The authors say, “Research comparing auditory instruction technology to in-class instruction has often found no significant differences” (21). Maybe that was true, but students don’t really seem to think so…
Flanagan, B., Calandra, B. (Nov 2005). “Podcasting in the Classroom”. Learning & Leading with Technology. International Society for Technology in Education. pgs. 20-25.
One important piece of evidence the authors try to use to make their argument for Podcasting is the wide use of portable digital media players (4-7). Some of the other articles I have found say that students aren’t using these portable players to listen/view podcasts.
I find it interesting that the authors say that “educators might do better to consider working within the medium’s strengths, creating short ‘bursts’ of content…” (6). That statement seems to play into the whole of idea of creating audio ‘learning objects’…
The authors also make an interesting point that most educators may not have the technical knowledge necessary to create effective podcasts and that “the instructional possibilities of podcasting may only be realized by those educators who put significant time and effort into experimenting with its design and production” (13). Based on my experiences, I believe that people need to have an idea of how the technology works, in order to appreciate and properly use it. I don’t think podcasting is an exception. However, products, such as Camtasia Relay, allow people to more easily create podcasts, which can be a good thing. Is it?
Brown, A., Green, T. (2007-2008). “Video Podcasting in Perspective: The History, Technology, Aesthetics, and Instructional Uses of a New Medium”. Journal of Educational Technology Systems. Vol. 36, N 1. Pgs. 3-17.
This brief article by Stuart Glogoff at the University of Arizona Learning Technologies Center gives testimonials from UA faculty that podcast. A common theme in these tesimonials is that students still attend lectures and use the podcast episodes as supplemental study materials (2-3). The paper cites a Dartmouth Lecture Capture Project that found that only 7% of the participants listened to the lectures while doing other stuff (5). “88% of the 432 student responded that the lecture recordings had no effect on their attendance” as well (5).
Glogoff, Stuart. (Nov 2, 2009). “Podcasting Your Lectures or Why Students Will Still Attend Class”. UA Learning Technologies Center.
This white paper comes from Ashley Deal at the Office of Technology for Education at Carnegie Mellon University. The paper doesn’t really present anything new and confirms pretty much most of the stuff I heard/seen before…
The paper makes clear that the RSS feed to distribute the content is an important part of the definition of Podcasting (2). It cites a University of Michigan study that found the using an RSS feed to distribute the content increased the likelihood that students would download the lecture (5). The UM study also found that only 20% of the students listened to more than 75% of the lectures (5). Even when the students did listen to the lectures, they only listened to bits and pieces of them, fast forwarding to particular sections (5). To me, this seems to provide more evidence on the use of audio learning objects instead of whole lectures.
On the subject of whole lectures or lecturecasting, the cited UM study did not show that lecturecasting had an effect on student outcomes (4, 5). Yet 85% of the students that responded to the surveys for the study claimed the podcasts had a positive effect on their grades (5). Even though the students seemed to attend class regularly, I speculate they weren’t using the podcasts as supplemental material, but as a replacement for something else, e.g. reading out of the textbook…
Two more things out of the UM study, the students seemed to prefer audio-only episodes and most of the time, the students listened to the podcast episodes on their computers (6). This is consistent with other things I have seen. One of the advantages of a podcast is the ability to listen to it on the go using a portable device. I wonder if this is an effect of the popularity of mobile/laptop computers. Would this be the same situation if the majority of students still used desktop computers?
Another study discussed in this white paper was a study at Arizona State University, similar to something Chairsty did the the ASC. The students were required to listen to the podcast episodes (lectures) before class and come to class to work and ask questions. It seems the students did not like this format and thought the ‘lecturing’ should have went on during class (9). Chairsty’s class in the ASC seemed to ‘echo’ the same feelings in a survey. For this study, students were provided video iPods, but still they viewed the podcasts on their computers (9).
Overall, what this article reiterated for me was lecturecasting sounds cool, but I don’t know about the benefits of it. I think podcast episodes would be better off as small bits and pieces or learning objects, specific to an individual topic. I also think these learning objects are better off in an RSS feed, or in iTunesU, where the content can be ‘pushed’ to students.
Deal, Ashley. (June 4, 2007). “Podcasting: A Teaching with Technology White Paper. Office of Technology for Education & Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, Carnegie Mellon University.
A couple weeks ago, I made some videos of my own demonstrating how to set up an ePortfolio in our Desire2Learn environment.
They are even captioned…
I started a post on February 25th about captioning and never quite finished it. I figured I’d better finish it. There is value in using audio/video inside an online course or to complement a face-to-face course; every if the only value the A/V has is to get the students attention. The problem is, once the material is made available to students, it must be completely accessible to them — even if it’s ‘optional’.
In other words, videos have to be captioned and audios have to be transcribed. It’s a lot of tedious and time-consuming work, at least in my experience. It seems to take more time to deal with the captioning than recording, editing, and publishing of a podcast episode. At least Camtasia Studio provides a fairly easy way to add captions to a video…
As an aside, this leads me to a question I’ve never received a satisfactory answer to: do you design for your students or for everyone? I don’t think anyone doubts the ideal answer, designing for everyone, but is it practical?
Episode 7 has been available for download.
Episode 8 has been available for download.
Episode 9 has been available for download.
Episode 10 is now available for download.
**Due to time restraints between the time the episodes were created and the time the episodes were needed, they were not captioned.
According to Donnelly and Berge (2006), there are three reasons for Podcasting in a course. Those reasons are: disseminating course content, to capture live classroom material, and to enhance studying (387). This article addresses the authors’ experiences using Podcasts to ‘enhance’ studying. The use of Podcasts in my Internship activity is for disseminating course content. Even though this article doesn’t really address my Internship activities, I believe it has some good information and it applies to some of my work-related activities.
The authors, Fernandez, Simo, and Sallan, used Podcasting in an Information Systems Management course in an Industrial Engineering program. This course was a blended-learning course with 90 students (387). The authors stated that the students took the course because of time restraints due to work and families, therefore, I consider the students to be non-traditional students (387). The authors surveyed their students at the beginning of the course and the end of the course. They also conducted interviews with some of the course participants (387).
Some of the things, I found interesting…
The authors decided to make each episode longer. Originally, the episodes were five minutes in length but after input from students they extended the episodes to 10 minutes (388). I wasn’t expecting students to request longer episodes, but I come from the camp that shorter is better. However, in their discussion, Fernandez, Simo, and Sallan stated while there were students that preferred the longer episodes, some wanted the episodes to be shorter (390). A reason given for longer episodes was the students wanted slower content delivery (390).
The students mostly used the Podcast for the two purposes. The first purpose was to get an overview the what was to be studied (390). The students reported that the overviews provided information on what the students needed to pay attention to (390). The second reason students used the Podcast was as a self-check at the end of textbook chapters (390). The students were able to use the Podcast to make sure they learned what they needed to learn. The first reason isn’t really a surprise to me. The second reason is a surprise, even though it shouldn’t be. In a sense, the second reason is consistent with some of the other literature that I’ve read — mainly the idea the students use podcasts to review material before tests.
According to the students that participated in the study, the Podcast helped with their motivation. The reason given by the authors were: the students felt a more personable connection to their instructors (390). It seems pretty logical and not surprising. What is interesting was the reason given for this connection. The authors used a ‘just-in-time’ methodology in creating each episode. This allowed the authors to address questions the students brought up in class and made the students feel the material was customized to them, as opposed to pre-existing content (390).
What was also interesting was, at first, the students didn’t know what the purpose of the Podcast was. 51.1% of the students didn’t even know what podcasting was (388). The instructors had to provide scaffolding on what a podcast is, how they access it, and how they should use it in the course (388). Some of the students hoped that the Podcast could replace the face-to-face and textbook parts of the class (389). However, according to the authors, the student found out that Podcast was just scaffolding, providing a way to manage the course materials (389).
My concluding thoughts…
The ideas presented in this article seem to mesh very well with some of the comments that an instructor, that I’m working with to make some episodes, has made. She has commented her students like to hear her voice and like the introduction to the units. Her students seem similar to the students in this student. The most significant difference is the authors teach at an university in Spain.
I believe the ‘just-in-time’ nature of each episode is important. I believe one of the goals of using Educational Technology is to use technology to make students feel closer. Podcasts are just like any other course material, they can be ‘rolled-over’ semester to semester. I believe this practice may degrade the value of Podcasting. As these authors stated, these specific episodes covered questions the specific group of students asked. As a result, the episodes made the students feel closer to their instructors. If podcasts are ‘rolled-over’ semester to semester, they’ll lose the closeness…
Fernandez, V., Simo, P., Sallan, J. (2009). “Podcasting: A New Technological Tool to Facilitate Good Practice in Higher Education”. Computers and Education. N. 53. pp. 285-392.