The book Educational Podcast: Potere all’Immaginazione (134 pages, in Italian only) by Cinzia Ferranti and Marco Toffanin, published in 2024, explores the use of podcasts as an innovative educational tool. The authors analyse how podcasts can enrich the learning experience, offering students a flexible and engaging way to acquire knowledge. The text delves into the advantages of using podcasts in higher education, highlighting how they can improve listening and analytical skills, expand vocabulary, and support cognitive strategies.
This publication starts with a comprehensive and well researched history of podcasting, then provides suggestions on how to approach the production of podcasts in different genres. In the chapter on educational podcasts the authors provide examples of how different types of podcasts can be used in diverse learning contexts, such as informal or group learning. In this chapter the authors describe innovative teaching methodologies that integrate both listening to and creating podcasts, such as Flipped Classroom, PodQuest, and Role Playing, providing practical examples of how these techniques can be implemented in the classroom.
With their theoretical (with extensive references) as well as practical approach, Ferranti and Toffanin equip educators with valuable tools to incorporate podcasts into their teaching practices, to support a dynamic and interactive learning process. One chapter is dedicated to running a practical workshop with students on the creation of podcasts. The book concludes with a chapter on the basics of audio and podcast technology and on legal aspects.
This book serves as a valuable resource for teachers, trainers, and education professionals interested in leveraging the potential of podcasts to enhance students’ imagination and engagement in the learning process with many references to further reading or to interesting historical facts or statistical data.
Cinzia Ferranti is a Learning Designer and Technologist at the University of Padua, specialising in educational technologies and innovative teaching methodologies..
Marco Toffanin is a multimedia communication expert and educator at the University of Padua, teaching in Communication Sciences. He specializes in multimedia content creation.
(Available on online bookshops)
