NOTE: this post is copied and pasted directly from a Blackboard post I made. We were asked to tie what we know about how people learn with how podcasts might be designed.

I think any podcasting pedagogy has to be linked to the principles of connectivism. Here are the connectivist principles I think relate most to podcasting:

• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. A learner can exponentially improve their own learning by plugging into an existing network.
  Applying this to podcasts: podcasts by the way we have defined them should be a series of snack-sized instructional goodness that are available via some sort of syndicated feed. In other words, podcasts containing educational nuggets are available via a network. If we can get a learner to plug into that network, they can improve their understanding about the topics the podcast covers
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances. Learning (in the sense that something is known, but not necessarily actuated) can rest in a community, a network, or a database.
  Applying this to podcasts: A syndicated podcast can be shared with more than the individuals with whom we share the feed link. Google can index it, and based on Google’s algorithms it will show up in searches based on the code we have provided on the page where the feed resides. People can find the syndication feed in ways that make sense to them, and they can use the learning nuggets for things we may not have even considered when we designed the podcast.

Maybe the biggest thing to realize is we can’t control how our learners use the podcasts. George Seimens puts it this way:

Maybe for podcast pedogogy we have to start thinking of how the little bits of information we create in a podcast will influence our learners.