Discussion: Somewhat like the return of vinyl records, the recent resurgence of the Podcast medium, initially on the back of some hyper-popular journalistic properties, might have been unexpected. Podcasts demonstrate the enduring power of sound, the spoken word, and narrative, above and beyond the engagement possible with visual media. It is probably safe to say that the resurgence would not have happened without current mobile technologies – Podcasts are perhaps a quintessential mobile experience. Recently AIs have demonstrated the ability to create hours-long multi-persona podcasts on the fly, and they also have the ability to make such podcasts intensively personal and interactive – it is difficult to imagine all of the potentials for learning within this transformation.
523 Inspiration: For education, and mobile learning especially, Podcasts offer a proven medium that is equally convenient and accessible for both learners and educators. Better networks and devices have considerably elevated the potential of educational Podcasts since their first appearance on now-outmoded iPods.
I’ve been tinkering with using AI to create podcasts for the last 3 years. As soon as I learned of NotebookLM from Google, now Gemini Notebook – the ability to curate resources and build materials only from your curated sources had me hooked immediately.
My love for this specific program and feature started because of my hectic life and countless hours driving, paired with still needing to learn information for courses. The ability to create a podcast to listen to while I drive about the specific material I needed to learn was phenomenal.
From a teaching perspective, I use it to help support my students who struggle with reading. The students have no issues learning; it’s just the reading that can be a speed bump for many. By showing them this tool, I show them that reading doesn’t have to be a speed bump. Sources can be uploaded quickly, and study materials can be made in minutes. AI’s support in creating podcasts is a fast, engaging, and applicable way to support various learning environments, not just in a classroom, although for myself, that is my primary use currently.
I am quite intrigued as to the potential for AI generated podcasts that can teach complicated subjects and break them down in a way that is individualized to the specific learners style of learning. If these AI generated podcasts can be engaging and can be listened to again and again while the person is commuting, doing yard work etc., it could be an incredible learning tool for many people. In my line of work of teaching Secwepemctsin (language of the Secwepemc), I can see the benefit for people to repetitively hear the words and phrases they are trying to learn and for it to be done in an engaging way so that they are likely to listen to it again without it seeming too dry and boring.
I believe the podcast resurgence reveals something profound about human attention that we keep rediscovering: sound, the spoken word, and narrative engage us in ways visual media simply cannot replicate, because audio slips into the cracks of our day—the commute, the gym, the dishes—and asks for nothing but our ears, which makes it the quintessential mobile experience. What excites me is that this medium, which once required studios and production teams, is now being transformed by AI that can generate hours-long multi-persona podcasts on the fly and make them intensively personal and interactive.
I think this idea could be a sleeper hit on this list of concepts. Podcasts have been around for some time but they do offer a medium for learning that hasn’t really been fully tapped in education – at least not in my opinion. With the ability to now generate full podcasts in minutes (ie. NotebookLM, now Gemini Notebook I think?) I think there is an exciting opportunity here to let teachers and students generate bespoke audio content on demand that gives learners a chance to engage with content in a mostly “hands-free” use case. Customizations, branching, checks for understanding, tight alignment to curriculum, and even realistic conversational AI-generated voiceovers are all just technical challenges now – the pieces just need to be put together in a way that works for students and teachers.