Lynda.com, the multimedia training site of Lynda Weinman, has introduced a new series of tutorials on podcast creation, Podcasting with GarageBand 3.The tutorials, by photographer and digital media guru Scott Bourne, guide students through the process of creating a podcast, including: setting up the software, recording voices, selecting music, adding sound effects, enhancing a podcast with pictures and video, publishing to iTunes or third-party hosts, and more.

The title is live now at lynda.com and CDROM versions will be available for purchase later in the second quarter.

Canada’s first comprehensive podcasting survey is underway, and is looking for input.

The study is aimed at discovering what is happening with podcasting in Canada; audience sizes and characteristics, popular podcasts and topics, audience demographics, and more.

To participate in the survey and to be entitled to receive a highlighted summary of the results, visit the Canadian Podcast Listeners’ Survey website. The survey will be open until May 26, 2006.

Wired magazine has announced its 2006 Rave Award winners

The winner in the Podcast category are the “oddcasters” of The Ricky Gervais Show, a popular UK podcast that is now subscription only.

Dave Winer, programmer, blogging pioneer and one of the fathers of podcasting, has introduced a Top Podcasts list for users of his site Share Your OPML.

The list highlights the top 25 podcasts subscribed to by users of the site, which lets users share bookmarks, outlines, feeds and other information in OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language).

Perhaps a sign that OPML hasn’t reached the mainstream yet, the list is amazingly geektastic; one of the few non-technical podcasts currently in the top 25 is the Battlestar Galactica podcast.

Top Podcasts at Share Your OPML (May 25, 2006):
While the current listing reflects the interests of early OPML adopters, it demonstrates how aggregating bookmarks can be used to provide a popular ranking and guide users with shared interests to podcasts they might like.

Source: Share Your OPML

Nike and Apple have announced a partnership bringing the worlds of sports and music together with the launch of Nike+iPod products. The first product developed through this partnership is the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, a wireless system that allows Nike+ footwear to talk with aniPod nano.

‚ÄúWe‚Äôre working with Nike to take music and sport to a new level,‚Äù said Steve Jobs, Apple‚Äôs CEO. “The result is like having a personal coach or training partner motivating you every step of your workout.”

A new ad campaign for the Sansa e200, a portable digital media player, mocks iPod owners, calling them iSheep and iPuppets.

The iDont campaign calls on “free thinkers, contrarians and malcontents” to “rise up against the iTatorship.

A Purdue University professor is taking podcasting beyond the typical course lecture audio by using a variety of movie making techniques – and comedy borrowed from South Park, Will Ferrell and Jeff Foxworthy – to increase students’ ability to learn in the classroom.

Laurie Iten, an associate professor of biology, produces 5-10 minute online video reviews of the previous class and previews of the coming lab for her first-year students. She relies on scripts that incorporate video clips, quirky soundtracks, cartoonish sound effects and retro graphics to add life to lessons.

“Our Rewind/Flash Forward podcasts make the connection between what we learned and what we will learn,” Iten said. “We focus on the skills we know students have difficulty with.”

A new video podcast, The Rest of Everest documents a 2003 expedition to the Northeast Ridge route to the top of Mount Everest.

The video podcast, created by documentary filmmaker Jon Miller of TreeLine Productions in Colorado, is “the rest” of the footage from the expedition documentary Everest: The Other Side, which premiered on Dish Network Pay-Per-View in May of 2005.

Apple has introduced a free program to let kids learn podcasting with GarageBand this summer, Apple Camp.

The day “camps” at Apple stores promise to let kids geek out, making music, movies, podcasts or websites using Mac computers and iLife software.Workshops are geared towards kids with intermediate computer skills. The camps are free, but require registration.

ClickCaster, a podcasting host and directory currently in public beta testing, has updated the podcasting services it offers, adding direct iPod synchronization, ecommerce services, enhanced stats for podcasters, GarageBand support, and an embeddable podcast player.