Pragmatic Podcasting: How to Easily Facilitate Podcasting

In this paper we describe our pragmatic way to easily facilitate podcasting at the University of Aarhus – both technically and pedagogically. The technical setup and our experiences with accommodating podcasting by means of open source technologies and easy-to-use authoring tools are described. Further, the paper presents our preliminary experiences with integrating podcasts in teaching practice using a constructivist approach. Finally, on basis of our technical and pedagogical experiences, the paper provides pointers to how podcasting can be done easily and at a low cost using the appropriate technologies and software, implementation strategy, and a constructivist approach. 1.1. Background and Alternatives The interest in podcasting has increased dramatically during the last years and universities struggle with accommodating the wishes and demands. In some cases exhaustive and expensive podcast solutions are established using heavy servers, expensive software, complex AV-hardware setups, and/or a relatively large staff. However, developing, publishing, and integrating podcasts in teaching practice do not necessarily have to be an exhaustive or complex task. Producing a “perfect ” podcast with high audio-visual quality, well-structured, and well