get the context,” said Tenison, who also listens to podcasts about wine, South Africa and Duke basketball. “You can be doing your laundry or doing your homework. It's amazing how efficient you can be with your time.”

But Naomi Baron, an American University linguistics professor, said podcasting lectures makes it too easy for students to cut class or mentally check out. It also condones the idea that a student can learn just as well by listening to a lecture on a couch as in a classroom.

“I want to believe that what I'm doing in class is not canned and has something to do with the people who are there,” said Baron, an expert in language and computer technology.

Tenison's mother, who is paying for her daughter's education, also said she doesn't see a podcast as a substitute for class.

“I would be rather upset with that,” said Elizabeth Tenison, who said she isn't worried about her daughter skipping class. “Part of going to a university is hearing alternate points of view … and that would be lost in large part if students didn't attend. They would hear it, but they wouldn't be participating.”

For the 600 students in David Nickles' two computer science classes at the University of Hawaii, there are no traditional lectures. Nickles records lectures from his office and students listen to them on the bus, on the beach, in dorm rooms.

In his orientation podcast, after an intro drumbeat, he explains the unconventional style.

“We will be taking lecture out of the lecture hall and putting it into your pocket,” he said. “This approach will open up your schedule in that you will have the lecture with you all the time. When you have time to listen to lecture, you listen to it.”

In a throwback to the old ways, he shows up at a lecture hall once a week to hold optional review sessions.

About half the students join him — for extra credit.

jscohen@tribune.com

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“Thanks for all of your guidance during [the Reframing Conflict class],
it was great timing, because this conflict really exists and I actually
worked through this conflict based on what you were enlightening our
thoughts about.”

- Mike Lovett

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Are there generational differences in how people prefer to learn? This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education reports
on research done by Richard Sweeney, university librarian at the New
Jersey Institute of technology says “yes.” I am squarely in the boomer
generation, so it is hard for me to judge how accurate this is. Could
those of you who read this blog who are “Millenials” weigh in and let
us know if you agree with these certainly gross but interesting
generalizations?

Born between roughly 1980 and
1994, the Millennials have already been pegged and defined by
academics, trend spotters, and futurists: They are smart but impatient.
They expect results immediately. They carry an arsenal of electronic
devices – the more portable the better. Raised amid a barrage of
information, they are able to juggle a conversation on Instant
Messenger, a Web-surfing session, and an iTunes playlist while reading
Twelfth Night for homework. Whether or not they are absorbing the fine
points of the play is a matter of debate…..
He was walking through the library one afternoon when he noticed a
student watching a video of a lecture given by a popular professor of
mathematics. Mr. Sweeney assumed that the student was in the
professor's course, but the student bashfully told Mr. Sweeney that he
was in another professor's class. “He reluctantly went on to describe,”
the library director says, “that he could learn the material better
from this professor on this video.”
It was then, Mr. Sweeney says, that he had the first inkling that
students these days are more apt to take control of their learning and
choose unconventional, technological methods to learn better. He talked
with the director of distance education and learned that the largest
percentage of distance-education students at the institute were
students already on the campus.
Soon he noticed more and more students gathered in groups at tables in
the library, passing around information on their laptops, pulling
information off the Internet, and learning together.
“In some cases, they weren't going to class,” he says. “This was their
class. They elected to work in a group and skip a particular class,
which worried me.”
But he was looking at it from his own perspective, he acknowledges.
From their perspective, he says, the behavior was simply “practical”:
how to learn the material as fast as possible, with the least hassle.
“The technology was a huge enabler for them to be able to do the things
they do differently,” he says.
Mr. Sweeney then embarked on research about the generation, reading
what other scholars and commentators had to say about the newly dubbed
Millennials…..
Sitting in his office, its walls covered with pictures of his six
children (two of whom are Millennials), Mr. Sweeney ticks off some of
those differences:
“They have no brand loyalty,” he says. They “accept as their right” the
ability to make choices and customize the things they choose.
They are more educated than their parents and expect to make more
money. “Many more have changed majors and expect to change jobs and
careers,” Mr. Sweeney says. But they often wait until they are already
well into a major or a career track before they decide to make a
change, he adds.
Playing with gizmos and digital technology is second nature to them.
“They like portability, and they are frustrated by technology that
tethers them to a specific location,” he says. Studies show that
Millennials don't read as much as previous generations did. They prefer
video, audio, and interactive media.
They multitask. “They are much more likely to mix work and play than we
are,” he says, “playing a game or chatting while they are doing an
assignment.”
“In grade school, they were pushed to collaboration,” which explains
the popularity of group study in college today, Mr. Sweeney says. “The
collaboration,” he adds, “is both in-person and virtual.”
Moreover, “they want to learn, but they want to learn only what they
have to learn, and they want to learn it in a style that is best for
them,” he says. Often they prefer to learn by doing.
Marc Prensky, a video-game designer and futurist whom Mr. Sweeney cites
in conversation and in articles, would take these notions further. The
Millennials, or “digital natives,” as he prefers to call them, feel
hemmed in by an educational system that continually looks to history,
that does not take young people seriously, and that squelches
creativity, a key characteristic of Millennials.
“What we're really losing is the sense of why kids need an education,”
Mr. Prensky says. “The things that have traditionally been done
– you know, reflection and thinking and all that stuff
– are in some ways too slow for the future. … Is there a way
to do those things faster?”

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Apple Unveils New Video iPod
By Reuters
October 12, 2005

Apple also introduced a new iMac computer with a
remote control to allow access to music, photos and movies at the same
news event in California's Silicon Valley.

Apple.com

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I gave a talk last night at the Massachusetts Chapter of the ISPI. One
of the most important issues that we covered was the subject of
aggregators. It seems like the right time to update our materials on
how to think about aggregators and what to do if you want to get one.

An aggregator is a piece of software that manages subscriptions
to RSS feeds. Feeds are added to the aggregator by the user and
organized by topic or keyword. The total group of feeds is called an
OPML list. OPML stands for outline Processor Markup Language and it is
an XML format for outlines. I have attached the OPML list from my
aggregator here so that you can use it to get started with a
pre-screened set of feeds. You will want to delete and add to these
feeds based on your own interests and preferences.

Aggregators can be web-based or desk-top based. They can be embedded in
a weblog or web site. The three major players in the upcoming fight
over the “desktop as aggregator,” Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, will
soon offer desktop aggregators. (Google already does in its Google
Desktop.) For now the best aggregators are available from small
start-up companies. I use a Mac and my favorite aggregator is Shrook.
It has a four column display and works like Itunes but for RSS feeds.
It costs $24.95. If I use the Safari browser in the Tiger operating
system, I can download RSS feeds with one click from my browser to my
aggregator. So let's say I come across a site that offers RSS. I know
this because in Safari I will see a blue RSS button in right hand
corner of my browser address line. All I have to do is click this
button and the feed is downloaded into Shrook.

Here's a screen shot of what Shrook looks like today:

Another popular aggregator for the Mac is NetNewswire.
It looks more like email and for that reason I do not like it as much
as Shrook. But how you use an aggregator is all about your own styles
and preferences. Here's a screen shot:

On the PC side there are a few options and one very interesting new choice. Newsgator,
which can be integrated with Outlook, is a popular aggregator for the
PC. It is offered on a subscription basis and the cost ranges from
$19.95 per year to $89.95. Here's a screen shot:

We recommend a simpler and cheaper desktop aggregator, called Feed Demon.
It costs $29.95 (one time purchase) and can be used to manage podcasts.
It is integrated with bloglines so that content from your desktop
aggregator can also be read online. Here's a screen shot:

At the high end of the PC market is a new product that we are now testing called Onfolio.
It is primarily aimed at a scientific, academic, and research audience
but it has a number of powerful features that we feel are useful in an
aggregator. It costs $80 but can be purchased for less if you have an
educational or student discount. Onfolio reads and organizes RSS feeds
but it also can manage and capture references from a number of databases.
It has some nice features for organizing research in that allows you to
capture bookmarks, pdfs, local copies of web pages, MS word documents,
and emails from outlook all in one location. (I am now using a desktop
program called Notetake that I combine with my Shrook aggregator but I
would really like to be able to do this all in one location.) As you
build collections of materials, you can publish them to a web report or
weblog and “future-proof” them so that as you add information to the
collection, the RSS feed associated with it is automatically updated.
You can also create professional reports from content stored in Onfolio
and share content with Microsoft Applications. Here are some
screenshots:

Onfolio's RSS Reader

Onfolio Web Report

Onfolio Publisher

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ATA Cycle is a full-service bike shop, with a first class selection of
bikes, parts, and accessories from kid's bikes to top-of-the-line racing
frames and everything in between.

Their website, atabike.com,
provided customers with a typical brochure of ATA's services and
products, with a simple banner and contact information at the top of
each page.

There were some attempts to further engage cycling enthusiasts through the Racing-Scene and Cycling News
sections; however it was obvious that these resources were being
underutilized. (The last team listed on the Racing-Scene page was from
2003).

Hussam, ATA's owner, knew that his growing, passionate, and
loyal clientele needed a website where they could find out more than
the basic information about the store, location, hours, etc. but felt
overwhelmed by the amount of work required. So, The Otter Group was
brought in to design strategies for a weblog/website to support this
locally and globally dispersed cycling community.

We began the design process by asking questions:

- What are your goals for the blog?

- What elements of the existing website are needed on the blog?

- Which sections of the blog will be updated daily? weekly? monthly? yearly?

- How do you want customers to find you on the web? what keywords, search terms, etc. do you want associated with your business?

Then, we developed a plan for the new ATA blog, which morphed itself into a hybrid blog/site, ATAbikeblog.com:

blog

website

Features:

- Header banner with contact and location information, logo, site navigation, RSS feed

- Left column with Best of Boston logos, weblog categories, “Recent Articles” from weblog, Login

- Right column with Search tool, customizable RSS radar headlines from selected news feeds

- auto-generated photo gallery: “What's New In Our Store”

- Footer with contact information

- Dynamic center column with display for webpages, article posts, images, etc.

New features:

- Weblog with these features

- Search tool

- Subscribe via RSS feed or email

- RSS news components

- Auto-generated “What's New In Our Store” photo gallery

- easily updated web pages and article posts (no need to install HTML editing software)

Benefits to moving to blog format:

- Create new and edit existing content: web pages, article posts, photo albums

- Content is tagged, indexed, and searchable by all search engines

- Built-in full-text search tool

- Each article post has its own unique URL

- Both article posts and web pages fully support HTML

- Article posts can be easily organized into categories, assign keywords, dis/allow comments, trackbacks

- Readers can subscribe to content via RSS

- Easy to upload and manage folders of photos and files

- Moblogging feature allows administrators the option to post to blog via email

- Easily secure categories or components for internal use

By combining content on the old website with new content on the
blog, ATA's new blog/site now functions in both capacities without
sacrificing the “look and feel” of a website. Content is organized
simply and is now easily updated and edited using Pingware's
best-in-class web-based software. Both blog and website are managed in
one place.

Thinking about a blog for your business? Contact us and we'll work with you to create a web presence that meets your goals.

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Our colleague Lee Lefever has just launched a very interesting new collaborative weblog, The World is Not Flat, for a “round-the-world trip he is planning in 2006. Here is how Lee describes the purpose of the project:

When we started planning the trip, we decided that we would use the web to conduct an experiment to see if we could collect first-hand travel information before and during the trip. This site is that experiment.

When we would talk about the trip, people would tell us all kinds of great information and we would write it on a napkin and it would disappear.

So, we created this site as a way to collect first-hand travel information from people like you. So, this site only does two things:

1. Chronicles our trip in the form of a blog (on the front page). This will help friends, family and anyone on the Internet to follow what we do.

2. Collects and organizes first-hand travel information, based on countries we plan to visit.

Together, we hope to create a resource that will improve the experience of our trip.

So I just added a post on my trip to Chile where I went Sea Kayaking in Patagonia.

Since I started reading his blog, Common Craft, two years ago, I have been very impressed by Lee's thinking about how to use these new tools. I think this is a very interesting model for collaborative learning

We'll look forward to seeing this experiment unfold and to following Lee on his travels.

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Marketingstudies.net has just published Going Deep in the Otter Group Podcasting for Learning

Here is the full text of the article:

The Otter Group has been making quite some waves recently with their RSS Networks for Learning and their e-learning podcasts, which they are using as part of their marketing mix.

In addition, they recently published an excellent report on using podcasting for learning, certainly worth a look.

I was very happy to have had the opportunity to do an e-mail interview with them, which is published in full below …

1. It seems your podcast is generating quite a business impact, so we have to wonder how you are promoting it?

We did very little promotion beyond mentioning the podcast on our website (http://www.ottergroup.com) which at that time was serving 21,000 unique sites per month. We also listed the podcast in the directories and posted the feed on Itunes the first week that Itunes opened up their store to podcasts. Subscription to the podcast has grown over the last few months. It has really been an example of viral marketing. And publishing the paper has helped draw attention to the podcast series. Last week's podcast on “making the first offer” was downloaded 528 times from Itunes and 535 times directly from the blog that hosts the series: http://www.negotiationtip.com/blog

2. What kind of subscriber growth are you seeing?

Here is a compilation of our podcast subscriptions over time and by topic:

May
392 views

June
691 views

July (so far) 
448 views

breakdown
110 views of the Salary Negotiation podcast
71 Negotiation Tip: “Negotiating Styles” 6/14/05
61 Negotiating Tip Podcast: “Psychological Traps” 6/30/05
59 Negotiation Tip: “Art of Questioning” 6/6/05
54 Negotiation Tip Podcast: “Managing Assumptions” 6/21/05
52 Negotiation Tip: “Dealing with Difficult People” 5/26/05
39 Negotiation Tip: “Empathy” 5/19/05
38 Negotiation Tip: “Approaches to Negotiating” 4/5/05
37 Negotiation Tip: “Being Assertive” 5/12/05
30 Negotiation Tip: “Understanding Alternatives” 5/5/05
24 Negotiating Tip Podcast: “The Split the Difference Swindle”

As I mentioned, the last podcast has had over 1,000 downloads in one week. So our subscription rates are clearly going up dramatically.

More detailed and most recent statistics are available at our site.

3. How is podcasting impacting your business?

Podcasting has been helpful to our business in a number of ways. We come from the world of e-learning program development and management and we have shifted our production strategy to finding very low cost ways of producing and distributing learning materials. Podcasting is a perfect example of our new production model. And we are waiting for the rumored upgrade in the next version of Apple's I-life that will allow us to include graphics and video to our podcast streams.

Our new business strategy is to use RSS to build continuous learning networks for organizations. Podcasts from one new channel for learning and are well suited to certain types of training. In the negotiating tips podcast we are using the public podcast for one of our clients as a means of extending a formal learning program on conflict resolution. We are planning new podcasts on topics such as hedge funds and investing that will also fit this public/private model.

We believe podcasting has driven new traffic to our web site, which has been dramatically increasing over the past five months of our podcasting series. In September we had a total of 48,000 distinct hosts served. In April before we started podcasting, we had only 21,000 hosts served. I believe this traffic correlates with interest in our podcast series.

4. Do you perhaps have some practical advice for podcasters?

I think our paper is full of very good advice on how to think about podcasting. I would say that the most important thing is to make podcasts that are interesting. We are fortunate in working with Josh Weiss who is at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard. His content is great and worth listening to and revisiting. I find myself listening to the podcasts on my airplane trips. I negotiate all the time and I know these tactics well, but I always find something new and interesting in the podcasts–even those I have heard before.

From the paper, there are a few basic things that every podcaster should keep in mind:

Description. Always include a brief description and a title for your podcast so people can find it in the podcast directories and scan for relevant content.

Brevity. Podcasts work best when they are short and to the point. We recommend limiting the length of a podcast to two to four minutes. Or, create a shorter and longer version of the same topic.

Publish only high quality audio. Podcast listeners expect clear, semi-professional audio. With many inexpensive or free audio editing and recording tools, high quality audio recording is within reach of even the smallest budget.

Publish regularly. Weekly or bi-monthly– be consistent and let listeners know when you will be away. Josh advises: “if you are going to do a weekly podcast, you should have a lot of material in 'mental storage.' When you get people to tune in regularly, you create an expectation that something will be coming each and every week.”

Keep it free and open. Keep some or all of your podcast open to the general public. Sharing knowledge with the public can help raise your company’s profile as a leader and innovator in your industry.

Hit the directories. Make sure your podcast is easy to find. People should be able to easily access your podcast, either through your company portal, website, RSS, or desktop program. iPodder and iTunes are free podcast aggregators that can be downloaded on a work or home computer. E-mailing a link to the podcast (or the podcast itself) is also a great way to deliver podcasts.

Use consistent/persistent notifications. Use a combination of technologies to inform your listeners about your podcast. Introduce the podcast on your company portal, weblog, and through email.

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