Jim’s Listening Journal

Joining just today, I’ll document my recent podcast listening since I don’t have time to plan a listening schedule with the suggested podcasts.

One of my favourites is a conversational/co-hosted weekly podcast featuring a humorous and critical insider’s look at American evangelicalism’s shenanigans in the news. They then add an interview segment to the second half of the hour+ episode. One of the hosts does a more serious interview with a guest. This mixed format evolved when the main host took on additional commitments a few years ago and had to cut down podcast time. They now record a couple of conversational episodes back to back and release them one per week. Interviews are also pre-recorded and spliced on before release. The co-hosts often do not know, at recording time, which interview will follow their segment. Promos and advertising are wedged in between the conversation and the interview.

I listen to a number of conversational/co-hosted podcasts on the intersection of religion and race, education or edTech, and scholarship. But surprisingly, I also enjoy a weekly monologue created by a former professor of mine that mixes social commentary, a love for sports, and scholarship. A few storytelling podcasts (fictional and nonfictional) round out my subscriptions. A recent addition is a reading of fables, from five to fifteen minutes.

My Apple podcast subscription list (subscribed 2016 to 2022) has 17 podcasts I listen to regularly or monthly – usually to go to sleep or when I go for a walk. I won’t speak about the ones I no longer listen to or that have stopped adding new podcasts except to say I subscribed to a conservative rant to break out of my progressive echo chamber. Sorry, but I just cannot stand listening to it.

Podcasts that come closest to the format and content I envision for our CTL podcast include Bonnie Stachowiak’s Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Brenna’s You Got This, Mark Knoll’s Leaders and Legends in Online Learning, and Terry Greene’s Gettin’ Air. We would, however, probably start out more conversationally discussing issues people bring to our CTL until we figure out what topics are needed and how to recruit awesome guests to interview.