IMPALA Informal Mobile Podcasting and Learning Adaptation

Podcasts for providing supplementary material - "People and Plants" and "Climate Change" Podcasts

Introduction
This case study is based on an example of using podcasts to provide students with supplementary material to the subject matter. The podcasts were developed by a lecturer who teaches two second year modules at School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds. The case study will introduce audience to the modules' information, rational of using podcasts, a description of the podcast application, and most importantly, students' perceived benefits of listening to such podcasts and the lecturer's plan on future development.

Module context

The podcasts have been developed and used to support and enhance teaching and learning for two second year modules: 'People and Plants' and 'Climate Change'

'People and Plants' is a second year semester one core module for BSc and BA Environment programmes that is open to students from across the University. About 50 students enroll in this module each year. The module is taught through a combination of interactive seminars consisting of lectures, case studies, discussions, role play exercises, and field trips. The module is assessed through three pieces of work: tree identification, an ethnobotany mini-website, and designing a conservation strategy for a selected area.

'Climate Change' is a second year semester two module for BSc and BA Environment programmes that is open to students from across the University. About 100-160 students enroll in this module each year. The module is taught through three 1-hour face-to-face lectures each week due to the large size of the class, and is assessed through a research report (50%) and an exam (50%).

Most students who take the 'People and Plants' module in semester one will go on to take the 'Climate Change' module in semester two.

Purpose of using podcasts
The purpose of developing podcasts to support these two modules is twofold. First, the lecturer aims to increase the breadth and depth of student learning by providing them with extra material related to the subject through podcasts. Second, the podcasts are designed to be motivational. By introducing sufficiently interesting and inspiring material, it is believed that students will be motivated to do more related reading and research.

The podcasts were linked to the modules in various ways. Some were linked to specific teaching themes and lectures. Some provided additional background material to contextualise a field trip or workshop. Others were designed to prepare students for the assessed work.

Application
The 'People and Plants' and 'Climate Change' podcasts consist of a variety of audio and video podcasts, and cover a wide range of topics. They mainly fall into two categories: interviews and documentaries. They were developed to provide supplementary material for the two modules and were delivered on a weekly basis.

An example of the content and topics covered in the 'People and Plants' podcasts was given below:

• Interviews with key experts about research relevant to the module
• Dr Joyce Reed, Senior House Officer at St James University Hospital, talks about her undercover investigation into the use of herbal remedies to treat mild to moderate depression
• o Dr Dan Chapman talks about his work on the Sustainable Uplands research project, modeling upland habitats
• o Dr Fred Worrall and Gareth Clay from University of Durham talk about their research on the carbon dynamics of upland habitats, and how these might change in future, with important implications for climate change and biodiversity
• A tour around a Sites of Special Scientific Interest with the Leeds City Council site manager, including an interview with the site manager about career opportunities in conservation and footage of the class managing the site during a field trip
• Plant species profiles covering identification features and uses, history and folklore surrounding each species
• Dog Rose
• Rose Bay Willowherb
• A documentary about the power of plant indicator species to uncover complex stories about environmental change over time. Mark pieces together the environmental history of a remote Scottish agricultural landscape from a handful of indicator species, and then investigates how accurate this picture is, interviewing old farmers and uncovering a hand-painted map from the 1830
• A documentary about the Sustainable Uplands project with interviews from social and natural scientists about their work to understand how our uplands might change in future, and how those who live, work and play in uplands might be able to cope with the challenges this will entail. Includes footage from study sites, working with land managers and scientific equipment to understand the hidden complexities of this unique and important environment

Technology
The podcasts can be delivered through any podcast aggregator, but the most popular choice was iTunes. Audio podcasts were created by Audacity and made available as MP3 files. Video podcasts were created in Windows Movie Maker and made available as MP4 files. The audio interviews and documentaries were recorded from the internal microphone on a laptop. After editing, audio and video files were uploaded to University webspace added to the podcast RSS feed manually using Microsoft Notepad.

Evaluation method
The evaluation of students' learning experience through podcasts was collected through two focus group interviews with 9 students and a questionnaire survey with 18 students who studied 'People and Plants' module, and a focus group interview with 4 students who studied 'Climate Change' module, during December 2007.

Students' perceived benefits of using podcasts
Feedback from students regarding their use of these podcasts as a learning tool was overwhelmingly positive. Two themes come out strongly from the data: promoting learner engagement and offering cognitive benefits.

Promoting learner engagement
Students found the podcasts interesting and engaging because they talked about the subject through a real scenario or situation.

"It's fun because you can see a scenario of a real situation."

"I found it really interesting when he was talking to a farmer in Scotland about how their job changes over years due to climate change".

"The documentary that [the lecturer's name] made is quite funny, the interview with ground manager guy, it was quite interesting".

Some students found that visuals helped engage them.

"For some other modules, you just go to the lectures, while this one, you get videos, a little bit more, engaging".

"I actually like watching the video, because you can see the little images rather than just listen to".

"Some of the visually simulation.more interesting.especially when you're doing conservations like plants and how to use them in different circumstances, be able to see it rather than just a picture of it".

Some students mentioned that they were motivated to listen to the podcasts by their lecturer because he is an enthusiastic lecturer who made the modules and his teaching very interesting.

"[the lecturer's name]'s lecture is quite interactive. He's quite interactive himself, so when he does make the podcast, it's quite interesting to see what he has to say".

"Because the module is so interesting, it's a good module, you want to know more about it, it's not necessarily for the assessment, because you want to know it".

"He's [the lecturer] enthusiastic, and he's making us enthusiastic, he's actually interested."

One of the aspects that the lecturer wanted to explore was to examine whether the podcasts can motivate students to learn more if he can introduce the topic in an engaging enough manner. Based on student comments, it was clear that students had engaged with this aim; that podcasts could be used as a tool to promote learner engagement and motivation for learning.

Offering cognitive benefits
Many students talked about how listening to podcasts can enhance their cognitive aspect of learning in a number of ways. Some talked about how the opportunity of going back to the podcast and listening to it again can help them develop a better understanding of the topic covered:

"The conservation strategy.is worth getting back, if it wasn't clear, get back and listen to it".

"If you don't realize the importance at the time, and if you go back."

One student said how listening to podcasts helped her to gain more in-depth knowledge about the topic.

"What covers in the lectures are what's covered in the surface, so there is a lot more in depth you can go into, which could potentially help."

Some others mentioned how podcasts were helpful for providing more background knowledge about a particular topic.

"It's always gives you the background knowledge".

"But it's good to get some extra information that you can't get out from the lecture.it does make it easy to learn."

"Yeah, maybe stuff they don't have the time to put in the lecture or just things you might not normally have access to that, interview to people in the research he's doing that's relevant. It's really good to have an insight into it".

The podcasts were also perceived a useful tool for disseminating timely and updated information about the subject.

"It's really update as well, it's not a book, out of date in a certain period of time".

"So you know, he's just made the podcast, this information is new".

Another student talked about how listening to podcasts can promote students to do further reading and research on a particular topic.

"I think it must engaging learning because if you hear something interesting or information about a piece of research, you might then go and read a paper around that research. So not necessarily I did, but I can see how that would engage with certain learning."

Others talked about how listening to podcasts helped them to relate knowledge.

"When I read around it, and I know what he was talking about."

"I listen to them while I was revising, just in case something jogged my mind, and give me an example."

"It might be a subject or something fascinating that across another lecture or module, that might be helpful for that."

Some of the students emphasized the value of understanding different perspectives through the material in podcasts.

"Quite a lot of the [podcast about] Peak District is related to conservation issues, make you to think about people have different interests, to get people involved".

"There is one about plants for medicines.about what's going on, whether local shops really know what's going on, whether they actually use for medical reasons, and that's quite interesting, because they're both talking about from different angles".

Another student believed that visuals helped develop cognitive learning.

"Because you get more background information, and a lot of them are visuals, things like identification plants, you can actually see what they look like, to be able to see how rather than just pictures. It always helps better, so you get it stuck in your mind".

Future work
The podcasts were well-received by students, and were perceived to be reusable in the future by both the students who retain copies and lecturer who is adding material to a library for each podcast over the years.

There are future plans to share the podcasts beyond the University. The 'People and Plants' podcast will be used for providing supplementary material to a module taught by a colleague at University of Sheffield, who is developing a module about sociology of environment. The lecturer is also involved in a capacity building project funded by DFID in Ghana that is investigating the potential to make podcasts available for students in Cape Coast University. There are also plans to launch the "People and Plants" podcast through media publicity to interested members of the public, as a marketing tool for Environmental degree programmes in the school. The effect of this will be monitored through regular market research with students who enrol on the programmes.