Podcast yummies

Just subscribed to this very promising course on Understanding Computers and the Internet from Harvard. Looks like lots of great stuff that could be useful in a whole lot of online contexts — hey, wasn’t this what learning objects were supposed to deliver?

Via Gardner, who can’t resist digging deeper:

But is it interactive?

Certainly can be. All good listening is interactive. All good listeners are co-creators. That’s not to say that the students should simply listen. No, eventually many or perhaps most of them should make their own podcasts. But there’s an art to listening well, just as there’s an art to reading well or viewing well, and that art is no mean craft. These arts probably aren’t complete unless they lead to speaking, writing, or designing oneself, but the practices are reciprocal, not mutually exclusive.

We need a theory of co-creation that maintains the vital distinction between writer and reader while articulating the common source of energy, inspiration, and attention that fuels them both, and the essential reciprocity that defines their relationship.

I might note that UBC’s Public Affairs unit has launched its own podcast series, mostly featuring high-profile speakers and the like. And there’s a lot of podcast activity bubbling beneath the surface here, the virtual presence of this campus is going to be a noisy place soon…