iPod, you Pod, we all Podcast in higher ed…. Really?

May 19th, 2005 Karine Joly 10 Comments

Ok, the title of this post is not really informative (and won’t get me anywhere in terms of search engine optimization or in any writing classes), but I couldn’t resist…

Unless you work on another planet (or at least not anywhere near a campus), you have already heard about/seen/touched/bought an iPod.

College kids love this new kind of digital music box, because the handheld device looks cool and can hold GB of their favorite songs – or any digital files.

And, as you know, when College students love something, it’s automatically worth studying/using in higher education institutions for academic or marketing purposes.

A lot was written about the Duke iPod First-Year Experiment
: Duke gave engraved iPods to every freshman in August 2004 with pre-loaded content. They’ve announced recently that they won’t renew the experiment this fall, but will provide only freshmen taking certain classes with iPods.

In “iPods and Academia: The Duke First-Year Experience,” an interesting Powerpoint presentation created for Educause Live, Tracy Futhey, Chief Information Officer at Duke, and her colleague Lynne O’Brien, Director of the University Center for Instructional Technology “discuss how iPods were used at Duke this past year, what they’ve learned so far, and how the project will be extended in the next academic year through the newly announced Duke Digital Initiative.”

Combining the attractiveness and user-friendliness of this new toy (tool, I mean ;-), the growing interest in blogs and the power of RSS, some smart people have started to produce and promote some good old web audio content (interviews, shows and even conference recordings) re-branded under the new name of Podcast, i.e. a basic mp3 file that can be downloaded to your iPod or your computer to be listened whenever you want.

Brian Niles from TargetX, a higher ed vendor that offers interactive marketing solutions, produces his “On the Road” Podcasts to promote his practice and inform prospective and current clients in a pretty entertaining way. His podcasts are a good example on how these audio files can be used as educational marketing pieces.

But, if you really want to see how your college or university can use Podcasts to communicate with all its constituents (current and prospective students, faculty/staff members, alums, etc.) in an original yet effective way, you should check out Allegheny College’s weekly Podcasts.

In the press release “Allegheny Launches Podcasts to Connect Campus, Community,” Mike Richwalsky, Allegheny College‘s web administrator and host of the weekly program, explains that, “Allegheny’s podcasts act as a high-tech supplement to the college’s other news and marketing materials.”

In his Podcasts, Richwalsky interviews students, administrators, faculty members and even alums about special events or initiatives such as commencement, internships, etc. – literally giving a voice to the College’s main constituencies…

10 Responses

  1. […] iPods in colleges, and podcasts as promotions

    Here’s a story rounding up a few facts and links on iPods in higher ed: Collegewebeditor.com. Looks like a good resource, not really for educators, but for people in roles like I used to have when I tended the IU Alumni Association site in ’97-98. Wish it had been around then. […]

  2. […] You’ll have to read the 15-page final report about this initiative to find out […]

  3. […] ted iPod First-Year Experiment last year, Duke keeps playing its cards very nicely at the ever popular Podcasting table by organizing, this […]

  4. […] ocial Software Search Engine,” Mike will present one of his many projects related to new web technologies: a social software search eng […]

  5. Comments on Podcasting from collegewebeditor.com
    collegewebeditor.com >> iPod, you Pod, we all Podcast in higher ed…. Really?

    So this is not really a snippet of a larger podcast but I wanted to add it to my blog as it gives fairly good commentary on possibilities of podcasting and ipods on college campi (is that the correct plural?).
    The author also gives some props to Allegheny’s web master Mike Richwalsky for his idea to use podcasts as a tool for publicity.

  6. Brian Niles says:

    Thanks for saying “On the Road” is entertaining – it’s actually funny to be in a hotel room talking to yourself in a microphone :)

    We’ve had over 1,200 people download the podcasts so far – and a bunch of people contacting me asking how I did them and could I help.

    Something is a brewin’ here! Thanks for mentioning our podcast. Looking forward to see what college admission people do with the new medium.

Got a question or comment?