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What's on your iPod?(1/2)
Listen to everthing from grammar tips to history lessons
---all on your mps players
n the rapidly expanding media universe of podcasting, some previously obscure academics and amateur enthusiasts are becoming improbable podstars, complete with national media attention and swelling fan bases.
"In the digital world, there's an audience for even the most obscure thing," says Charles Hodgson, a Canadian writer whose podcast, Podictionary, examines the history and origins of one English word five days a week. Don't laugh: His podcast had been downloaded 2.3 million times in less than two years. In a medium in which shows are lucky to attract a few thousand regular listeners, it's a hit.
"It's really short, only a few minutes a day, so it's easy to listen to, and it's fascinating to hear the history of words," says John Mayson, a Podictionary fan since he got his iPod 18 months ago.
It's a comforting reminder that not everybody is as obsessed with America's current mainstream entertainment fare as it might seem.
"The people are leading the charge into podcasting, and we don't take it for granted that all they want is American Idol," says Ron Bloom, CEO and co-founder of PodShow.com, a podcast network that offers links to 60,000 podcasts in 135 categories.
Learning beyond the classroom
What is surprising is the kind of topics striking a chord with so many. The education category offers a wide variety to dip into, from university class lectures to language lessons to this-day-in-history talks.
Some education podcasts are produced by high school and middle school teachers reaching out to other teachers on ways to connect with less-than-engaged students. Eric Langhorst, a junior high history teacher in Liberty, Missouri, uses his Speaking of History podcast to hook students who dislike history but love their iPods.
"[The dislike] comes from the way history is traditionally presented in classrooms," Langhorst says. "Students like history when they see a program on TV or go to a museum or hear a story. Once you get them hooked, history is very engaging。
Vocabulary Focus
improbable (adj) ---not likely to happen or be true
mainstream (adj) ---reflecting widely accepted tastes and preferences
strike a chord (idiom) ---to cause an emotional response or reaction
