IMPALA Informal Mobile Podcasting and Learning Adaptation

Welcome to the IMPALA 2 Project!

Informal Mobile Podcasting And Learning Adaptation

IMPALA 2 investigates the impact of podcasting on student learning in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES), and delivers testable and transferable models of using podcasting for learning in these subjects.

The enthusiastic uptake of Podcasting by many GEES practitioners has prompted the GEES Subject Centre to invite the IMPALA team at the University of Leicester to carry out a project specifically for the GEES disciplines.

IMPALA 2 builds on outcomes of IMPALA (www.impala.ac.uk), in which Leicester, Nottingham, Kingston and Gloucestershire universities are exploring podcasting in GEES subjects. IMPALA has developed five pedagogical approaches to using podcasts for student learning. IMPALA 2 tests and develops these approaches into transferable pedagogical models:

1. Audio-visual fieldwork guides: explore geomorphological features, natural habitat, landscape
2. Audio-visual laboratory work guides: instruments, techniques, software, data analysis
3. Radio-style: bring topical issues on the environment, sustainability and development, and informal content (local community voices and subject experts’) into the formal curriculum
4. Student-created: encourage student collaboration and active learning through ‘digital story telling’ and recording learning for reviewing and knowledge sharing
5. Extensions to lectures: summaries, further reading and research.

For GEES subjects, IMPALA 2 helps practitioners to develop podcasts for specific pedagogical purposes for improved student learning and creates a rich digital repository of podcasts.