Podcasting in the Classroom
Last week UNE hosted the Narrowing the Gap Conference. The purpose of this conference was to look at ways of ‘narrowing the gap’ and helping improve the learning performance of disadvantaged students.
One of the presenters at this conference was a principal whose school was about to embark upon a podcasting project addressing literacy issues for aboriginal students. Specifically, the aim of the project was the enhance literacy development in the Middle School. It was making use of the Quality Teaching Framework elements of Substantive Communication, Connectedness and Engagement.
As an aside, this framework is worth looking at but hard to get hold of if you’re outside DET NSW (that includes us here at UNE) however one article that lists the elements of the framework can be accessed from:
http://www.acel.org.au/conference2006/presentations/suestanford.doc
In regards to these elements the issues being targetted are:
- Substantive communication - both oral and written language.
- Connectedness - this was not only to get the aboriginal students reconnected with school but also their own culture both within and outside their local communities.
- Engagement - providing relevance for students beyond school
To help support this a number of technologies will be used. Firstly voice recognition software is going to be used to help students actually see what they are saying helping them improve their literacy skills making stronger links with written texts. Secondly, and this is the reason I’m talking about this, the school plans to use podcasting to help reconnect students with both school and their culture.
What’s so cool about this program is it will be the students responsible for the creation of the podcasts. This involves activities such as writing scripts, arranging interviews, recording and producing the podcasts. As Aboriginal culture has such a strong oral tradition, podcasts are a great way to capture stories both personal, and those of the local community.
What the school hopes to develop within their students is the concept of a ’student voice’. The creation of these podcasts for distribution should help students see that their ’stories’ and culture are valuable and worthy of a wider audience. The school is also hoping that this project will engender a greater sense of collaboration as students work together to develop these podcasts. Putting the podcasts together should also help enhance generic problem solving skills. So here’s wishing the school well!
At the end of the day though the tool is just a tool. It’s the philosophy behind its use that the critical factor here. And what’s behind that is the philosophy of how students learn held by the teacher. In regards to podcasts, like other tools, they can be used to support two very divergent styles of teaching and learning.
For example, I’m currently trying to learn Chinese - I’m learning it by podcast. The little experience I have in teaching languages I know the importance of practice and repetition. So in this respect the podcasts have been invaluable in supporting a largely behaviourist mode of teaching. In defence of the authors there are extensive notes and the language learning is embedded in meaningful contexts.
So certainly podcasts can be used to support a very didactic style of learning and reading a few of the posts people have been expressing some concern over this. You might be able to argue that having a teacher talking at students in some respects has got to be better than simply having the podcast doing the same thing. However let’s move beyond this and look at the use of podcasts from a constructivist perspective. I mean listening to a podcasts doesn’t take up much brainpower but certainly creating one should. Great questions like: “Who is going to be my audience?” “What do I want to say?” “To what purpose?” “What’s the idea I’m trying to put across?” “What’s my motivation for saying what I’m saying?” “Will I include all points of view or simply my own?” “How am I going to say it?” “What order am I going to say it in?” “Should I formal language or informal language?”
These are all great questions that require a fair bit of cognitive grunt to nut out. So creating a podcast requires a fair amount of good intellectual activity on behalf of the authors, so why would you allow your students to miss the opportunity to experience this by creating podcasts for them?
These type of activities also help students learn that language is something that is used for a purpose within a variety of social contexts and for a variety of reasons. By allowing the students the opportunity to create podcasts they can learn some powerful lessons about language and how it can be manipulated to achieve a particular purpose. Everybody has an agenda! We need to give students skills to be able to go beyond what’s simply being said.
Could we get similar outcomes without going to the trouble of creating podcasts? Probably, but would the kids be as engaged and motivated? They’re the people largely hooked into the mp3 players listening to the content and ideas of others, wouldn’t it be great to give them the same capabilities? It’s about empowering students and getting them to take control of their own learning. It’s also about keeping school relevant by placing it in the centre of these new social computing tools.
To wrap this up, we can really miss the boat on this stuff and we have before. Educational television was once hailed as the “next great thing” to help solve all of education’s ills. For one reason or another it failed. (To read about this and other examples have a look at Larry Cuban’s book Teachers and Machines.). Now it seems kids watch the television with little ability to understand or critique what’s being shown. We’re paying for this as well through what I think is pretty ordinary and banal programming. What happen to the good old days? I mean, I learned everything I needed to know from Roadrunner cartoons namely -
- Gravity only applies when you realise it should be acting upon you.
- Never buy anything from the ACME Supply Co.
- The light at the end of the tunnel IS an oncoming train!
The picture? The Temple of Heaven and Earth, Beijing.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Interesting read.
I’ve just set an assignment as a podcast for my Korean EFL college students. All instructions for the assignment are in the 5 minute podcast, which if anyone is interested, can be downloaded as either an MP3 file or an (audio) QuickTime movie file from
http://homepage.mac.com/rmeurant/HyejeonFreshman/FileSharing78.html
I emailed all 250 or so of my students last Sunday night, advising them in English that the assignment had been set, and including a hotlink to the site. One student on Monday morning already had it on her MP3 player. Most of them have never heard the word “podcast”, but many (or most) have an MP3 player. I’m going to try to not provide any written instructions, and see how well they cope. Remember, some (many?) of them can barely speak any English, but I’m counting on their collaborative skills to get the information they need and prepare and submit their assignments. I regard a large part of the assignment as getting the students to actually figure out what to do…
I considered suggesting students could also submit their assignments as podcasts if they wished, rather than as essays embodied in email messages, but the English instructions to suggest this to them would get too complicated (for these students), and also I’m not confident I would be able to deal with any technological issues that would arise, which are greatly compounded by the language gap. It’s bad enough receiving Korean word-processor generated text documents, which are completely unreadable without the original Korean software.
I also considered using blogs or wikis to have them submit their assignments to (which tasks they can do either as an individual or a group effort), but got quickly flumoxed by the technology again - I hope to do that next semester. Mitch - imagine having to set up and manage your blog in Chinese!
These are interesting times. Depending on the outcome, I may later write up this assignment as a paper. I can see podcasts would likely be effective with oral cultures, and I’ve started watching youtube…
May 4th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Mitch - one of your comments was especially interesting to me - the one where you say ‘In defence of …’. From my studies here at UNE I certainly have the ‘gist’ of Academics being pro-constructivist and anti-behaviourist. Your comment where you felt some defence of the behaviourist language teachers was needed gave some insight into how deeply the feelings against behaviourist must run.
On a totally different matter I have visited the Temple of Heaven in China and also tried to learn to speak some Chinese. Podcasts would have been preferable to sitting in a classroom at Sydney Uni feeling totally useless in a classroom full of people who appeared to be picking the spoken word up a lot quicker than me!!!
May 4th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Hi Rob,
good idea providing instructions as a podcast. I think it’s a good strategy - particularly motivating to get the students listening in. Plus it’s extra exposure to English as well.
We’ve also been thinking about providing assignment feedback either individually or collectively via audio as well. As a teacher I find I’m always giving aural feedback and sometimes I find this easy to do than setting these comments down on paper. I suppose it’s the difference between talking about something and writing about it.
cheers Mitch
May 4th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Hi Jennifer,
in regards to the Constructivist/Behaviourist divide sometimes I think it’s a change of focus. I mean, we get so focused on Constructivism that maybe we ignore or dismiss other theories of learning. Perhaps it’s a matter of emphasis. I’m not sure.
I just got the feel that rote learning got or has still got a bit on the nose. Either way things that might best be taught in this manner are not. This is just my observation from a lot of undergraduates I’ve seen with something as simple as doing the sum 6 x 4. How they do this is that they have to write 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 and do the addition in order to get the answer. It’s gratifying because it shows they have learned the concept of multiplication. But is it efficient? I suppose the other side of the coin is learning times tables by rote but having no understanding. Again I firmly believe the importance of teaching for understanding but once that’s understanding’s there can we do a few things to automate it and make it quickly retrievable like 6 x 4 is 24?
Recently I’ve been reflecting upon myself as a learner with my Chinese podcasts. I’ve also got flashcards that I’m using last thing at night and first thing in the morning. This is helping with my vocabulary and building up a word bank but supporting this I’m conscious that I also have to develop an understanding about sentence structure, grammar etc. In this regard I’m doing activities that allows me to construct my own meaning using the building blocks of the words I’m learning in a rote like fashion. Good news the podcasts appear to be working - already my English has developed the same Russian American accent as the teacher!
Chip Bruce once said something about literacy that I think might apply here in regard to theories of learning. I’ll paraphrase here but he talked about in regard to new literacies not replacing one form of literacy with another but rather adding to the repertoire. I think the same principle should apply in regards to learning theory. It’s not just one learning theory over another but getting the mix right for any particular situation.
Sometimes we have to watch out for the ‘ism’ because to me any ‘ism’ has the danger of it becoming the hegemony of a single view. A single view of something can’t help but be narrow minded at best at worst… well, I think there’s a few lessons from history about that. I think the way people learn is much more complex than what can be espoused by any one theory.
Always good talking to you
Cheers Mitch
May 4th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Hi Jennifer,
isn’t the Temple of Heaven an amazing place and apparently not one nail to hold it all together! The podcasts for language learning have been great. I live about a half hour from work so it’s me and my language instructor each morning and afternoon. I think the spoken conversation with real live people would be challenging but unfortunately necessary. Recently I said something in my best Chinese to one of our PhD students from China. Her response in her best Australian was - What?!
I guess I got a way to go yet.
cheers Mitch
May 5th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Opinion: Are iPod-banning schools cheating our kids?
By Mike Elgan, Computerworld
Editor’s Note: This story is reprinted from Computerworld. For more Mac coverage, visit Computerworld’s Macintosh Knowledge Center.
The Associated Press published an article last week about high schools increasingly banning iPods because some kids use them to cheat.
The article, reprinted in USA Today and hundreds of other newspapers, reported one example where a school “recently enacted a ban on digital media players after school officials realized some students were downloading formulas and other material onto the players.â€
I don’t want to second-guess the individual decisions of specific teachers and school principals. But the ban does raise questions, the most interesting of which is: Should iPods or other handheld gadgets instead be “required†during tests?
What the iPod ban teaches kids
Most high school students prepare for tests by guessing what facts might be on the test, then trying to memorize those facts to maximize their grades. Hours after the test, those facts tend to be forgotten. This is a gross oversimplification, sure, but largely true.
How much of your high school history, science or math do you still retain to this day? If you’re like me, the answer is practically zero.
In my case, the single most valuable thing I learned in high school was how to touch-type (thank you, Ms. Balish!). Skills, habits and experiences, more than temporarily memorized facts, are what turn us into adults who can learn.
So many college students I’ve met—even at some of the nation’s top universities—are there because they have an aptitude for memorization. Many straight-A high school students have few interests, little curiosity and zero inclination toward intellectual discovery. Our system rewards the memorizers and punishes the creative thinkers.
An iPod, when used during tests, is nothing more than a machine that stores and spits out data. By banning iPods and other gadgets, we’re teaching kids to actually become iPods—to become machines that store and spit out data. Instead, we should be teaching them to use iPods—to use that data and to be human beings who can think—and leave data storage to the machines.
By banning iPods, we’re preparing our kids for a world without the Internet, a world without iPods, a world without electronic gadgets that can store information. But is that the world they’re going to live in?
What iPods teach kids
What are those iPod cheaters doing, really? They’re creatively putting facts at their fingertips using ubiquitous technology in preparation for using those facts.
Isn’t that a more realistic preparation for college, career and life than teaching memorization?
When I go into a meeting, deliver a presentation, write a column or develop a report, electronic gadgets and Internet-connected PCs are always part of the process. My ability to use those devices and my ability to think critically using the universe of facts always at hand determines to a large degree the quality of my work.
Memorizing information is valuable but not as valuable as the ability to find and use information. Yet we teach the low-value skill and ban the valuable one.
When kids take math tests, most teachers require them to “show their work†instead of doing problems “in their heads.†Or they require calculators. Teachers are preparing students to function in a world where pencils and calculators are generally available. Banning iPods is like banning pencils or calculators.
What’s the point of creating an unrealistic scenario that involves the total absence of widely available tools? Outside the classroom and after high school, a student can “always†have access to an iPod or an Internet-connected phone or computer.
Schools need to learn, too
If Johnny can get an “A†by using his iPod, what does that tell us about the necessity of memorizing the knowledge? What does that tell us about the power of electronic gadgets?
The larger, more interesting question is: Why do we devote so much time and energy teaching kids to memorize facts we know they’ll forget? We should instead teach critical thinking, creative decision-making and sophisticated information retrieval.
We should teach kids how to function in the real world—the world they live in, not the world their grandparents lived in.
That means kids should learn how to efficiently pack a gadget or computer full of content and figure out how to quickly access and use that content to solve problems and answer questions.
We need the iPod equivalent of “open-book tests,†where gadgets are required, the tests are harder and demand of the student problem solving, creative thinking and deep understanding of the ideas, not just the ability to spit out words fed to them earlier.
Kids need to learn relevant skills in order to function in a changing world. Schools need to learn, too. It’s time that schools accept the fact that the Internet and little electronic info-gadgets are everywhere and here to stay.
A revolution has occurred. In one generation, we’ve transformed a world where information is scarce and hard to find to a world where nearly all knowledge can be available to everyone, all the time.
Instead of pretending that revolution never happened, let’s take advantage of it to propel students into a successful future. Let’s teach them how to deal with the new problem of too much information.
Let’s stop banning iPods and start requiring them.
[Mike Elgan is a technology writer and former editor of Windows Magazine.]
May 5th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Hi Rob,
what an interesting article which provides further evidence of how schools and the ‘System’ deals with technology. Consider this scenario.
Phase I - technology becomes popular with students outside of school
Phase II - kids who have adopted this technology bring it into school
Phase III - technology becomes problematic because it challenges the way we ‘do school’
Phase IV - the system, be it individual schools or the system as a whole, bans said technology
Phase V - if there’s a backlash, like, hey this stuff is being used in the real world then the technology gets brought back in a limited and highly regulated fashion.
Case in point - school email.
Things like iPods are often referred to a disruptive technologies; ones that can cause innovation and transformation of old practice. This assumes the practices or the practitioners want to change.
The article is also valuable in how it questions of the nature of tests and what knowledge are we testing? Are our tests simply about the recall of knowledge rather than its application? If this wasn’t the case why would schools need to ban a piece of technology like an ipod that’s only really good at holding a lot of data in its memory banks?
I’ve done two open book tests in my life and they were tough! Because I had the ‘answers’ the examiners had to steer clear of those lower order type questions and it was all higher order stuff - analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
At the end of the day I’m often amazed at the length some institutions will go to hold onto old ideas. I remember once at my Grandparents’ place I stumbled upon an ad for block ice the type that would go in the bottom of ice chests. This ad was in response to the new fandangled device that was just appearing called the refrigerator. The ad for the block ice was promoting the merits of block ice over refrigerators - clean, simple, and delivered to your door everyday. I couldn’t help feeling that the writers of this ad must of seen the writing on the wall - they just couldn’t compete with the new technology. And yet they tried anyway. What killed block ice? Well it was clearly inefficient and just couldn’t compete with the new technology. This goes for most industries I can think of. Another classic example was the American railroad industry many players went bust because they failed to embrace change - they thought they were in the railroad business when in fact they were in the transportation business. Take some of the big players who are savvy in this manner. Rupert Murdoch, for instance. It’s no accident that you’re more than likely to find the equivalent of my annual salary fallen down between the pillows of Rupert’s couch because from early on he realised he wasn’t in the newspaper business but he was in the communication business. The question we need to ask is: what business are schools in then?
So why are schools so resilient in regards to hanging on to old ideas? Well, they have never really been in a competitive environment (at least for that long) for a start. So they are largely immune to the competitive advantages new technologies can provide. Mind you this might not necessarily be a bad thing. Running schools as businesses with the same competitive pressures as a business you’re likely to find economic outcomes banging up against educations ones. Guess which ones would prevail? However the cost of holding onto these old ideas is that we are quickly turning a whole generation of kids off school. Schools it seems are becoming increasingly irrelevant and bans on the technology that kids are engaged with will only further reinforce this.
Thanks for posting the article Rob!
May 14th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Megastudy, PHP, DMB & Telematics: South Korean Cram School Goes Online
___________________________________________________________________
CNN TV International is currently (14th May 2007) airing an article by James McDonald entitled “South Korean Cram School Goes Onlineâ€. CEO Son, Joo-Eun noticed a shift in the educational market from offline to online. His company, Megastudy, now uploads video lessons to the web, which have become very popular with Korean students. He is looking to expand his operations to places like Japan and China. (At present, it appears neither this article nor its transcript is posted on CNN.com).
Unfortunately his firm’s website http://www.megastudy.net is almost entirely in Hangul. However, there is mention of PMP, which I discovered to be an acronym for Portable Media Player that according to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Media_player is a self-reliant electronic device that is capable of storing and playing files in one or more media formats. Digital audio players (DAP) that display images and play videos are also considered as PMPs. Like DAPs, the data is typically stored on a hard drive, microdrive, or flash memory.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Multimedia_Broadcasting, Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) is a digital radio transmission system for sending multimedia (radio, TV, and datacasting) to mobile devices such as mobile phones. This technology was first developed in South Korea under the national IT project; the world’s first official DMB broadcast started in South Korea in 2005. It can operate via satellite (S-DMB) or terrestrial (T-DMB) transmission. DMB has several applicable devices such as mobile phone, portable TV, PDA and telematics devices for automobiles.
Telematics, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telematics, is the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, also known as ICT (Information and Communications Technology). More specifically it is the science of sending, receiving and storing information via telecommunication devices. Telematics has commonly been applied specifically to the use of Global Positioning System technology integrated with computers and mobile communications technology. (More narrowly, the term refers to the use of such systems within road vehicles, in which case the term vehicle telematics is used).
Finally, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_portable_media_players offers a comparison of portable media players, which provides General Information, Technical Specifications, Syncing and Transfer, Audio Formats, Video Formats, Online Services and Notes and references, for 18 PMPs. These tables might be very useful for considering what PMP to purchase, or to decide on coding formats in preparing audio podcasts.