Over the past few weeks and months I’ve received several requests for interviews on podcasting in higher education, and not only from those in the higher education community.

I want to thank two bloggers who were kind enough to publish those interviews in their entirety: Karine Joly at Collegewebeditor.com (link to interview) and Donna Papacosta at Trafcom News Podcast (link to interview show notes).

As I hinted in an earlier post, Karine is doing a generous service to the community by posting full-length interviews she held in advance of her recent column in University Business. In many ways, I’m finding the interviews to be more valuable than the column, though clearly the two are intended for different audiences.

Donna sees ways that business communicators can learn from those experimenting with podcasting in higher ed, which I find intriguing, considering higher education’s sometime-reputation for being slow to integrate new technologies.

Through these interviews, I’m increasingly aware of how podcasting, blogging, and other consumer-generated, social-oriented media are creating oppotunities for connections and learning among disparate industries and previously disconnected disciplines within industries. The change is both positive and unsettling. Clearly, I am not the first to make this observation.

For example, look at how corporate communicators are reaching out to connect with higher education. Consider how, through events like HigherEd BlogCon, instructors, librarians, and marketers are rallying together around common points of interest.

Without a doubt, we are living in times of great change as many barriers erode (and new ones form). The relationship between change and connectedness is a tricky one, and the discussion seems to be popping up more frequently. Do you feel more connected, or less connected? Speaking as a student, Sean Blanda is one who clearly feels the disconnect and is doing something about it in a reverently irreverent fashion, through his blog. (Sean’s blog should be a must-read for instructors and all in academia seeking to gain a good understanding of a student perspective on learning and tools of the new Web.)

All of this means change for the University. What will your new place of learning be like?