There are many, many podcasts about higher education out there. Feedspot lists their top 45 in the UK https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_education_podcasts/ which are a mix of discussions about higher education policy, advice to students and explorations of the role of technology in education. Sue Beckingham recommends her favourite ones here https://socialmediaforlearning.com/2020/12/22/easy-listening-a-collection-of-higher-education-podcasts/ . Some are produced as the official marketing by universities, others by professionals aiming to share their thoughts on topics. Some focus on conveying information, others lean more into the banter. 

In LTHEchat 246: Podcasting in Higher Education, we’d like to talk about the role that podcasts take in supporting your professional development. Do you just listen to them for fun, or is there an aspect of them that you find informative? What things make you want to listen more, and what makes you switch off?  

We’re hoping that this will be an opportunity for sharing with others the podcasts you like and also a chance to reflect on what actually it is that draws you to podcasts as a support for your work in HE. We’re also interested in the information literacy angle; is there something about the nature of podcasts that meets a need which isn’t being fulfilled by the alternative ways of accessing information?  

And maybe you’ll be inspired to start a podcast of your own.

Guest biographies.

Mark Childs is a Senior Learning Designer at Durham University. Previous universities he’s worked at include Wolverhampton, Warwick, Coventry, Loughborough, Worcester, KCL, Leicester, Oxford Brookes and Open, the plan being that if he keeps moving on quickly enough, he’ll never be found out. In 2021 he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for his research in virtual reality and videoconferencing. Mark is one of the two creators behind Pedagodzilla with Mike “@Pedagodzilla” Collins and has started Pedagogy Podium, a platform for people who just want to do one or two episodes of a podcast rather than start a whole series. 

 Jane Secker is Senior Lecturer in Educational Development at City, University of London. She leads the modules related to digital education and digital literacies and is Programme Director of the Masters in Academic Practice. She is Chair of the CILIP Information Literacy Group and a member of the Copyright Advisory Panel which is a governance group of the UK’s Intellectual Property Office. Along with Chris Morrison, Jane runs the website copyrightliteracy.org and the podcast Copyright Waffle, which is an archive of amazing chats with people whose lives have been touched by copyright!

See the Wakelet of this chat (450 tweets) here https://wakelet.com/wake/etvp4JnTF80VjxKihAvVs