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

Plus播客-通过新媒体交流数学以接触到新的受众Plus(www.plus.maths.org)是一本屡获殊荣的免费在线杂志，向15岁起的非专家读者介绍数学世界。我们现在想通过制作一系列播客来接触到更广泛的观众。播客是可以在互联网上获得的录音(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获取新闻、信息和娱乐。Plus将为这些受众提供来自数学界的易懂和引人入胜的报告。通过这种方式，Plus将接触到更广泛的受众，特别是通过播客获得原本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，并将改善视障人士获取Plus内容的机会。据估计，英国约有800万人收听播客，其中三分之一的播客用户年龄在24岁以下，其中20%的播客用户年龄在12岁到17岁之间。这一新受众可能传统上不听新闻广播，但正在接触到越来越多的成功新闻和科学播客，比如非常成功的《裸体科学家》节目，每个播客有大约6万名听众。许多传统媒体，如报纸、杂志和主要广播电台，现在都会制作定期播客--BBC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，Plus一直在关注这一不断增长的媒介，我们认为这将是向普通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他们自己的话谈论这个主题。录制播客几乎不会占用研究人员的时间，而且可以通过电话完成，因此将使并鼓励更多的播客直接向公众发表讲话。这将延续Plus的目标之一--展示数学的个人一面，这是打击对数学的负面刻板印象和为学生提供榜样的重要工具。PLUS播客将允许我们突出数学的个人方面，与著名数学家以及来自不同领域的研究人员、行业和Plus作者进行讨论。该提议是在2007年和2008年制作至少10个播客系列，每个播客长约15分钟：我们最初将其作为试验性试点和开发阶段进行研究，但希望能够在可能的情况下增加这段时间制作的播客数量。10年来，Plus网站一直在制作可访问和娱乐的内容，向普通公众推广数学，现在拥有超过10万名读者，其中包括3000名订阅他们双周通讯的订阅者。这种通过互联网交流数学的经历，除了或多或少经常出现在广播四台的S之外，也为开发和制作播客向普通民众交流数学提供了良好的基础。Plus网站将提供广泛的资源来支持和扩大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--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.