PAB2007 – Education Panel
Beyond the Yellow Brick Road: Podcasting and Education Panel at PAB2007 with Jim Milles (moderator), Dave Brodbeck, Charles Cadenhead, Vivian Vasquez and Andrea Ross
Panelists will highlight their use of podcasting as a tool for teaching and learning as well as disseminating content to those interested in educational issues and trends. Learn about the possibilities and potential of podcasting for teachers, students, educators and parents.
Transcript below…
Photo by Bob Goyetche.
Mark Blevis: I’m Mark Blevis.
Bob Goyetche: And I’m Bob Goyetche, and welcome to another special episode of Canadian Podcast Buffet, featuring audio from the Podcasters Across Borders 2007 conference.
Mark Blevis: This edition of the Canadian Podcast Buffet is brought to you in part by TD Canada Trust. Stay tuned to the end of the show to find out how you can get a free iPod.
Bob Goyetche: Podcasters Across Borders 2008 is set for June 20th, 21st, and 22nd, 2008 in Kingston, Ontario. Mark that off on your calendar now and stay tuned to Canadian Podcast Buffet and watch www.podcastersacrossborders.com for everything from hotel rates to reservation information to the key to podcasting happiness.
Mark Blevis: Ooh, I like that. What you’re about to hear is a panel discussion on podcasting and education. Your moderator is Jim Milles of the Check This Out Podcast and the panelists are Andrea Ross of Just One More Book, Dave Brodbeck of Multitude Podcasts including Why? and his Psych lectures, Vivian Vasquez of The Clip Podcast and Charles Cadenhead of The Higher Education Podcast.
Jim Milles: I also do some educational podcasting, but I’m mostly here to keep these four people in line and try and keep us on track. And I have big signs. I printed these off so I can show them. I can wave these in front of your face…
Dave Brodbeck: I’ve seen those before.
Jim Milles: So we know. And we’ve got some…we did do some…actually we chatted for about an hour and about ten minutes of that was actually planning of what we were going to talk about. So we have some questions. And basically, I think we’re going to start. I’ve got some…with each of the speakers, we’ll be talking about sort of, first about their set up and what they do with their podcast. And then we have some questions. And I’ve just put your slides in alphabetical order so Dave, you get to go first.
Dave Brodbeck: Cool.
Jim Milles: Okay…hang on…got it, okay.
Dave Brodbeck: Wow, PowerPoint.
Jim Milles: It’s even better, it’s Keynote.
Dave Brodbeck: Oh.
Jim Milles: So go ahead Dave.
Dave Brodbeck: Okay. There is a couple of educational ones I do. The first thing, I’m a Professor of Psychology and the Chair of the Department at Algoma University College in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario. The smallest university in Ontario. And I podcast my lectures. Basically it’s for my students, but anybody else who wants to hear it, is free to do it. And you can see me there and I’m just wearing…I’ve got an iRiver in my pocket and I’m glad to see you. And I’m wearing a little lapel mike that I paid two bucks for on eBay. And I’m holding an Apple Wireless Mouse to advance the slides. So that’s the one I do. And that’s, of course, it’s also free for anybody else. And the other one I do is called “Why?”. The other educational thing I do, which is a science show for kids, where kids record questions and they send them into me. And you can see there I take that with a little more…I try a little harder with the audio there. The only thing I edit out with my lectures is if I say the “F” word that ends in “uck”. Everything else stays in. Or if a student says something, it’s rather personal. I keep…I take that out. But everything else just stays in and I just go home, put some music at the beginning and at the end and post it in about twenty minutes. The “Why?” shows I take a little more seriously.
So I’ve been doing that one now for…both of them about a year. I guess “Why?” about six months…yes, and the lectures, a little over a year.
Jim Milles: Okay. Charles?
Charles Cadenhead: Well, I got involved with podcasting and then thought, hey, I could pull this in to my teaching. I teach Computer Science and I thought there are some applications here, especially for my online classes which I teach. And so after about a year of podcasting, I started including this into my class work. I do things a little differently than Dave. Instead of recording my whole lecture, I record the whole lecture, but I don’t publish the whole recording. I chop it up based on topics. So if we’re talking about IP6 one day or one of the topics is IP6, I’ll chunk that up and post that for students later to review, based on topics. So that’s one of the differences.
Also, for my online students, I have started doing an audio FAQ about how to use the online tools. But probably my main class I teach online is a Beginning Computer Science Class, one of those survey-type classes that everybody has to take. And so the knowledge base of students is everything from they could teach the course to they know nothing about computers and never have touched a computer before. Which is kind of an oxymoron. You know, you teach an online class about how to use computers. Well, how did they…how can they learn about the class to use computers if they don’t know how to use a computer? But, so I’ve developed these audio FAQ’s because my students don’t read for some reason. And I’ve figured well, if it’s in print, they may read it. If it’s in audio, they may listen to it. There’s a double chance that they will learn it. And actually I’ve gone beyond that and have a lot of other ways for them to pick up these directions for how to use the different tools of our class, like uploading their work and posting things to our discussion board, how to use our chat room. I do a little welcome for all my courses. And I actually don’t stream those in RSS files. So I guess they’re not podcasts, they’re media files. But I post those on my site and I do that because I want them to access them at a certain time and date. With RSS feed, they’re there and they can access them out of order, whenever they want. And I kind of want to control that a little bit more and push it at them.
Jim Milles: Okay, Andrea.
Andrea Ross: One second. Can you hear me? Yes? No?
Jim Milles: Yes.
Andrea Ross: Yes. My partner Mark and I produce a Children’s Book Podcast. It’s on the informal side of education. It’s called “Just One More Book”. And we use that podcast to draw attention to children’s books which we don’t think are getting enough attention. It’s just, we just express our opinions about those books. We share the stories of the authors and illustrators that produce those books and we highlight interesting ideas in the world of children’s literature and literacy. We’ve become a resource for four types of listeners. And the first is our expected audience, which is people who are looking for good children’s books, parents, educators, librarians, children’s book retailers. We…our second group of listeners was a surprise to us and that is the people who produce children’s books. So authors and illustrators like to tune in to learn about their peers and also to get unscripted honest kind of spontaneous feedback from their intended audience.
Our podcast is also used in academic studies. So we’re used as a resource for various courses and programs in a creative writing program in British Columbia, Vivian’s Children’s Literature course in Washington and ESL program in Hong Kong. And our last set of listeners are children, although we don’t build our podcast for children, we do invite our listeners to send in their own children’s book reviews. And in a lot of cases, peoples’ children send in their thoughts about the children’s books that they love. And in that case, the children will tune in to listen to the show. And I mean, I think that in itself is very good for kids to hear that their opinion of something that’s important to them is actually going around the world and different people enjoy it and care about it.
I also want to say that there are lots and lots of really good children’s literature resources on the web. There are lots of blogs and there are lots of directories. And I think that podcasting really adds to that because we’re all busy and we can get, our listeners can get this kid lit content on the go. That’s it.
Jim Milles: Okay, and finally Vivian.
Vivian Vasquez: Thanks. Checking to see which slide is up there first. I was one of those people who came to PAB last year and then, as a listener, and then left. And after a few weeks, started podcasting myself. And I know the same is true for Andrea as well. But, the first one that I really started working on was CLIP podcast, Critical Literacy in Practice. And the focus of that podcast is really on helping, you know, parents, teachers, even young kids, to understand the relationship between words and images, the power behind language and language use, and what have you. And really, I imagined when I left PAB last year, so then I started to think about, well what are some ways, what are some things that podcasting could afford, the work that I’m currently doing in my busy life. I had to sort of figure out a place for it and not sort of technologize what I was already doing. But to imagine some new ways of thinking about the work that I was doing in terms of the role that podcasting could play. So what I do in the show is to really talk about critical literacy, what it looks like and sounds like in school settings, in classrooms as well as, you know, in homes and in communities and what have you. So I have people who will call in. Andrea has done a segment for me in the past. Parents will call in to talk about what they’re doing with their kids at home. I use it in my own teaching as part of my required reading list for courses I teach on Critical Literacy and also in children’s literature. So John was actually one of the podcasts on that list.
I also use the show as a space for my students to do different course assignments. So they’ll create audio for me as well in my children’s lit courses that focus on, let’s say, books that create spaces for engaging with social issues of raised gender. All of that kind of stuff. It’s also been used for professional development workshops by teachers and teacher educators. And also by parents, to think about how they might help their kids to read the web, for instance, or to read texts critically from a critical literacy perspective. From that, I started to work with a group of second graders in Virginia, who this is all part of the research that I do as an academic. I have to teach, engage in research and do service. So as part of that research, I’ve been working with a group of teachers in Virginia on critical literacy. And one of the teachers was very interested in the podcasting I was doing, so I worked more closely with her kids. And they started to listen to kids who are podcasting as well. So they’ve heard Halloween Boy, they’ve heard, you know, the kids who do reviews for John. And they became very interested in thinking about how they might use podcasting as a tool for getting their voices out there in the world. A lot of these kids that I work with in the second grade class are English language learners. So they speak Spanish primarily and have found learning to be very inaccessible. And podcasting has created a space for them to access learning which has been a very, very powerful experience.
Just…I’ll share a really quick story here. Last week, I was with them so they could hear their very last show. And their show focuses basically on ways that they might make a difference in the world. And they’ll take up different issues like global warming and talk about that. And so that’s what their podcast is on. And so I was with them last week to celebrate their final episode for the year because school is ended now. And so their parents, some of their parents were there and what I learned was that a lot of the kid’s families are actually located in different countries. So some of the kids, you know, families are in __________ and then other members of their families are in Columbia or what have you. And there was one Mom there who said that every week her husband, you know, this was sort of something he waited for and waited for because he was in Columbia with her siblings, this child’s siblings. And this little girl and her Mom were living in _______and she said you know, this has become a thing that has brought their family together. So her relatives in Columbia would gather together whenever they knew that the show was being released and they’d listen. And so, when you talk about, you know, the sort of keeping connected and networking and the spaces that podcasting can create to bring people together, it’s just been a very, very powerful experience.
And the final bit that’s up there is basically the work that I’ve been doing in my own classes. So we’ve created a literary map and we’re still working on the podcast piece of that. But basically, that’s the literary map podcast where my students have found books that are connected in some way to the DC area. And then we’ve mapped them on a map of DC so there are hot links. And when you click on the links, audio will play and an image pops up that focuses on different areas of DC in connection with various children’s books. So that’s what that one is. But that’s sort of it in a nut shell. And because I’m doing different kinds of work, we sometimes will do the recording at home. And if you, you know, have any questions about the text side of this, you can talk to Andy who’s back there. He does all of that stuff. And…but when I’m with the kids, I basically just have an iRiver with me and I use that to record.
Jim Milles: Okay, thank you all. I’m going to turn off the screen so I can look at my notes and not be tipping my cards to everybody here. So…I’m just unplugged, that’s the easiest way to do it. Okay, so we have four people here who are doing very different things but we’re all sort of here under the label of educational podcasting. So maybe one thing we could do is talk about how you, each of you see what you do as an educational podcast, how you define that and what difference your show makes and to whom.
David Brodbeck: I think…the couple of things that I’ve noticed with the lectures, the weird thing is I get a lot of students from other universities that listen. I’ve got iTunes’ reviews which are really strange that mention like, you know, listen to this rather than go to your own class, which is kind of cool. I’ve also had a lot of people that sort of were going to university for awhile or whatever and they quit and now they’re, you know, I get a lot of e-mails that say things like “thank you for keeping my brain alive”. Also I’ve had a few people that’s…there’s a prof in New Zealand that requires his students to listen to me, I think. I just figure I’m better than him, so you know. So that’s kind of cool.
The other…and that’s, I mean, I’m really doing it for my students. But, you know, we were talking, the talk before us was mentioning, you know, knowledge and data, what have you, should be free. And, I mean, I’m a scientist and we work that way. So I think stuff should be free anyway, data should be free and knowledge should be free. So I just put it out there and people listen, and the vast majority are not my students. My students do listen, but they’re already there, so why hear me twice? So, I’m really sort of spreading it out for other people. And also so if students, say, miss a class, they can hear it. With the “Why?” show, that’s fun because there’s a real gap in scientific literacy out there, especially in a country just over there. So about things like say evolution by natural selection. And I get a lot of interesting questions about that and I answer them and I give the real answer. And I think that’s a…
Jim Milles: That’s because Canadians are more evolved.
David Brodbeck: There’s a lot of interesting questions like that that come up. Or I got a question from a kid in Pakistan who called me and asked me what the shape of space was. And I mean, try…and I go talk to a buddy of mine who knows theoretical physics and trying to get your head around that stuff is hard enough. Then try to get it down to a level that a nine year old…not so easy. So there, I’m just doing something just…and that’s fun, you know. So my role there is just to spread the idea of the scientific outlook, you know. The other one’s just so I can hear myself talk more.
Jim Milles: Alright, we’ll let you go next.
Charles Cadenhead: I see at least my podcasting as a way to hook my students. It’s another way to hook students. You know, they’re already paying for the class, they’re buying the textbooks, they’re e-mailing me questions, they’re visiting the data that I have online. This is just another way, another form to connect with them. And you know, most of my students are probably not visual learners. They may be auditory and visual, maybe kinaesthetic. So this is another way, adding that audio link to it…I don’t want to use link but…element is a way to hook them in and to pull them in to my podcast. I’ve also started a podcast for teachers, trying to evangelize podcasting and what it is. Because they hear this word and have no clue what it is. And then they think when you explain it them, they think “Oh, I can’t do that”. Well they’ve already been doing that. You know, I’ve…we have a PE teacher at our school who has real audio files on her website. She’s had them for five, six years now on a website. She can real easily turn those into mp3’s and stream them. So I don’t know what the data is…or not what the data…what the information is content for her physical education class. But it must be something she has all these files out there for it. She could real easily make that into a podcast for her class. So the education community unfortunately is about three years behind us. And they see this thing as this mystical element. You know, they’ll go what’s podcasting? I can’t do that. I possibly can’t do it. And how can I do it? So I’ve been trying to at least, on my campus, evangelize podcasting and say all you need is, you know, a $50 recorder, a $10 mike, plug it in and record what you’re already doing. And then take those files and ship them out, so.
Jim Milles: Okay.
Andrea Ross: Well I guess I really use podcasting in my work as a tool for teaching, learning, research. And the differences, the dismay, I mean one of the differences I already shared earlier in that story with the family from Columbia. But I think a lot of it is definitely that it makes accessible, you know, all of this knowledge, all of this information in a way that it hasn’t been in the past. It also really…because part of the conversation that I had with my students and with the second graders about podcasting is the idea of text as being socially constructed. So I’m talking here about text, widely construed, so music, books, what have you. And the texts are never neutral. So we get at the idea that when you read a text, you read text from a certain position.
And also, when we take in whatever information we’re taking in, in front of us, that that information is written from a particular perspective, from a particular position. So one of the things that teachers and parents are worried about with regards to the use of technology in school settings is the notion of safety. And one of my arguments all the time for saying that, well we need to think about technology and talk about technology, is for the very reason that we want to be able to, for our students and our children, to be informed decision makers as to what they take in, what they believe, how they make those decisions about what information matters and what information they should just set aside. So it’s really about helping them to become critical readers of text, not just, you know, paperbound text, but the web out there, music, all of those different kinds of text. And podcasting has been the tool for me to do that, both with my pre-service students and teacher education settings, and also with the second graders that I’ve been working with. So that’s just sort of, in a nut shell, how I use it in educational settings.
Vivian Vasquez: So I don’t know exactly how our podcast is used in educational settings. I know that teachers and librarians listen to our shows. And for me, I’m representing the kind of anytime anyone learns anything, that is education. And I think that I’m just one of many podcasters who…I’m passionate about a subject. And anyone who’s interested…like there are a lot of podcasters that are producing shows, because they’re passionate about a subject and because they know a lot about the subject. And I think educators would be smart, you know, to take advantage of the passion that’s out there and the enthusiasm for a topic. And ours is just one of those. In particular, our podcast we do, we share enthusiasm for the subject of children’s books. But we’re not really giving…we’re not giving people information. We’re kind of inviting people to look at children’s books in a different way. And, you know, maybe give them, give children’s books the respect that they deserve, allowing people to start a conversation about children’s books. I think adults sometimes don’t take them seriously and they’re a great source of education just themselves.
Charles Cadenhead: Andrea, I’ve found as a parent with “Just One More Book” that it’s allowed me to open my limits, so to speak. I have a real narrow focus when I look for books for my kids. And you all talked about a lot of different type of books. And so it’s allowed me to branch out, kind of get out of my little safety zone, my box. So for me, it’s been a very helpful resource as a parent looking for books for my kids at the library, so I can have a few minutes peace and quiet when we get home.
David Brodbeck: I just…I also want to just toss in there that when you mention passion and one of the things…I mean, I mean I really didn’t think about that, which is kind of sad. But I really, I love what I do. Like there’s no better job in the world than being a scientist. It just rocks. And I just love it. And getting that across to other people, it’s almost…and Charles, you used a word like evangelizing before… which doesn’t often come up in my vocabulary. But it…I can certainly say that, I mean, I just love doing my job. And there are courses, for example, that I podcast…well, because I do them all…that are, most people find scary. I teach introductory and advanced statistics which scares the s–t out of most people. And it isn’t scary, but a lot of people find it very scary. But if I can do it and have, and I have fun when I teach. So if people can hear me having a good time and hear me answering student questions and allaying their fears, I think I’m probably helping out other people at other schools and that’s good too.
Jim Milles: I’m gonna…oh, go ahead Vivian.
Vivian Vasquez: I just wanted to add too that one of my beliefs as a teacher is that I don’t want to just share knowledge or have my students read about things. I want them to live the experience of the things that they’re reading about. And that’s where the, you know, creating podcasts themselves comes in to play, both with my teacher ed students and also with young kids. And the other thing I want to talk about also is that not only have I been working sort of on my own shows, but we’ve also done with Andrea and Mark, some crossover shows, where they’ll focus on a particular book and then sort of offer their take on that book. And then I’ll talk about the same text in combination with other books…
Andrea Ross: Intelligently.
Vivian Vasquez: From a different perspective, so it gives people. And then, you know, obviously we link back and forth so that people have, you know, different ways into a particular text.
David Brodbeck: Is that like the episode of the Flintstones where they met the Jetson’s?
Jim Milles: I’m going to go off script now because I like to do that and keep you guys on your toes. And one thing that occurs to me, and like I listen to all you guys. And I know Dave is, for example, quite fond of the “F” word. And so, that just makes me think, I mean, most of…one of the things I love about podcasting is that people are free to express themselves in any way they want. But when you’re talking about educational podcasting, I think you have sort of a sense of responsibility to someone. And I’d like to hear what all of you think about what sort of responsibilities you have, as in educational podcasting.
David Brodbeck: Well with the “Why?” show, of course, I’m speaking to children. Now I swear to my kids. But, I mean I’m speaking to a wide audience and I wouldn’t say anything remotely. You know, I wouldn’t say “Poo”…I might have said “Poo” once…but I think I was describing something to do with Poo. Whereas in my lectures, I mean, that’s how I teach. I talk just the way I…if you were talking to me last night in the bar, except I’m usually not that hammered when I’m teaching, but that’s how I teach. And that’s how I speak that way in class, except the big words, the technical terms, is the only difference. So, I don’t take out, I mean, my responsibility is to me. I mean these are people supposedly that are going to be listening to a university level course. They’re, I’m talking to grownups and if they don’t like it, they don’t have to listen on that level. We don’t get, where I am, I don’t get any flack for that kind of thing, ‘cause I have tenure. And so I don’t get any flack for that anyway from the administration or anybody. So I just act the way I would in class. And I go off now and then on a tangent and tell silly stories. Or I talk about things that I’ve…you know, oh that reminds me of a story of what happened when I was in graduate school…and I tell the story for five minutes. Or I do stupid jokes that come to mind. So, my responsibility there is to give people, it seems to me, a university level experience ‘cause I’m a university Professor. And a university level experience with me means sometimes you get me standing up and mentioning a theory and saying “and by the way, this is a crock of s–t”, ‘cause that’s how I talk, so.
Jim Milles: Anybody else.
Andrea Ross: We accept no responsibility for that question.
Vivian Vasquez: I guess the only other thing is because…I mean we’ve got this, for instance, this family in Columbia waiting for the show to come out on a weekly basis. It’s sort of the responsibility of, you know…it’s very time consuming to do this at times, given my really busy schedule. But, you know, making sure to get this work done because it’s not just about me anymore. When I hear about those stories, there are…yeah…so it’s, you know, making sure to get the shows out there, because there are people waiting. And, you know, if I’m not going to get a show out there, I’ll put out something just really short just to say you know busy, but it’s coming. To keep that conversation going, to respond to comments. And I hate when I’m really busy and I can’t respond to comments right away. But…and Julien talked about this at a previous session, just making sure to connect with your audience in an on-going way, sort of continuing that conversation and not just dropping the ball. That it shouldn’t be one way. So there’s that responsibility.
Jim Milles: Yeah. Charles?
Charles Cadenhead: Well, I don’t know what I have to add to it because, I mean, I try to follow the guidelines of my college in what I can do and not do and not say and do say. And that’s basically it. I mean nothing different than what Dave said or even Vivian here said so. With my other podcast, you know, I can pretty much say and do what I want to because they’re not affiliated with my school. So I try to keep them for the teacher. I guess for each audience, which is what Dave said, for each audience I have certain expectations of myself. Like my teacher podcast, I’m not gonna swear. I’m not going to say “s–t” and “f–k” and whatever else in my teacher podcast ‘cause it’s for the teachers. And it’s more professional that way. For Mostly News, I sometimes cuss in that. For Desperate Husbands, I mean this week I mentioned the word “penis” in my podcast, so. That’s something I want…you know…shock. But I wouldn’t do that in my classroom setting, so, but also…
David Brodbeck: I say penis all the time in my class…
Charles Cadenhead: Yeah, I know you do. But you get paid to say penis in your classroom…
Mark Blevis: But that’s ‘cause you’re talking about psychology.
David Brodbeck: Yeah, true enough.
Charles Cadenhead: I also come from a K-12 background. My first year of teaching was first graders. So, it adds a little different perspective.
David Brodbeck: I see a couple of hands, I think. Who wanted to ask a question back here?
Mark Blevis: Dave, hold on. Stand up, state your name.
Jack Ward: I’m Jack Ward, thank you. I’m also a teacher. I teach English and Drama. And I use both podcasting and radio drama, which is what we do, in both the classrooms, in the situation. It’s a great way to sort of get them as an English class, to write something outside of short stories, to write in a script format. And then to get them produced by the drama class, it’s really cool for them because it can be produced a lot more quickly than video. And they can see or hear the results much more quickly. As well as…sorry, your checking time…running out of time?…yeah, okay, well thank you. And we’re just starting Halifax High School Podcast where I’ve been encouraging students from all the high schools to get together, talk about news and events and the whole bit and put it all together. So it’s a really good opportunity to stick it in. Don’t just do it about your own podcast or that, but encourage them to be a part of the whole process. They get really excited, but they had no idea what podcasting was beforehand. You know, as the younger generation, they had no idea what it was.
Michelle Sullivan: Hi, I’m Michelle Sullivan. I’m a PR Consultant from Montreal. And one of my clients…it looks like he’s going to let me do a podcast in the fall. It’s Canada’s Telecommunications Hall of Fame. And they have an educational outreach mission. So we’re talking about telecom history, Canadian innovators, innovations, things like that. I’m wondering from…with your vast experience doing educational-type podcasts, what kind of early learning, or beginner’s mistakes you could recommend avoiding? Thanks.
David Brodbeck: Well me, I think that one of the biggest things is think about what you think is cool. What’s the most, you know, if you like the stuff that you have there, what knocks you over and what knocks over anybody that comes in? You know, and then you’re not going to mess it up because you’re going to talk about something like, I wouldn’t…how to not use colourful language…man, it’s hard…you don’t want to put everything in one basket…that’s a better metaphor…so you know, you pick something that’s really cool right away and talk about it. And you’re not going to make a whole lot of mistakes that way and your still gonna draw people in and they’re gonna start talking about your early episodes when they come, when more people come along later. And then say something really cool…this is what I would do probably…say something really cool for three or four in, you know. But start with something that’s pretty strong and you’re unlikely, I think, to make a big mistake. Or you’re gonna instead do something that will be exciting to people, I would imagine. That’s what I do with “Why?”. I had a kid ask me “who invented technology?” which is just…awe, you know…you know, it’s Australopithecus. It’s a great question. So I went with that. But then I had a whole bunch of other really cool ones waiting for me.
Jim Milles: Well the one thing that I always like to say, and this is not just for educational podcasts, although it applies a little differently is, is I always like to say don’t worry so much about making mistakes. You know, I said this at Podcam Toronto. You know, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly, you know. Because you get better at it. Although again, this gets back to my previous comment about responsibility to your institution. If you’re doing an educational podcast, you may have to be a little bit more careful about planning. I didn’t do any planning when I started mine. I don’t know if the rest of you guys did.
David Brodbeck: Planning?
Jim Milles: Planning.
Charles Cadenhead: What’s that?
Jim Milles: But I think that’s an important point. Don’t worry too much about it.
David Brodbeck: No, you know what you’re doing.
Charles Cadenhead: Okay, now that Jim stole my comment. Don’t worry about gear. I guess from the technical side, it’s real easy to get caught up in gear and what gear you have and don’t have. And don’t worry about.
David Brodbeck: But it’s fun to worry about gear and get him to buy as much gear for you as you can, ‘cause you only get one chance.
Charles Cadenhead: If someone’s sponsoring the show, go for it, you know. You have, tell them you need all this stuff and they should buy.
David Brodbeck: You can have my old stuff and get me some new cool stuff. That would be awesome.
Tom: Hi I’m Tom. I just wanted to ask you, back in Windsor, I remember when the University of Windsor started trying to get teachers to podcast. There were a few prof’s that were doing it. And it was really frowned upon. A lot of prof’s were like, no, don’t want to do it because the students won’t come to class, and I don’t have a job. And that…but that…if you can relate that to what a lot of you people do, a lot of what we do, if you make money off of this or if it’s something that you live to do. There are people who don’t want that information out there, ‘cause they’re going to lose their way of getting paid to give that information out, whether it’s educational, whether it’s about cars, whether it’s about whatever. And, I don’t know, I think that’s a concern especially for educational stuff because…you’re taking pictures of my behind…I stand up and that’s what happens. But honestly…everywhere I go…no but I think that that’s got to be a concern for everybody because, I mean, in the educational…take a picture of my front…I just wanted to know if you guys are concerned about that. Because someone said about having information being free, that’s very important. I think teachers are really…I think teachers…what kinda show you running…like teachers have to be concerned because it might actually show that some teachers are terrible teachers. They don’t want to do it because it’s gonna like, tahdah, I’m a s—-y teacher, I shouldn’t have this job, especially in universities. Like that, in particular. I don’t know. Do you…I don’t know if you have thoughts on that.
Vivian Vasquez: I think one of the biggest worries that have been shared with me by colleagues is the idea of well, why do you this for free when you could write a book and sell it and make money? And one of the things that I always say to them is, you know, the more information you share out there, the bigger an audience you get. And you end up with more people reading what it is you’re writing or putting out there. And that’s really been the case for myself. So I don’t know what…
David Brodbeck: I’ll just go quickly. I can say that my attendance hasn’t dropped, first of all Secondly, this may sound a little pretentious. I know I’m really quite good. So, I know I’m good at what I do. So listening…I know it’s going to be good PR for my school. Nobody’s going to force I don’t think anybody to do it, just because, you know, we all have…well, at least we have a union. But it really ends up being good PR for our school. And people have used it as a way of…now sort of experimentally, had a couple of students do everything online and listen in. Like it was a guy in Montreal, who’s one of our former students. And he wanted to get one more class. And he just listened to some of my old classes and I M’d him. That was his class participation mark, so.
Jim Milles: I mean, you also all know that if you actually take the time to listen to your own podcast, you’re going to get better at it.
David Brodbeck: Yeah, that’s the other thing.
Charles Cadenhead: It’s true.
Mark Blevis: Everybody, we’re going to take one last question. Is there anybody else in the panel that wanted to speak? No? Okay.
Sada: My name is Sada. I’m a community radio volunteer in Kingston. So I’m not really a podcaster. But I do it in a different kind of way. My question is about…for those of you who have sort of a professional relationship with podcasting as well as a personal one, how do you negotiate that and how do you deal with audiences that might see you in both spaces?
Charles Cadenhead: Well my college answered that question really easily for me when they started publishing my information about me on the internet. So, and they did that three or four years ago. Putting my name out there, picture, contact information. And so I already have a professional presence on the internet. So I didn’t really worry about that, you know. I don’t say anything that I don’t want my Mom to hear. So, you know, and my Mom knows I cuss and use language and say the word penis. So I’m not worried about it.
Bob Goyetche: You’re saying that way too often.
Charles Cadenhead: I’m not really worried about my school, Brookhaven College, hearing me. In fact, they’re paying for me to be here to talk. So I don’t really worry about those things.
Mark Blevis: Is that it? Well, thank you very much to our panellists: Jim Milles, Dave Brodbeck, Dr. Dave Brodbeck, Charles Hodgson…Charles Hodgson…Charles Cadenhead, sorry, Vivian Vasquez, and Andrea Ross. Thank you very much.
Bob Goyetche: This episode of Canadian Podcast Buffet featuring Podcasters Across Borders audio is brought to you in part by TD Canada Trust. When you switch your main chequing account to TD by August 3rd, you will qualify for either a Free Shuffle, iPod Nano or a 30 gig iPod. Visit www.tdswitch.com/pab for details.
Mark Blevis: Thanks to all of the PAB2007 Sponsors: Rogic Podcast Conglomerate, Third Storey Productions, TD Canada Trust, Thornley Fallis, StartCooking.com, Marion McDonald, Don Edwards, Freddie Litwiniuk, Bill Deys and Christopher Penn.
Bob Goyetche: For more info on Canadian Podcast Buffet you can go to our website www.canadianpodcastbuffet.ca.
Mark Blevis: For more information on Podcasters Across Borders visit that website www.podcastersacrossborders.com.
Bob Goyetche: To contact us you can leave us a voicemail, area code 267-220-3701 or our e-mail at: canadianpodcastbuffet@gmail.com.
Mark Blevis: Of course you’re welcome to join any and all of the Rogic forums including the Canadian Podcast Buffet forum, the Podcasters Across Borders forum, and there’s a link to that at www.rogic.com/forum on the Canadian Podcast Buffet website.
Bob Goyetche: Canadian Podcast Buffet and Podcasters Across Borders are proud members of the Rogic Podcast Conglomerate.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (37.3MB)
