iTunes, or rather podcasting specifically is simply the greatest learning tool ever. I’m always leery about new trends in the IT Industry, especially when it involves the creation of a new buzz word. Heck, I didn’t even buy an iPod for myself until the 3rd generation came out.Boy did I miss out on a LOT of stuff. While I feel the iTunes Store is hard to navigate, especially when you want to find the free stuff, persistence pays off. Even better the iTunes Store isn’t even always needed. It just simply adds an extra step of plug and play Apple goodness to the mix.In addition to computers, I’m quite the history buff. So I was extremely happy to find Matt’s Today in History. Coming up on 400 episodes he’s covered just about any important, and many minor events. He’s not quite as in depth and analytical as I’d prefer, but at between 8-15 minutes each the shows are a good break. Some of the episodes have some technical problems and the sound level is inconsistent. Despite that thought I highly recommend it. Subscribe via this link: itpc://www.podshow.com/feds/mattstodayinhistory.xmlAnother good History Podcast is the Military History Podcast by George Hageman. His Podcasts are much like Matt’s above, but as the name suggests is targeted towards those aspects of history that are related towards military, war, great leaders, tactics, etc of all nations. He does a wonderful job covering ancient battles in depth and making them come alive.Subscribe to The Military History Podcast: hereFor those into continuing education, at least in an informal setting, the University of Berkeley records a good number of their class lectures and puts them online in MP3 format. The lectures range all over the spectrum. History, biology, chemistry, programming, ecology, and physics are just some of the topics. Unluckily they do not archive old lectures so what’s there now will be gone at the end of the semester. The podcasts also suffer from the same problems as classroom lectures. Some professors are just boring to listen too, while others are really great. Another plus is that these are actual lectures, so there is 60-90 minutes of good information in each one.Get University of Berkeley podcasts here: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/index.phpThe New York Public Library has also joined the ranks of Podcasters. Their collection is so far extensive and impressive. Being newly released though I’ve not had a chance to really peruse their offerings yet, but eagerly look forward to many hours doing so.Click here to check out their offerings.Another good source is National Geographic. Disappointingly they’ve started going to video only podcasts, AND are charging for them. The older podcasts that were companions to the main articles in the magazine were extremely interesting and I enjoyed them a lot. The new ones are a bit of a disappointment to me personally, but are still pretty good.National Geographic Podcasts here: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/podcasts/And just in case those don’t keep your ears going, the Education Podcast Network has hundreds of podcasts available from their page. They have the added bonus of sections targeted towards younger listeners.Check out the Education Podcast Network here: http://www.epnweb.org/Please feel free to suggest other podcasts, I’m always looking for more good education ones.

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