ONLY A FEW WEEKS separate academics from Christmas Break, something I realise I need more than ever when I listen to the audio snippets recorded and produced by third level students in Tipperary INstitute. Today's session [41 MB 96 kbps MP3 file], engineered by Eamonn Healy and produced by Shane Egan, includes an hour of information related to an upcoming revision session for my Media Writing class. Watching our current crop of first year students step up and create useful audio content all within the space of an afternoon tutorial session makes me realise how important it is to record audio time capsules for future review. Our current digital lifestyles are throwaway sessions. We channel surf, barely scroll down to read an entire page of search engine results, and laugh out loud on YouTube before scanning and viewing another clip. Online writing is 140 characters or boring. Attention spans have declined while digital appetites have increased. So no matter what the time pressure, I'm going to craft a way to produce at least 60 minutes of audio content during scheduled class meetings next term. Today's episode (Educast 158) includes audio harvested from Last.fm playlists, a few sections of top tier podcasts and the usual assortment of student commentary.
Direct link to audio: http://podcasting.ie/podcasts/educast_158.mp3
