Full Circle Associates

I was talking to some colleagues in Ghana last week about blending technologies to reach an audience that has a range of internet access --> from zero to always on. I mentioned podcasting and they looked at me as if I were crazy until we started talking about how it might blend with community radio, which is a powerful force in some African countries (See Ethan Zuckerman's recent posts on this. Also his notes from PopTech)

Then today via Stephen Downes I found Edupodder and Steve Sloan's concise definition What is podcasting?:

"If you know how a desktop aggregator like NetNewsWire works, you know you subscribe to a set of RSS feeds. Using the aggregator you easily view the new stuff from all the feeds you have subscribed to together, or can see each feed separately. The format used is RSS 2.0 which supports enclosures.

Podcasting works in a similar way. Except, instead of having to read the new content on a computer screen, you can listen to the new audio content on a portable device like an iPod as well as your computer.

Using this technology is like giving your iPod a set of subscriptions that are checked regularly for updates. Today there are a limited number of programs available this way.

It has been described as being like underground radio. Except this broadcasting technology is becoming available to everyday users. It does for time based content, like audio and potentially video what the web did for text publishing. It is the audio version of a blog!

I believe the implications of this for education are astounding and are just now being recognized.

I think the implications go far beyond education, Steve! Think of an HIV prevention program that streams interesting (read: fun, hip, culturally relevant) materials, maybe in the form of music, to an internet cafe where some clever teen sets up a way to download it to not one, but many digital music devices. These then spread out around town, out to villages. Kids swap their files, collect the songs. Local radios upload and play the pieces. All of a sudden one internet connection is the source for content that spreads (dare I say virally?) across the community for HIV prevention.

What about when the kids start creating their own digital recordings? What about when it gets political, but VERY hard to control in cultures where control has repressed change?

Blue sky? Sure, I'm good at that. But I think there is more than blue sky in the picture.