Anchor is a simple and free platform for creating short podcasts. I started using it in December to publish occasional podcasts. A couple of things initially drew me to Anchor. First, recording is simple of matter of just holding down the record button on your phone then releasing it when you’re done talking. Second, when I started using Anchor you could only have two minutes of recorded audio in each podcast that you publish. That recently changed when Anchor introduced some new features.

The latest update to the Anchor platform moves it closer to full-fledged podcast network. The Anchor apps now let you upload external audio clips to include in your podcast. Those clips could be used as bumper music or those clips could be sound bites that you want to discuss. Speaking of discussion, Anchor now has a “call-in” feature that lets you include responses from listeners as part of your podcast.

Anchor has made a huge change to the way that you can share your recordings. On the new version of Anchor you can have your spoken words automatically transcribed and displayed in a video suitable for sharing on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. See an example embedded below.

Applications for Education

As I wrote back in December, Anchor’s lack of comment moderation prevents me from recommending it for classroom use. That said, it could be a good platform for teachers to use to quickly create a professional development podcast.