As some of you may know, the program of any THATCamp is comprised to two kinds of meetings: hands on, directed workshops and user-proposed sessions. I’ll be sharing more information about proposing sessions at the end of this week. Today, though, I wanted to start a series of previews of the three workshops we’ll be hosting at THATCamp AAR2014. The first workshop will be on Podcasting and will be run by two stellar scholars, S. Brent Plate, host of That Religious Show, and Kristian Petersen, host of a number of religious studies podcasts. Here’s what Brent and Kristian say they’ll be covering:

Podcasts are poised to be one of the major forms of U.S. media in the coming years. The public is listening to stories on “This American Life” and its spin-off “Serial,” while comedy shows like “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” entertain and Krista Tippet’s “On Being” examines issues of faith and life. Estimates indicate 75 million Americans listen to at least one podcast a month, and Apple recently announced that there are one billion podcast subscriptions via iTunes. Podcasting is a low cost, flexible medium that allows for great experimentation.

So, what does this mean to faculty and their students? How can podcasts and podcasting be used in the classroom? And how can they be used as forms of scholarly production? During this workshop we will explore the why, what, and how of podcasting.

• Why? Reasons for using podcasts in both teaching and scholarly production.
• What? Equipment, programs, web-hosts, etc. for creating and dissemination podcasts.
• How? DIY instructions for podcasting, problems or complications we have encountered, and successes.

So bring a computer, portable device, maybe some earbuds and a mic, so we can get some playtime.

Running from 10:30am-12:00pm. Room TBD.