This post is a collaboration with Sara-Jane Smith from Heck Yeah ICT! as our seminar for Assignment 2.
Listen up! — Podcasting in secondary education
What is it?
The Oxford Dictionary defines Podcast as a multimedia digital file made available on the Internet for downloading to a portable media player, computer, etc.
There are two main ways for using podcasting in education.
To deliver content to your students ( a lesson to take away )
To showcase students work ( student creating podcasts for assignments or class tasks )
This could encompass a number of areas including: news (school, local, interstate and international); audio books; instructional guides; interviews (with staff, students, members of the community and school visitors); audio revision notes (made by students or teachers);
Vodcasting is taking off and becoming as popular, if not more than podcasting. It is simply adding video to the podcast rather than it being purely audio.
How to create your own podcast
There are vast number of websites and blogs dedicated to showing you step by step how to go about creating your own Podcasts and Vodcasts.
This is a basic outline to give you an understanding of what you would need and how to go about creating a podcast.
The Western Australia Department of Education and Training offer the following three steps on their website
here.
1. Recording. You will need a microphone and software such as
Audacity (cross-platform) or
GarageBand (Apple) to record your sound file. A number of sites on the Internet offer tutorials for using the software, such as
this one on setting up and using Audacity by Jake Ludington and
Apple's page on using GarageBand for podcasting.
2. Publishing. Once you have created your audio file and saved it, usually in mp3 format you need to upload it to a webserver. Many sites on the internet, including
Blogger offer free podcast hosting services. Make sure you read the Terms of Service.
3. Publicising. Having created your podcast and uploaded it to make it available to potential users you need to provide a way for users to access your files. This may be as simple as providing a link from an existing webpage or more complex, such as creating an rss feed document which will allow users to subscribe to your podcast. Depending on the traffic your webpage receives, and the intended audience for your podcast, you may also choose to register your podcast. A comprehensive list of
Podcasts Suitable for Educators, Schools and Colleges is maintained by RECAP.
The benefits of podcasting
The amount of research going into podcasting is increasing by the day. As ICT races ahead in leaps and bounds, teachers are doing their best to keep up.
There are a number of learning benefits that can come from using podcasting in the classroom. These include:
Students and staff are able to listen at their own pace when and where they choose.
The processes of recording and editing can increase the students’ comprehension and understanding of the topic being covered.
It allows children to improve a number of key skill areas including writing, listening and speaking skills.
Students can listen as many times as is necessary for the information to be understood and comprehended.
There are opportunities for student voice, peer assessment and collaborative work.
Where it’s happening in schools in Victoria
There are a number of Victorian schools getting on board and using podcasting and vodcasting. For a look at how it is currently being done in schools in Victoria, check out this
website.
In the USA there are two teachers teaching science who have revolutionised the way science is taught in their school using pod and vodcasting.
Here are some videos that take you through what they are achieving. It could be the way to revolutionise education into the 21st century with technology minded students.
Using podcasts in the Music classroom.
Music is a class that is often missed by students in junior high school to go to other meetings and often instrumental lessons as classroom music is often deemed by others as “not as important as other more academic subjects”. To have a system where the work that has been missed or a concept that wasn’t understood by students could be revised at home so they are up to date and understand then they come to the next class. This would allow for a much more productive use of class time, especially in a subject like music where we sometimes only see our students for one or two periods per week.
So much of what we do at a senior level in VCE is theory and aural based, taking away from valuable practice time where teacher feedback is critical. To incorporate a learning style like of
Jonathan Bergmann and
Aaron Sams the way music is taught in schools could be revolutionised.
Performance class – record performances and give aural feedback in the session, so the students can go home, download and take more time to think about the feedback given in the lesson.
To be able to put together required listening components into one file with aural notes the students need to learn that they can annotate their own scores with. This could then be done at home, and not take valuable class time.
With Podcasting, the possibilities are endless!
Using Podcasts in Media and Drama
Podcasts seem like a perfect fit for Media — students can choose “sound” in Unit 3 & 4 VCE (though very few do) but students could be making amazing podcasts that would also score very highly in assessment. I also think that the New Media outcome in Unit 1 would be the perfect opportunity to spend some time with podcasts. I know Media teachers do use podcasts as a resource (particularly the Media Watch and Hungry Beast podcasts) but there is so much more scope than that. I love the concept that is brought up in
this post about teachers doing essentially “Director’s Commentary” so students can watch texts again and reinforce the key ideas of studying screen texts.
The fit with Drama and Theatre Studies doesn’t seem as perfect but there are definitely ways of using podcasts in these classes — reviews, rehearsal recordings, publicity, radio plays — and I actually think that podcasting is a way of allowing students to break out of the ‘standard’ written drama assessment.
Potential issues in classroom podcasting
Heilesen (2010) identifies classroom podcasts as existing in three forms — “substitutional (documenting or substituting classroom teaching), supplementary (providing summaries of classroom teaching or additional materials), or creative (productions by learners)” (2010: 1063) — and it is the supplementary and creative podcasts that are most commonly seen in secondary education. There are a number of potential issues that are common to both types of podcast which are important to consider when thinking about bringing podcasts into your classroom:
Time and effort
There are countless demands on teachers’ time as it is and whilst it can be pretty simple to get a podcast going, you do still need the time to make and edit it — important as good/meaningful podcasts are well-edited, bad podcasts are rambling stream of consciousness — as well as time to roll it out to your students.
There is also a fear that teachers will go to this effort and students either don’t use or start using it and stop coming to class. However, the majority of research (see Vajoczki et al. 2010, Heilesen 2010, Walls et al. 2010) shows that these are unfounded fears: generally students are willing to take up podcasts and, against the students’ own predictions, there is no rise in absence in class. However, it needs to be remembered that there have been no longterm longitudinal studies on the educational efficacy of podcasts at this stage and very little research done in a secondary education setting.
Support from KLA, School and Department
This is an issue not just with podcasting but with all PD and new projects that we want to try out as teachers. As discussed above, there is a definite time commitment with podcasting and it is important for your colleagues to understand that there is an actual educational rationale for the work and that you’re not just messing around with microphones for fun. Also, as with most things, making and distributing ‘supplementary’ podcasts will only become more intellectually stimulating and rigorous with input and discussion from a range of people i.e. all Year 9 English teacher collaborating on a podcast about the themes of a text.
Copyright
Copyright law and obligations are critical to consider: who will own the content teacher and student produced podcasts? Can you happily (and legally) use other people’s podcasts in your classroom? What about third-party content you use in your podcast?
Ultimately, any podcasts that you (as the teacher) make becomes the property of the relevant educational body (i.e. DEECD, CEO, individual school) and, legally, you must have permission for any third-party material you use in your podcast.
Any podcasts your students make, however, are their property and if you wish to use it, you must obtain their permission to do so.
Equity and access
There is a couple of really obvious issues with podcasting: access and equity. Yes, the majority of students have MP3 devices, computers at home and internet access these days but that isn’t the case for all of them. With ‘supplementary’ podcasts, these students would be put at a major disadvantage as they aren’t able to access the material. How do you make this equitable and accessible?
Andrew Douch, from Wanganui Park Secondary College, uses podcasts as a major component of his VCE Biology class and, with support for the school, put ‘MP3 player/device’ on the students’ booklist for the class. He claims to have never had any complaints about this policy but it is a pretty huge ask.
Similarly, there is an equity and access issue for teachers depending of the school’s ICT capabilities. Shoddy networks, slow computers and bad microphones are going to make podcasting difficult for both ‘supplementary’ and ‘creative’ podcasts.
Failure
So what happens if you manage to make the time in your schedule, learn the skills, get the support you need from your peers, sort out your tech issues and spend the time reading about fair use and dealing and then there doesn’t seem to be any real engagement and/or academic improvement from your students? I don’t think podcasts are the secret key to engagement, learning and integrating ICT into classrooms. In some ways, they require a complete reworking of how to teach - the content is still the most important factor and conveying that to your students is what the focus should be. However, we have to be willing to take risks and resign ourselves to the fact that sometimes things just don’t work or, more hopefully, don’t work right now or in that particular style. We encourage our students to take risks (it is right there in the VIT Standards) and so, surely, we should too!
Helpful websites for more information about podcasting
Educational Technology: What Is a Podcast?
Wikipedia “Podcasting”
Podcast Directories
The Education Podcast Network:
iTunes:
OurMedia.org:
Podcast Alley:
Podcast.net:
PodcastPickle:
Podcasting News (Education):
Podcast Recording Software
CastBlaster:
Apple’s GarageBand:
Audacity (free, open source):
Sony’s Acid Music Studio:
Podifier (free):
Podcast Factory:
Bibliography
Anderson, L S. “Podcasting: Transforming Middle Schoolers into ‘Middle Scholars,’” T.H.E. Journal. Dec. 1, 2005.
Borja, R. 2005 “Podcasting Craze Comes to K-12 Schools: Educators discover value of internet audio programs” Education Week, Vol. 25, No. 14, p. 8
Chan, A. & Lee, M. 2005 “An MP3 a day keeps the worries away: Exploring the use of podcasting to address preconceptions and alleviate pre-class anxiety amongst undergraduate information technology students” Good Practice in Practice Charles Sturt University
Copyright Advisory Group 2008a SmartCopying: Podcasts - creating Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs: Canberra
Copyright Advisory Group 2008b SmartCopying: Podcasts - using Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs: Canberra
Flanagan, B. & Calandra, B. 2005 “Podcasting in the Classroom” Learning and Leading with Technology, November 2005, pp. 20-25
Heilesen, S. 2010 “What is the academic efficacy of podcasting?” Computers & Education, Vol. 55, pp. 1063-1068
Huann, T. & Thong, M. 2006 “Audioblogging and Podcasting in Education” Ministry of Education: Singapore
Vajoczki, S., Watt, S., Marquis, N. & Holshausen, K. 2010 “Podcasts: are they an effective tool to enhance student learning?” Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 349-362
Walls, S., Kucsera, J., Walker, J., Acee, T., McVaugh, N & Robinson, D. 2010 “Podcasting in education: Are students as ready and eager as we think they are?” Computers & Education, Vol. 54, pp. 371-378
