Where's that podcast channel?

We've all had that experience "now you see it - now you don't". Occasionally, you may find that some podcast channels are no longer listed within our podcast directory. This can be for a variety of different reasons:

• the podcaster has ceased to provide/update the podcast channel
• there may be technical problems associated with the RSS feed
• the content of the podcasts no longer meets our criteria
• the podcast channel was never listed in the directory
• the podcast channel has been removed for another reason

This process is part of ongoing quality assurance processes, we regularly review the content of our podcast directory - new podcast channels are added and, sometimes, podcast channels are removed. You may also find that not all podcasts associated with a channel are actually listed. As a general rule we maintain a list of up to 25 podcasts though less than this may be displayed on screen. However, displays always include the most recently published podcasts with the newest listed first.

Where a podcast channel and podcasts are no longer listed an advisory notice is now displayed on screen. We trust this is update is helpful to you.

Validating RSS Feeds

Right from the outset, the RSS specification provided an international standard for the exchange of data in a common format. With the addition of the "enclosure" tag the way ahead for referencing files was introduced, heralding the basis for podcasting - the rest is history.

There are many software and online products that will help to manage the production and publication of podcasts, most generate the associated RSS feeds on behalf of the user. Whilst many of these automated RSS feed generators produce a file that can be used with RSS aggregators and RSS enabled web-browsers, often the RSS files themselves do not validate and can cause problems a range of problems.

If you haven't tried this before, it is always worth checking whether your RSS file is valid by testing in with an RSS feed validator. The "Feed Validator", for example, is an excellent online tool to not only check whether the RSS feed is compliant but also highlights any problems and provides guidance on how to rectify the situation.

You will be surprised to discover how many RSS feeds fail the test!

Where a valid RSS feed passes the online test, you are given the option of including the valid RSS banner on your website or blog. When did you last see this banner feature anywhere on websites?

If you want to see this validation in action, see the results from the validation check for our podcast feed or the RSS feed generated by Blogger for this weblog!

If you create your own RSS feed, write software or online systems, the RSS Advisory Board publish a most useful "best practices profile" which contains very clear guidance and numerous examples.

School podcasts in 2008

Announcing the return of our podcast for educators. In this podcast - a rather belated first episode for 2008 - we feature a selection of podcast channels from our schools category.

This variety of podcasts is produced by children and young people in elementary, primary and secondary schools. At our Podcast Directory for Educators, you can locate further details about all of the featured podcasts, their associated website URLs, RSS feeds and any iTunes information.

Channels featured in this podcast are:

• Hartbeat Radio
• What's New?
• Portable Radio
• Aquicast
• Sandia Prep Radio International Podcast
• Proctor HS Orchestra's Podcasts

Do you know of other good quality podcasts that would be ideal for use by professional educators and their professional development? If the answer is "yes" then do please let us know or, alternatively, just submit details about the podcast for review. We are always keen to showcase and promote educational podcasts from around the world.

Search and locate

We have upgraded the search facility in our directory to improve its functionality and ease of use, especially for children and young people.

As before, you can select the subject categories for the search from the pull down menu. This separates the categories even further to narrow the range of podcasts and speed up the search. However, the main change is that the search will locate a match in the podcast descriptions and will now highlight those located with blue text.

We have also included a few further enhancements to make sure that searches are more effective. Regardless of the format of the search text (which can be one or more words up to a total of 20 characters), the actual search process is not case-sensitive. Therefore, a search on "john james" would not only match john james but also highlight other permutations such as John James, JOHN james, john James etc.

Hopefully, children and young people in particular should find this improved search facility easier to use.

Podcasting for Education Conference

This two-day conference, organised by Discovering Futures Limited, will be held at The University of Warwick, Wednesday 2nd and Thursday 3rd April 2008 and targeted at:

• Academics and researchers;
• Staff involved with the student experience: for example, careers, student services, IT and library, students’ unions, estates and welfare;
• Marketers and public relations professionals;
• Staff engaged or interested in enhancing the learning experience through the use of technology.

Further details about the conference, the programme and booking form can be found at the Discovering Futures website.

Podcasting "words and pictures"

An increasing number of schools are making use of enhanced podcasts to present and share a wide range of work produced by children and young people. Enhanced podcasts are a simple but effective multi-media format for creating "words and pictures", introducing a different set of skills for children and young people to master.

Podcasters can incorporate a series of images to illustrate a range of activities and samples of work from educational topics. In addition, enhanced podcasts can also include chapter markers to help organise content into various themes and these podcasts may incorporate hyperlinks that point to content on the internet such as pages on a school blog or website.

You can identify an enhanced podcast by the use of the .m4a file extension. However, this is not foolproof as some audio podcasts are encoded in AAC format and use the same file extension.

In our podcast directory we include a graphic symbol together with explanatory text so you can spot the difference! The description associated with an enhanced podcast listed in our directory will include the following line:

An enhanced podcast in AAC format.

Proliferation of Video Podcasts

There is undoubted increase in the number and variety of video podcasts. The introduction of "high definition" resolution of video, the iPhone, Apple TV, YouTube as well as the entry of broadcasting corporations has helped to stimulate interest, particularly in the consumer market.

An increasing number of broadcasters are now producing video podcasts based on their normal broadcast material. In the UK, the BBC has been conducting trials of their iPlayer - an internet based technology that allows the user to download an earlier broadcast and watch this at a later stage. Is this tody's equivalent of an on-demand video recorder? Another exciting development is the digitizing of the BBC's massive archive of broadcast material - offering huge potential to revisit past productions in the future.

The video podcast revolution would appear to hold no bounds although there is concern about the increasing bandwidth requirements, especially amongst ISPs with the prospect of the launch of the iPlayer. Another problem appears to be the range of different formats and screen sizes adopted. The new and improved variants of the MP4 format are welcome (such as the new H.264 video with AAC audio - producing a video file with the .M4V extension).

To cater for some of these changes, we have recently introduced a wide screen version of our podcast player to cater for some of these new video podcasts.

With the onward march of technology wherever next?