I think that podcasting can be an excellent educational tool, especially for these online classes. It puts more of a personal touch on the education. You get to here your professors voice, as well as get a feel for his teaching style, instead of just reading stuff out of a book that is assigned. What I do not get is the wasted money that podcasting brings. Duke University and Drexel put down money for ALL incoming freshman to have an iPod. I feel this is unnecessary spending when most kids have a laptop already. I think instead of giving all the freshman an iPod, they should think about just the ones without laptops, or go a step further and get them laptops since that would be more useful from an educational standpoint. Some people cannot learn from just reading something, so podcasting would be very beneficial to these people, but it should also come along with the written lecture. The reason I say that is while some people learn better by auditory stimuli, some people actually learn better by ready. That being said I think there needs to be a balance.