Podcasting at AU Washington College of Law

Somebody had to be the first, and it's not too surprising that it was Billie Jo Kaufman and her colleagues at American University to do it: introducing the first large-scale effort at law school podcasting:

WCL launched this service primarily for its students in Washington, D.C. and around the world. “The primary goal of WCL’s Office of Technology,” says Dean Claudio Grossman, “is to deliver information to students and faculty in many formats.” Grossman’s Welcome podcast and others can be found at: http://wcl.american.edu/podcast/index.rss2. WCL recognizes that, due to distance and time constraints, students cannot possibly attend all of the many events offered at WCL. For instance, in the past year, WCL hosted a discussion with Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Breyer, a panel on Homeland Security featuring Tom Ridge, a national security law conference and a conference on the Geneva Conventions in a Post-9-11 or Iraq World,
which featured former Legal Advisor to Secretary of State Powell Will Taft. All of these could have been downloaded to iPods from the WCL Web site and enjoyed on the bus, metro or in any other venue. To accommodate WCL students’ busy schedules, the school intends to make all audio from events available via podcast.

WCL is also sensitive to the needs of those students for whom English is not their first language. Podcast software allows the listener to slow playback of the audio, making it easier for the speaker to be understood. Also, classes will be podcast for students who are unable to attend due to illness, family emergency or other excusable absence.

See more here.