Activities > Podcasting
What is Podcasting?
What are the arguments for using Podcasts in teaching and learning?
What are the arguments against using Podcasts in teaching and learning?
What steps are involved in creating and listening to a Podcast?
How are Podcasts being used in teaching and learning?
How can the Learning Technology Group help?
What is Podcasting?
The term “Podcasting” combines the name of Apple Computer’s portable digital music player (the “iPod”) and the word “broadcasting”.
The term, although inspired by the iPod, now tends to refer to any software and hardware combination that allows audio recordings to be automatically downloaded from the internet and listened to at a user’s convenience.
What are the arguments for using Podcasts in teaching and learning?
Many students own digital music players and are familiar with the technology. Podcasts make teaching and learning more portable because they allow students to learn wherever they are and whenever they want.
Podcasts are also simple and inexpensive to create and deliver.
What are the arguments against using Podcasts in teaching and learning?
Podcasts can be a passive experience. Podcasts are designed to deliver information to students and not for two-way interaction.
Audio recordings may have limited use for students with hearing difficulties.
What steps are involved in creating and listening to a Podcast?
1. Make an audio recording. This can often be done using a normal desktop computer, a cheap microphone, and free software.
2. Publish the audio recording. The audio recording is placed on a web server and delivered using an RSS feed.
3. Subscribe to the Podcast. Users use free software to subscribe to the podcast. The audio recordings can be automatically downloaded and played on a computer or portable digital music player.
How are Podcasts being used in teaching and learning?
There are many ways to use Podcasts in teaching and learning. Examples include:
Recording academic staff answering questions, elaborating on difficult concepts, and providing tips of succeeding in a course.
Recording biological sounds such as high resolution heart sounds for medical students.
Recording student presentations.
Recording textbooks as audio files.
Recording and reviewing music
Recording bird songs to be taken into the field by ornithologists.
How can the Learning Technology Group help?
The Learning Technology Group can provide advice and guidance on the effective use of podcasts in teaching and learning. Please contact Andy Mee or Jo Bruce for more information.
We also produce our own monthly Podcast that includes news of group events and activities. It also includes interviews with members of staff engaging with eLearning at UEA.
