Apple’s Podcast infrastructure is the most powerful podcast environment. Recently, they decided to abandon educators in podcasts.
Podcasts
Cleary, Apple Podcasts is still the dominant player in podcasts. Although we are seeing movement in other podcast ecosystems, Apple’s is still the “big dog” right now. Stitcher, Spotify and others are definitely making in roads. Categories
One of ways to discover new podcasts is to be featured on Apple Podcasts page. Apple previously had a variety of categories. For example, in Education, there were a variety of sub-categories. Our podcast, Middle School Matters, was tagged to be part of those sub-categories. We were in the K-12 and Educational Technology categories. This is because our podcast focuses on K-12 educators. We focus on teaching strategies, professional development and the life of real teachers. Our podcast is specifically targeted toward, well, K-12 teachers (most specifically at 6-8 grade teachers as indicated by the title of the podcast).
The new categories are limited to the following:
- Top Shows
- News Shows
- Language Learning
- How To
- Self Improvement
- Courses
Several other podcasts seem to be very oddly categorized. Jennifer Gonzalez’s (The Cult of Pedagogy) podcast is in the Courses category.
Notice the change in focus? No longer is the Education category about teachers and teaching. There is no easy way to discover new podcasts that are focused on the teaching and learning process. The sub-categories were a bit hidden away. They could’ve easily been left in place for those who want to find them.
Our podcast no longer fits in any of those categories. More importantly, teachers who go looking for podcasts geared toward pedagogy or professional development will not have an easy time finding them.
Alas, Apple has apparently decided that podcasts focused at teachers aren’t worth their time or attention. For me, this is one more example of how Apple has truly abandoned educators.
