Elliot and PodCasting

As some of you are aware of in the training industry, Elliot Maise is the man "in the know" for various technologies used for corporate training. I thought I would post a link to a site that lists several resources on PodCasting and learning.

http://www.masieweb.com/podcasts/research-and-surveys/podcasting-for-learning-call.html

PodCast Tip of the Week

When I teach my class "How to PodCast" someone always asks how long should a podcast be. The answer to that is somewhat driven by the content but for the most part you want to keep the entire podcast down to under 10 minutes if you are not producing a "show".

For example, if you listen to recorded radio shows, they are usually broken up by commercials, multiple speakers or various segments. Your podcast can be longer than the 10 minute rule but I would suggest breaking it up into small segments.

You can break it up by either a sound bite or music in between, a mini commercial for some upcoming event or just a fun joke or question to throw out to the listeners. If you ever go to Caribou Coffee, they post a Question of the Day and take .10 of your order if you get it right. You could break up the podcast by just stating a question in between like -- "What the was the name of Tonto's horse from the old Lone Ranger show?"

I'd love to see posts of other examples of how you could break up a longer podcasts from the audience.

PodCast Class Alumni Postings

This section of the Blog will be for the students who attend our "How to PodCast" class. You can share with us samples of your work, or just methods you have tried to use and what tools you used to create them.

We hope that we can use this as a community of practice so that we can learn from each other.

To share a sample, just post a reply to this posting and cut and paste your podcast URL or provide instructions on a site that we may view the sample from.

I want to share with you a great example of combining PodCasts and Blogs. If you go to http://pdtogo.com/smart This is Blog that supports a PodCast series from two teachers who utilize a wonderful technology called the Smart Board. KnowledgeShift is in the process of building content and curricula for corporate training using Smart Boards.

The hosts, Joan Badger and Ben Hazzard, do a great job of pointing you to the tips and best practice of how other teachers use this technology in their classroom and it's a great example of blending two new RSS technologies together.

Keep in mind the children they are teaching today with these tools are going to be the next generation of employees ---- we will have to think about how to engage their learning and knowledge as adults in about 4-5 years.

Employee_Recruitment

Demo of script for recruitment
This is a podcast example of how you can use PodCasting to promote the benefits of your company to prospective employees by capturing real interviews of employees who currently work for you.