What is a Podcast?
A podcast is a series of audio or video files hosted online. A user can download these files individually and listen to/watch them on a PC or Mac using or s/he may choose to "subscribe" to a podcast. Podcasts utilize RSS technology which means each podcast is associated with a syndicated feed. Once a user subscribes to a podcast (which is free), all future episodes of the podcast are delivered to the user's content aggregator software (the most popular of which is iTunes). Podcasting also provides the option for mobile listening, as the files may be exported onto an iPod or other mobile device equipped with audio (mp3) and/or video (mp4) playing capability. For more information, visit the podcast entry on wikipedia.

In the past several years, podcasting has become very popular in education for many reasons:

• Podcasts provide opportunities for repetition, as students can self-select to listen to an instructor's lecture or learning module over and over or just review a select portion as necessary. Cognitive research has proven that repetition is an essential element to increasing retention. In classrooms, students rarely request instructors to repeat information over and over and over and over again, out of fear of being judged by others.
  

• Podcasts also hold the potential to meet the needs of more learning styles and students with disabilities. Instructors may choose to supplement existing text-based lectures or written instructional material (when copyright is owned by the instructor) with audio podcast files. This results in students having access to instructional content in both text and audio. The student is given the choice to access the file-type that meets his/her learning needs the best. In a recent survey, 40% of online students reported that they elected to both listen and read lectures that were provided in text and audio formats because it met their learning needs best.
  

• When audio podcasts are provided as a supplement to text-based content, the content is now made automatically accessible to deaf students.

• Podcasting provides the option for mobility and customized learning which are characteristics of the Millennial generation, the largest growing group of students in higher ed today.