Aside from the Blog or Die crew, others have been blogging their podcast listens including Doug Belshaw, Bryan Alexander, Laura Hilliger, Alan Levine, James Ravenscroft, and John Johnston.

I first started listening to podcasts, and audiobooks, when I began my (short lived) teaching career. I taught in rural schools in the prairies and found myself with lots of time on the highway and needing to stay awake. Music only took me so far, and then I learned about podcasts. It all began with Stuff You Should Know from How Stuff Works (remember that site?) I also got to start reading classics like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or Brave New World thanks to LibriVox (later getting to meet Hugh and learn about the new exciting project that became Pressbooks).

Anyway, the podcasts I listen to change a little from year to year. I still listen to them while commuting but now also, like Bryan, when my hands are busy but my mind is free. Cooking, cleaning, etc.

Learning and Development

Gettin’ Air with Terry Greene – a senior instructional designer in Canada, and open education leader, interviews notable folks from technology enhanced learning and open ed. The conversations are interesting and relaxed, and episodes are usually around 30 minutes which makes them easy to listen to.

Great Minds on Learning, The Learning Hack – this multiseason podcast is a conversation between Donald Clark and John Helmer. Each episode focuses on movements in learning theory such as constructivism, pragmatism, etc. Any summary of a topic is bound to miss loads of nuance, but each episode is a pretty great place to get started on each topic.

The BLOC Podcast with Heidi Kirby – Heidi’s work covers all things L&D and has chats with guests from different L&D contexts. It’s a great way to meet people and learn about what L&D looks like in different roles, orgs, and sectors.

Technology

Better Offline, Ed Zitron – this is a biting critique of everyday technology. You can imagine what topic filled most of the 2024 episodes.

Foundering – a five season podcast where each season is a mini series covering a founder of a big tech company. There are lots of little bits of information that you learn in this podcast that aren’t just republishing press releases.

Mystery AI Hype Theatre 3000 – join the hosts, one of whom authored the Stocastic Parrots paper, to break down the grift side of AI reporting.

Cory Doctorow – I read the news letter but every now and then the podcast version will resurface something that is good to go over again.

Smashing Security – one of the top rated info sec and comedy podcasts most years. The hosts are sharp, have great banter, are informative, and hilarious. This is one of the top podcasts for keeping up with info sec news.

Tech Won’t Save Us – Paris Marx interviews guests about all things technology, and you might guess the take they usually have. One of the sharpest things to come out in 2024 was the mini series, Data Vampires, covering data centers.

404 Media – former motherboard reporters formed their own company and cover technology topics others don’t necessarily hit on. For example, in one episode they talk about a law enforcement owned mobile phone company. Fascinating and detailed reporting from this team and looking forward to 2025 episodes.

General Interest

Canadaland – I’ve been a paying subscriber for years. I came to this podcast by way of their weekly ShortCuts which highlighted weekly news coverage and critiqued it. Then they had their first season of Commons which covered white collar crime in Canada. Now I think I listen to all their shows except the French language one (not fluent), and in 2024 I believe they had a special series called the Pretendians which you might want to give a listen to.

Cautionary Tales – I listen to episodes based on whether I think the title is interesting. The storytelling is well put together going back and forth from the tale to current research on the topic being illustrated.

If Books Could Kill – the hosts discuss popular airport style books and usually leave me laughing. Many of the books discussed have had some influence in pop culture which then the hosts are able to critique so you get a snapshot of what the book is (see not about summaries missing something) and critiques of the work.

Maintenance Phase – similar to the books podcast above but instead they cover different movements in fitness and dieting. Aubrey and Michael are hilarious and informative.

The Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu – this is a popular judo related podcast discussing different topics from training, to techniques, to coaching. I watch some of Higashi’s tutorials on Youtube and the podcast is a great addition for those looking to get new perspectives on how to teach judo.

 

I’m sure there are other shows where I listen to an episode here and there, but this is a snapshot of what I listened to in 2024 and will probably continue listening to in 2025.

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Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash