For this week, one of the articles that I read on podcasting was:
Deal, Ashley (2007, June). Podcasting. A Teaching with Technology White Paper. Educause.
This white paper was based on research done on college students' use of podcasts in a higher education setting. Together with a classmate, we developed a top ten list of the most interesting points from the article. They are:
1 - Podcasting archived classroom lectures is arguably the same as webcasting.
2 - Without RSS, they should not be called podcasts (here format helps determine nomenclature).
3 - There were very few measurable educational outcome differences reported for posting lecture podcasts.
4 - There seemed to be very little impact on class attendance.
5 - RSS increased lecture downloads (RSS downloads automatically, even if students aren't actually listening to the podcasts).
6 - "Podcasting offers to extend universities' educational reach more than it offers to improve education itself" (David Malan).
7 - Most students view or listen to podcasts at the computer (not on an MP3 player).
8 - "Podcasting does not contain any inherent value. It is only valuable inasmuch as it helps the instructor and students reach their educational goals" (p12). Here valuable should be read "educationally valuable."
9 - Many of the students involved in the research were very new to subscribing to podcasts (which may be different now, 2 years after the research was originally performed).
10 - The professors thought that students would use lecture podcasts to avoid going to class, while only a very small percentage of students said they had considered this.
Research also shows that most users actually listen to podcasts on their computers, as opposed to downloading them to their iPods, as they are designed for. This completely defeats the purpose of podcasts, since their value is in their portability, allowing for learning on the go, anytime and anywhere.
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2 comments:
Vanessa, I agree that the main power of the podcast is it's portability; listen to it on the bus, while working out, or wherever. However, I disagree that listening to poscasts on the computer defeats the purpose of using podcasts. I think that one of the other big assets that podcasts possess is that they are versatile; they can be listened to on a portable listening device on the run, or at your desk on the computer.
yeah, I was suprsied by the finding that most of the users listening to the podcasting at home rather than download podcasting program to their mobile tools.However, I can still remember that on the class, we discuss whether Podcasting is web 2.0 or not. What do you think about this question?
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