http://www.cinchcast.com/

The basics

Cinchcast describes itself as “a free and easy way to create and share audio, text and photo updates using your phone or computer. Cinch enables you to capture and report on your experiences in a way that simple text just can’t do. Using a simple interface, you can make and broadcast your content creations through Facebook, Twitter, CinchCast.com and more.”

While there are many ways to record and send audio files via the Internet, to podcast and achieve similar forms of media creation and distribution, Cinchcast promotes a more ‘facebook’ style of streaming and updating, with the opportunity for comments. The service includes the use of widgets for publishing on other sites, and smart-phone applications for mobile recording and publishing.

As with many applications, the service appears to be very public and full of the latest uploads from everyone: however, features such as following, pages, networks enables users to create a much tighter group of contributors and audience members inside the apparent cacophony.

What needs to be explored

Would this tool work for students? There would be significant reluctance from many students to record and broadcast themselves (indeed most people do not like doing this, as evidenced by the very low popularity of personal podcasting). Would the tool work for academics? Probably more so, enabling rapid recording and publishing of ideas and commentary.

One neat opportunity would be to record discussions about a particular online object or resource (such as a website) which would then enable students to listen while also exploring the site. The real value of the service may arise more from its link to mobile devices, freeing users from the desktop and enabling ‘field’ reports. We also need to explore whether the material to be created and published can be constrained sufficiently for teaching purposes (unless the academic concerned wants to be more open).

Pedagogic challenge

Nominally, lectures (now often recorded by universities using one of several systems such as ECHO360) are the primary means by which teachers deliver didactic audio content. Smaller, directly recorded audio materials can break both students and teachers of the habit of ‘the lecture’ while retaining (and indeed improving on) some of its more valuable aspects.

Alternatives

Talkshoe, http://www.talkshoe.com, can also provide innovative ways of using audio for individual presentations and group discussions. The group discussion approach, with the model of the ‘talk show’, might make this service more collaborative, but with that opportunity comes greater need to manage and control what students do.