Sunday, August 26, 2007

Podcasting in Education

Podcasting is a combination of the words IPod and broadcasting. A way for people to be able to selectively subscribe to audio or video content over the internet. This content can then be automatically added to a mobile device or mp3 player.

Podcasts in education

I see a few main arguments to support the use of podcasts in education:

1. The ubiquity of iPods and other MP3 players provides a ready base of users of this tool.
2. Support for students with low literacy skills or other learning difficulties
3. Catering to students with a range of learning styles
4. Providing material to vision impaired students
5. Allowing for self-paced learning
6. Empowering students to create and distribute their own music, poetry, etc.

After attending the education show Conference on 14/08/2007 (
http://www.educationshow.com.au/) a seminar presentation was presented by Apple Australia on how to make your own podcast.

Making podcasts

This is a pretty simple process and follows a number of basic steps.

1. Record the audio for your podcastYou can use a purpose built audio recorder, or a computer, or in fact, any recording device to do this.
2. Edit and produce the podcast if needed/desiredThere’s a large range of software available for this purpose. I use the open source Audacity and have also used Adobe’s Audition.
3. Upload podcast file to a webserverIf you have worked with websites before this is simply a matter of copying your audio file into the location of your website. If not, get someone else to help you with this.
4. Create an RSS feed for the podcastThis is the key step for allowing someone else to subscribe to your podcast. If you don’t want to do this you can simply leave your audio files available as a download on your website. But the creation of an RSS feed is pretty easy as long as you include some standard parts – an example is included in the appendix of this document.

Refer to:
http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/How-to-Podcast.html

Also during the Conference, The Beazer Publishing Company has made a free service to free downloads of VCE revision podcards (
http://www.podcards.com.au/) which includes most subject notes.


Links:
http://www.csiro.au/products/CSIROpod.html
http://www.abc.net.au/services/podcasting/

3 comments:

Anne Maree said...

Love the links Joanne really helpful.
Shall also use if that ok your main arguments for use of podcasts for our 5/6 teachers to help them see valuable uses for IPODs/ podcasts in the clasroom.Other podcasts that might interest you:
Digital Diaries
www.virtualstaffroom
Coming of Age

Raghda said...

Sure Anne Marie. Thanks :o)

John Verbeek said...

Hi Raghda

Thanks for your informative post on Podcasting, particularly the supporting arguments for use in education. I also came across similar arguments in the literature:
Schmit, D (Cited in Borja, 2005) remarks that educators can use podcasting to help hone students’ vocabulary, writing, editing, public speaking, and presentation skills. In addition, real world skills such as communication, time management, and problem-solving can be developed through the use of podcasts.

Cebeci, Z & Tekdal, M (2006) assert that the use of Podcasts in education has several advantages and benefits:
1.Podcasting can be considered as a complimentary tool to e-learning due to some of its inherited pedagogic advantages.

2.Podcasting serves anytime and anywhere mobile learning.

3.Podcasting has an instant-application potential for education since millions of young people have already bought mobile music players.

4.Perhaps, one of the most important pedagogic characteristics offered by podcasting is learning through listening. For many students, listening may be more motivating and less tedious than reading.

5.Podcasting makes possible content that is attractive to students.

6.Podcasting can also be treated as complementary tool of music, language and theatre education

Regards

John

Introduction

Galileo once said, "You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him find it within himself."

As an educator, I believe the mission of education is to provide all students with an educational enviornment. Technology is a great way to teach students and to reinforce what they have already learnt. I believe that technology can be useful to both educators and students, by providing millions of resources at our fingertips.

I have decided to a create a blog, because I believe blogs are designed to cater for everyone and in addition serve people in different ways. It has a structure which is flexible, you are able to communicate, share images, add a personal profile and promote ideas. I think it is a good management tool to be able to manage my thoughts.

What do you think of blogs? Would you use it as a management tool? Would you use it to communicate? Please share your thoughts.