What is with all of this casting of pods lately? From the edges of the blogosphere in the days before the ubiquity of YouTube, podcasting became a thing. Its shape and scope have changed, but it remains a complex tableau of digitally dynamic, microphone-centred, for-you-by-you content design. When explaining the phenomenon, we can apply “multi-,” “inter-,” and “trans-” to all of our descriptors. Podcasting is multicultural, interdisciplinary, and transmedial (and all of the other combinations). Podcasting embraces digital-age culture with a kind of technophobic charm. Podcasting is rigorously research-based and terrifyingly casual with the truth. Podcasting is elitist and thus committed to accessibility. Podcasting is carefully designed and completely spontaneous.

Podcasting is becoming an emergent, dynamic, and transformative part of scholarly life. Increasingly, employers, grad school recruiters, start-ups, and nonprofit managers are looking for students with podcasting experience.

Using a collaborative, student-centred, inquiry-based pedagogical approach—all important parts of podcasting culture—Brenton Dickieson taught the inaugural podcasting course in Applied Communications, Leadership, and Culture (ACLC) in Winter 2025. As an interdisciplinary applied arts program with a communications and cultural engagement focus, a workshop-styled course on podcasting course makes a lot of sense. 

While Brenton is the host and co-producer of the MaudCast: The Podcast of the L.M. Montgomery Institute, and has some experience teaching, he is not an expert in podcasting. In this lunch and learn, Brenton reflects upon an intense, beautiful, and learning-filled semester guiding students through the 5 stages of podcast design—from concept to product launch.