PODCASTING IN THE CLASSROOMLauren Adams, Teresa Ballinger, Jacob Otterblad

INTRODUCTIONThe term “podcasting”

combines “broadcasting” with “iPod.” Podcasts refer to the posting of digital audio content onto a website; these files are downloadable to an MP3 player or one’s computer. Podcast content can include audio, video, and image materials – or vodcast. Podcasting is easily accessible because of the increased usage of the internet. Podcasts allow learners to access information at anytime online, with no constraints because of the free flow of information. This has the possibility to revolutionize learning.

Podcasting is a relatively recent phenomenon with the first RSS (Really Simple Syndication) audio feeds appearing in July of 2003. Because podcasting is a newer technology, we feel educators have not taken advantage of it. From the data we collected in our survey we see that the majority of educators we surveyed didn’t use podcasting in their classroom simply because they did not know how.

METHOD FINDINGS CONCLUSION

In what ways should podcasting be used in

teaching?

Sup-plemen-tary Ma-terial

Recordings of the Lec-ture

Main Source

Not at All

The majority of teachers feel that podcasting would be best used as supplementary material for a lesson as opposed to to using it for recordings of the main source. Zero of the teachers surveyed thought podcasting should be used as a primary source.

Do you know what podcasting and Vod-

casting are?

Yes

No

Of the 21 teachers who took the survey, 14 of them knew what podcasting and vodcasting are.

Reasons teachers haven’t created podcasts.

Too InconvenientNo TimeNo TechnologyNo Tech SupportDon't Know How

Over 50% of the teachers surveyed said they have not created podcasts because they did not know how to.

Of the 21 teachers surveyed, only 1 of them made a podcast for their classroom. That teacher went on to say that podcasting is beneficial for supplementary information, and will probably not be heavily relied on. When it came to podcasting in online classes, most teachers replied that it would be helpful. Seven of the 21 teachers listen to podcasts at home, while 9 of them did not listen to podcasts at all.

We created a ten-question survey, via Survey Monkey, to explore the benefits of podcasting in a classroom setting. It contained two “yes or no” questions, five “open ended” questions, and three “multiple choice” questions. Here were the questions we used in our survey:

1) Do you know what podcasting and vodcasting are?

2) Have you ever created your own pod or vodcast?

3) What are experiences with podcasting?4) Where do you listen to podcasts most often?

a) at homeb) on the roadc) at workd) other

5) In what ways should podcasting be used in teaching?

a) supplementary materialb) recordings of your lecturec) main sourced) not at all

6) Would podcasts be beneficial in an online setting? How so/Why not?

7) Do you think teachers will rely on podcasting more than lecturing?

8) If you’ve never used podcasts in your classroom, then why?

a) too inconvenientb) no timec) no technology to do sod) no tech supporte) don’t know how to

9) Have you noticed any negative things about podcasting in any classroom?

10) If you answered “yes” to question #9, please list the negative things you’ve noticed?To survey at every educational level, we sent our survey to about 60 K-12 teachers and higher educational professors. We received 21 professors.

One of the most interesting things we found was that although there are many educational benefits of podcasting, educators are not taking advantage of the relatively new technology. Of the 21 surveyed educators, 47.62% do not use podcasts in their classroom because they do not know how to use them. Seven of the teachers surveyed do not even know what podcasting is. A solution to this lack of knowledge on podcasting would be to offer a class for educators to learn about it. We also believe it would be beneficial to survey a larger population of educators, in order to obtain more accurate results.