Blog and Podcasting in language Learning Process: A case study

In 2005, CLAM took an important role in the national field: it used new technologies such as Feed RSS, Mobile Learning and the latest, the Blog in the teaching process of foreign languages. Today, in the first semester of 2006 this Language Centre, in collaboration with an independent editorial society, productive in digital media, will offer a new service: short lessons in foreign languages (called pillole) which will be published with an audio file support. The relationship between CLAM and this society will be the opening of a thematic website whose original characteristic is the use of a platform blog with a podcasting . The binomial podcasting-teaching represents a huge potential in the teaching/learning process of foreign languages: abilities and competences can be improved with this new strategy that carries the information in a free, itinerary, that is transportable and easily accessible. The use of this new communication system, in this project of linguistic education, has the objective of improving learners' competences through the multimedia reality, stimulating their self-learning ability and developing their metacognitive process during the learning process. The technology is based on a Feed RSS with an enclosure and a client that downloads the feed at regular intervals and it gets the pointer to the new audio pieces published. Nevertheless, this is not a new technology or a new protocol, but it is a new way of using the earliest technologies. The difference and, in a certain way the "revolution," of the streaming audio/video is due to two reasons: the automatism of downloading new contents and the possibility of creating one's own personal palimpsest. This paper will show what are the main characteristics of the lessons "pillole", the relationship between the audio file and the lessons, the format developed by CLAM for the creation of the palimpsest, the steps of production and postproduction of podcasts and how they will be published.