Building a Better Podcast

Villano, M. (2008).Building a better podcast. T.H.E. Journal. 35, 31-33,36-37.

How can k-12 educators make the content in podcasts unique and significant to teaching and learning?

Be Prepared

• podcasting is like speechwriting- know the audience
• know the audience
• use a theme
• research topic
• practice
• be organized
• have a beginning, middle, and end
• use a standard lesson
• spend time researching the topic
• editing and revising help students adopt the learning
• backward design- know what you want as a final product, then create it

Focus on Sound

• presenters must sound good
• reliable microphones
• volumes of voices differ- The Levelator (Conversations Network)
• music interludes to switch topics (Soundzabound, RoyaltyFreeMusic.com, The Music Bakery)

Edit Wisely

• record first, edit later
• No more than 15 minutes
• create a catchy name or maybe even a slogan (Sloganizer, Slogan4u, The PCman Website's Free Slogan Creator

Be Consistent

• Feedburner- sends 1.1 million "feeds" to almost 600,000 users
• allows users to establish continuing relationships with peers and others at schools around the world
• IT coordinators- help educators to incorporate podcasting into the classroom
• motivate stduents to create podcasts
• commit to a particular number of podcasts at the beginning of the year

Follow the Leaders

• study what others are doing
• Education Podcast Network, Google Reader, and Feedburner
• podcatching software can allow for users to receive podcasts daily

Reflection

I really enjoyed this article because I have never podcasted in my life and have no idea as to what I am getting into. I really think the idea can be educational for students of all ages. I enjoyed going over the list as I mentally prepare for creating podcasts with the students. I think about the lessons and where the steps fall. For an example, as I was playing/practicing with audacity I discovered a script is a must. I also discovered the volumes are different as the recordings are made. Slogan or catchy phrase seemed as it would be another fun step to add for the students while podcasting. The background noises can be altered and editing is probably the most exciting step in the whole process. I believe that any person creating a podcast should go over this list of important steps in podcasting I have provided above. I also used youtube.com after I read this and began the playing/practicing using audacity for podcasting. I am excited to get the students playing with the program and have them show me how to do some things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hrBbczS9I0

Impact

This article joined with the youtube video helped me to begin the first stages of the podcasting. I am very excited about the project and I have talked to different students about podcasting. They a very excited as well. I have the microphone from school, which is very old, and downloaded the audactiy program with an additional mp3 plugin. I had the opportunity to practice podcasting and it opened a new door for me. I am going to do more research for tips on using audacity. But, this article impacted me to not only jump into podcasting but engulf myself. It has been exciting so far to learn about podcasting and actually create a podcast.

Talk the talk: Learner-generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation



Lee, M.J., McLoughlin, C., & Chan, A. (2008). Talk the talk: learner-geberated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology. 39, 501-521.



Background and Introduction



The purpose of the article was to allow a group of undergraduate students create digital audio clips, weekly, in the form of a talkback radio "show" with their peers though podcasting. The podcasts are part of an effective solution to help learners listen before class so participation in class is greater andmotivation and confidence inthe discussion becomes greater as well. The digital literacy allows the students to work as a team and express their knowledge of the subject area. The podcasts include two or more students engaging in informal discussion about issues related to the unit and its content. DALO (Digital Audio Learning Object) which is a digital audio file the can be used and reused for different learning situations where students are engaged. This article focuses on knowledge-building and the constructivist methods that students produce podcasts and are expected to work individually as well as collaboratively as a team.

Educational Podcasting: an Overview

Podcasting is known as the combination of two terms iPod and broadcasting. A podcatcher, which monitors certain podcasts for updates and downloads new information, allows the user to experience broadband. On the other hand, streaming is like a click and wait method that plays media as it downloads. TiVo is comparible to podcasting in that it can be downloaded and listened to at a time that is convenient to the listener.

Using podcasting to support learning in higher education

The increase of the use of podcasting is due to the increased uses for the Internet, increased growth in broadband, increased availablity of the multimedia personal computer, the uncalrity between streaming and downloading media content, and the rapid increase of MP3 capable devices. Georgia College and State University have various courses that are iPod enhanced with audio material. Some enhancements include lectures and audio books, language study material, and music. Duke University distrubuted preloaded iPods to beginning college students with orientation information, administrative, and academic information in an MP3 format.

Beyond recorded lectures

The use of iPods is mainly in higher education to deliver instructional content such as lectures. But, that can lead to questions about the quality of the education due to the fact that the student can just listen to the material. Podcasting can enhance learning by actually engaging the learner and adding another part to learning. Informal Mobile Podcasting and Learning Adaptation (IMPALA) project stores a collection of online activities and podcasts that supports teaching using molbile learning technologies. Prelectures were available, through podcasting, for the class to review hard concepts before attending the class. An audience response system with handsets allowed the answers of students from the in-lecture questions to be recorded. Podcasting was used to expose the students to foreign culture and dialogue of the native speakers. The potential of podcasting depends on the intellectual creation and creativity of the designer and uses the podcast as learner-generated material.

Digital audio learning objects

Digital audio learning objects (DALO) puts together the reusable learning object theory with the theory of the use of digital audio to enhance e-learning. Podcasting has the potential to enrich those learning objects. Using the podcasts in conjunction with the learning objectives can enhance learning. A well designed DALO must be simple to produce and the final product is immmediate. The DALO is educationally focused and reusable. Lastly, the DALO is engaging for the students.

The student-producers team: products and processes

The majority of students wanted to podcast for future students taking a particular course in college. The students broke up into teams and had different skill levels using podcasts so they had to collaboratively create the podcast. The podcast went through phases as follows: scriptwriting and editing, presentation, audio recording and editing, and publishing and distributing.

Theoretical underpinning of the study

Cooperation is known as a division of labor among participants and collaboration is known as participants engaged in a coordinated effort to complete the task. Creating and recording podcasts use both cooperation and collaboration.

Knowledge building and creation

Knowledge has many meanings, which include expertise and skilled performance. Students create content for an audience and take the role of the cocreator of the knowledge.



Three metaphors of learning



The acquisition metaphor is acquiring chunks of information from a teacher. Participation metaphor is when the learner participates in different practices and activities and sharing the knowledge with others. In the knowledge-creation metaphor learners engage in collaborative tasks and knowledge building conversations. A knowledge building community is created when all three metaphors are placed together.



The study: methodology and data-collection procedures



Focus groups were created to have differnt viewpoints on a particular topic. The focus groups allowed participants to feed off each other's thoughts and ideas to create a more natural setting. The first focus group was held after the first podcast was created to determine the outcomes of the podcasts, the processes of the activities, and allows the students to determine if the podcasts aligned with the knowledge-building principles. The principles are as follows:

1. real ideas, authentic problems

2. improvable ideas

3. idea diversity

4. Epistemic agency (articulation of ideas)

5. Community knowledge, collective responsibility

6. Democratising knowledge

7. Symmetric knowledge advancement

8. Persuasive knowledge building

9. Constructive uses of authoritative sources

10. Knowledge-building discourse

11. Embedded, concurrent and transformative assessment

12. Rise above

Each team consisted of five members. The data was collected qualitatively and quantitatively and in four steps as follows: transcription (complete transcript), coding (categorizing the themes), summarization, and reporting.



Results and Discussion



The students had much evidence to prove that there was a high percentage of knowledge-building principles. The students reported reading books and searching the Internet on their own time to learn about different areas such as digital audio production and Web server technology. Collaboratively creating the podcasts resulted in knowledge-creation.



Conclusions



Collaborative knowledge building took place when creating these podcasts, which includes inquiry based and project-based learning. The students found the creation of the podcasts challenging and motivating. The authors believed the creation of the podcasts gave more control to the students learning and ownership as well.

Reflection

The ideas used in this article based on podcasting align with my thoughts of the use of podcasting inthe classroom. I have notices that through the other readings that most students using podcasts are higher education students. My next question would be why is podcasting mainly used for higher education students? Would it be a skill that would also create knowledge building for younger students?

Impact

I plan on using podcasting in my proposal. I also plan on using Language Arts Young Authors' Books for the script for podcasting. The children have already wrote the books and the skill will focus on the use of the technology. I plan on publishing the podcasts on the siue website so others can hear all the great creativity the student has used in the writing of the book. I believe in the future when the students become more familiar with podcasting then we can move to a more knowledge building experience.

Beyond Technology for Technology's Sake: Advancing Multiliteracies in the Twenty-First Century

Borsheim, C, Merrit, K, & Reed, D (2008). Beyond technology for technology's sake: advancing multiliteracies inthe twenty-first century . The Clearing House. 82, 87-90.

Summary

The use of technology needs to go farther than making the learning happen because your using technology; The use of technology should be used to enhance learning by using the standards already provided by the state or district. National Council of the Teachers of English President Kylene Beers wanted to create a theme that says Because Shift Happens: Teaching in the 21st century. It was mainly focusing on the integration of technology in English as a more of a lifestyle. The use of communication technologies and multimedia allows the teacher to teach the same standards in English except move from a traditional sense to a technology rich sense, which creates a multi-literate person. A multi-literate person is someone who is knowldgeable in different subject areas and in different contexts and environments. Therefore multiliteracies is using texts in many differents ways but is still knowledgeable of the use of the text and can interact with the text. For examples, learning about poems can begin in the classroom, then use that knowledge to build information through research, and use all the of the differnt texts (information) to create a blog and discuss the texts with other people. The teachers who would commit themselves to a multiliteracy pedagogy would help the students understand the varieties of text and media as well as why a certain piece of technology would help to attain a specific goal while using the text.

Multiliteracies in the Traditional Curriculum
High stakes tests always seem to get in the way when teaching and using technology. But the multiliteracies pedagogy promotes a constructivist model for teaching. Also technology can enhance traditional teaching practices and correlate with the standards. Last, the use of technology supports and advances the multiliteracies. Carlin used a 10th Grade English class to use the technologies to enhance the writing process for a research paper. Instead of using the books in the library, the students decided the use of the Internet was more up-to-date. As they took notes, instead of using notecards for ordering, sorting, locating, and gathering information the students created wikis, blogs, and used Microsoft Word for note taking. Students who did not feel comfortable suing wikis and blogs opted to use Microsoft Word to document and cite sources for the research. Lastly, students used Microsoft Word to compose and revise the paper. When the paper was fully revised then the students had to turn the paper into a multimedia presentation, which included movie maker or Power Point. In conclusion, technology was used to organize online information, facilitate revisions, and collaborate between peers. Collaboration was created when revising and producing the multimedia presentation. The multiliteracies support the traditional curricular objectives.

Multiliteracies beyond Classroom Walls

Dawn focused on engaging students in reading and writing. The use of blogs, wikis, podcasts, and networking sites helped students to understand the ideas in the classroom and beyond. The students were able to network during class time and outside of the classroom. Dawn wanted a larger audience for the high school students so she began podcasting. Students listend to the National Public Radio's "This I Believe" essays, wrote an essay, recorded and edited podcasts, and posted them on a blog so people in the community and country could listen to the podcasts. The National Public Radio's "This I Believe" essay helped these speech students to hear the content in the speech as well as listen to the volume and speed of the speech.

Also students created a poet page on a networking site such as MySpace or FaceBook to help understand genre. The site was based on the Internet based research of the genre by the student. The networking site had to have sections such as list of friends (allowed poeple to comment on the genre on the page created), chat converstaions with other poets (students)about their work (helped create ideas and look at different perspectives), or an analysis of a poem written from the poet's perspective (analyze the poem and decipher its meaning). Students responded to the texts about work and were more involved in the text and not the technology necessarily. The multiliteracies, which focuses on the use of technology with pre-existing standards, focus on a different kind of thinking for both teachers and students. Teachers think of ways that technology will enhance the pre-existing standards and students use the technology to build those skill needed to meet the pre-existing standards.

Multiliteracies for Preservice Teachers

When Kelly used wikis and blogs in the preservice teacher classroom the students gained the ability to reflect and learn more about the technology's role in the multiliteracies in life. Though the students already have knowledge of the use of technology, the use of the wikis and blogs allows others to help preservice teachers build more information and experience with the role of technology with the multiliteracies. A wikispace was provided to invite students, mentor teachers, interns, university faculty and staff, and teacher candidates to collaborate and discuss online the different methods and ideas based on the multiliteracies. This technique increased the professional communication necessary for teaching.

Multiliteracies Pedagogy: Adding Depth to a Breadth of Possibilities

Students of all levels need to develop multiliteracy skills. Skills that can be used in different environments, different contexts, and different subjects which also focus on the implementation of technology. Incorporating technology in language arts is important, but it should meet the pre-existing standards.

Reflection
The ideas from this article are parallel to my way of thinking. I want to read more about ways teachers implement technology without it being a bourdon. I always come up with ideas for teachers to help them implement the use of technology so that it would save more time or would be more beneficial to the student. I enjoyed the different uses of technology in this article. The research paper that was completed solely with the use of technology was a great idea. I have used all of those steps before in Technology class. I would like to learn about the comment option though in Microsoft Word because that would save a lot of time on my behalf and help the students more directly with editing. Next, the use of the MySpace and FaceBook to create a poet's page was a brilliant idea. My only thought was that it would be hard to convince the parents, principal, and superintendent to allow you to use MySpace in an English class. The use of the wikis and blogs helped the students to come out and state their opinions and thoughts on a particular matter. Again I feel as though I have another way to use technology in the classroom.

Impact

After reading this article I decided I should have read this article first. I know it is not necessarily about podcasting but it is about implementing technology into language arts. That is where the multiliteracies becomes very important using the technology to meet the learning standards. Students as well as teachers are always changing to the new approaches to learning and teaching. My thought is that if technology will increase the interest in learning then why not use the capabilities of technology? I will use this article to help me focus on the proposal for the use of emerging technology in the classroom. I have looked at ipods and podcasting, but this article supports the use of the podcast. I am looking at another article based solely on podcasts for next week. I am hoping it will help me to better understand podcasting in more depth.

I am still deciding on what exactly I will be proposing for the ipod. I did see something in an article named iWrite used for the ipod that I would like to read more about. So, so far, I stand at the use of podcasting in the classroom. This article has helped me to decide that I will focus on Language Arts for the proposal.

Creating Communities with Podcasting

Jowitt, A (2008, 04). Creating communities with podcasting. Computers in Libraries, 28, 14-15, 54-56.

Summary of the Article:

Podcasting is known to the cyber world as using an iPod and broadcasting. Some libraries could create instructional podcasts to help them become affiliated with the changes in the library so the libraries could serve the customer at his/her own will or away from the library. This makes the information accessible to anyone anywhere. Of course this would cost money, training, and extra time from the staff. Angela Jowitt wanted to know how the instructional podcasts were helping the customers, how much the podcast were used, what was helpful, what other topics could the library use podcasts with, and the advantages and disadvantages of the use of podcasts. She surveyed students at Universal College of Learning (UCOL) to find out the demographics of the user, what was used to hear the podcast, the perceptions, and potential for further use in the future. The study is based in instructional type podcasts include the following:

• Accessing the library catalog
• Searching the library catalog
• The "My Account" section of the library catalog
• How to raise a request online
• Orientation tour- Palmerston North
• Orientation tour- Whanganui

Each file was an MP3 digital audio file so the file was attainable through more devices. The article did mention the they did not use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, but is working on it to create true podcasts to be broadcasted.

The recording of the podcasts are cheap and inexpensive. Audacity and LAME Encoder are needed as well as a microphone and headphones. The files are exported in MP3 format. The author also discovered a script for the broadcast seemed to help more and the volume needed to be turned up all the way durin recording. The sound is able to be edited, such as blending and deleting. The bitrate was set at 64, which allowed them to keep the file sizes low.

What did the customers think of the podcasts? Most of them thought the podcasts were very good (71%). They encouraged the library to keep making them. The "My Account" was the most helpful instructional podcast. The customers felt as though they had learned something new and expanded theor knowledge. Lastly, the podcasts were easy to use and understand.

What are the Advantages and DisAdvantages of Podcasting? Volume varied throughout the podcasts. Noise level and streamling seemed to be another issue with the podcasts. The volume, accents, clarity of speech, tone, and word emphasis was a distraction to the customer. Some also complained that the podcast was too long. A broadband internet connect was important to listen to the podcast. All in all, 75% of the customers wanted more podcasts created.

Angela Jowitt would like to continue to create podcasts and further the delopment in this area.

Reflection

This is a great article to start with for the research. It was an easy reading article that kept my attention. I believe these ideas fit into the proposal for using podcasting in eductaion. I believe that the beginning of one study will open a door to toher opportunities in the field of technology. The use of ipods in different places and different times and by different people are great, especially when a stduent can listen to s lesson on tape instead of having to be at class. I will be able to use the audacity link: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ .

Impact

I can use the ideas of the ipod. I am going to audacity to become more familiar with it in the next week. I am still pondering the ideas for the proposal. What type of technology will be the ipod, but what will be the best way to implement the ipods in the classroom. Should I record lessons or instructions on how to create a graph in Excel? Or maybe have the stduents record directions to making somehting? I have to do more research befoer I make any final decisions.