Developing Plus podcasts - communicating maths via new media to reach a new audience

Plus播客-通过新媒体传播数学，以达到新的受众Plus（www.plus.maths.org），屡获殊荣的免费在线杂志，介绍了非专家读者从15岁起的数学世界。我们现在想通过制作一系列播客来接触更广泛的受众。播客是互联网上的录音（通常类似于小型广播节目），可以下载到个人电脑或便携式音乐播放器（如iPod）上。越来越多的人利用播客来获取新闻、信息和娱乐。Plus将为这些观众提供来自数学世界的可访问和引人入胜的报告。通过这种方式，Plus将接触到更广泛的受众，特别是通过播客访问他们不会接触到的材料的年轻人。该项目将为教师提供一个有趣的新工具，并将改善视障者对Plus内容的访问。据估计，英国约有800万人收听播客，三分之一的播客用户年龄在24岁以下，20%的播客用户年龄在12岁至17岁之间。这些新的听众可能没有传统地收听新闻广播，但正在接触越来越多的成功的新闻和科学播客，例如非常成功的裸体科学家节目，每个播客有大约60，000名听众。许多传统媒体，如报纸、杂志和主要广播电台，现在都定期制作播客--英国广播公司制作的每日新闻播客每月下载量超过70万次。在过去的12个月里，我们一直在监测这种增长的媒介，我们认为这将是向公众推广数学的一个很好的途径。特别是，它允许公众和研究科学家之间更密切的互动，因为听众将听到研究人员用自己的话谈论这个问题。录制播客对研究人员的时间要求很小，可以通过电话完成，因此将使更多的研究人员能够直接向公众发言。这将继续Plus的目标之一-呈现数学的个人方面，这是打击数学负面刻板印象和为学生提供榜样的重要工具。加播客将使我们能够突出数学的个人方面，与著名的数学家和来自各个领域，行业和加作者的研究人员进行讨论。建议在2007年和2008年制作一系列至少10个播客，每个大约15分钟长：我们最初是作为一个试验性的试点和发展阶段来处理这个问题的，但希望能够在可能的情况下增加在这一时期制作的播客的数量。加网站一直在生产方便和娱乐的内容，促进数学向公众10年来，现在有超过10万读者的观众，包括3000订阅他们的半月刊通讯。这种通过互联网交流数学的经验，除了经常出现在电台4的或多或少，为开发和制作播客向公众传播数学提供了良好的基础。Plus网站将提供广泛的资源，以支持和扩大Plus播客的影响，反过来，播客本身将鼓励新的受众探索网站上的其他资源。一系列Plus播客将向新的和不断增长的受众推广数学，工程和物理学-激发公众对当前研究的兴趣，并激励下一代数学家，工程师和物理科学家。

Plus podcasts - communicating maths via new media to reach a new audience Plus (www.plus.maths.org), the award-winning free online magazine, introduces non-expert readers from age 15 onward to the world of mathematics. We now want to try to reach a wider audience by producing a series of podcasts. Podcasts are sound recordings (often similar to small radio shows) available on the internet that can be downloaded onto personal computers or portable music players (like iPods). A growing number of people are taking advantage of podcasting to access news, information and entertainment. Plus will provide this audience with accessible and engaging reports from the world of mathematics. This way Plus will reach a wider audience, particularly younger people who through podcasting are accessing material to which they wouldn't otherwise be exposed. The project will provide an interesting new tool for teachers and will improve access for the visually impaired to Plus content. It is estimated that around 8 million people in the UK listen to podcasts, and that a third of podcast users are under 24, with 20% of podcast users between 12 and 17. This new audience may not have traditionally listened to news radio, but are being exposed to a growing range of successful news and science podcasts, such as the highly successful Naked Scientist's show, which has around 60,000 listeners per podcast. Many of the traditional media such as papers, magazines and major radio stations now produce regular podcasts - the BBC produces a daily news podcast that has over 700,000 downloads a month. Plus has been monitoring this growing medium over the last 12 months and we feel that it would be an excellent avenue to promote mathematics to the general public. In particular, it allows closer interaction between public and research scientists, as listeners will hear researchers talk in their own words about the subject. Recording podcasts makes little demand on researchers' time and can be done over the phone, and so will enable and encourage a greater number of them to speak directly to the public. This will continue one of Plus's aims - to present the personal side of maths, an important tool in combatting the negative stereotype of mathematics and in providing role models for students. Plus podcasts will allow us to highlight the personal side of mathematics, with discussions with prominent mathematicians and with researchers from a variety of fields, industry and Plus authors. The proposal is to produce a series of at least 10 podcasts over 2007 and 2008, each around 15 minutes long: we are approaching this initially as an experimental pilot and development phase but hope to be able to increase the number of podcasts produced in this period if possible. The Plus site has been producing accessible and entertaining content promoting mathematics to the general public for 10 years, and now has an audience of over a hundred thousand readers including 3000 subscribers to their fortnightly newsletter. This experience communicating mathematics through the internet, in addition to frequently appearing on Radio 4's More or Less, provides a sound basis for developing and producing podcasts to communicate maths to the general public. The Plus website will provide an extensive resource to back up and widen the impact of the Plus podcasts and, in turn, the podcasts will themselves encourage a new audience to explore the other resources on the site. A series of Plus podcasts will promote mathematics, engineering and physics to a new and growing audience - stimulating the public's interest in current research and inspiring the next generation of mathematicians, engineers and physical scientists.