Back in September, I was a bit rankled by the tone of Tom's sort of slagging Helen's e-portfolio comparison project (and also enjoyed Will's response), but I had to agree with most of what he was saying. That same post included a link to this hilarious rebuttal to the audioblogging/podcasting hype, which I couldn't find again until today.
Audio blogging really sucks as a medium for gleaning information. I have no patience to listen to someone blather through twelve things in 20 minutes that don't interest me to get to the few sentences that are compelling. Worse, they can't link out to anything, and I can't copy or quote anything they've said. Skimming as you read and following links makes blogging work well -- it's part of information literacy to learn to discard what isn't relevant and focus on what is.
That's not to say that there's no potential value for audio in the context of education and blogs. Recording and distributing lectures just doesn't get me fired up unless they're properly chunked and indexed so I can skip sections easily. It is nice for a getting a one-time sense of the author's personality and tone. For the info-geeks who want to record these things to listen in the car or whatever, it's portable. And there may be applications for teachers looking to help kids learn a language or working with slow readers...but right now it looks like everyone is simply exorcising their childhood fantasies to be radio DJs because they can.
Oh, and Tom's SchoolTool looks like a great project. Need to check it out some more later.
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