IMPALA Informal Mobile Podcasting and Learning Adaptation
From Australia
Mark J.W. Lee, Adjunct Lecturer, School of Education, Faculty of Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia – malee@csu.edu.au
Anthony Chan, Lecturer in Information Technology, School of Computing and Mathematics, Faculty of Business, Charles Sturt University, Australia – achan@csu.edu.au
Based at Charles Sturt University, Australia’s eighth largest university and the largest provider of distance education in the country, Mark Lee and Anthony Chan have been studying educational podcasting since the emergence of the technology in 2004. Whilst many existing educational uses of podcasting focus on the use of this technology to deliver instructional content such as lectures, they believe the true potential of this technology lies in its community-building value, and its use as a vehicle for disseminating learner-generated content.
A pilot study led by Lee and Chan has explored the use of short, 3-5 minute talkback radio-style podcast segments as an alternative to pre-class reading material. The podcasts consist of students from an earlier cohort holding discussions on pertinent issues related to the subject and its content in a relaxed and informal style. The scriptwriting, editing and recording process was driven by the student producers, with minimal lecturer intervention. Subject-matter experts, such as the lecturer, the University’s copyright coordinator, student services staff, and in one instance the author of the textbook (brought in from the UK via Skype) were occasionally included as “guests” to offer additional insight and provide clarification of more complex topics and issues.
So far, the researchers have examined:
1. The impact of the pre-class listening activities on the student listeners, in particular in addressing the anxiety and preconceptions that they bring into the classroom (Chan & Lee, 2005; Lee & Chan, 2006);
2. Preliminary findings on the level of uptake of the podcasts amongst the student cohort and the factors associated with this, along with the ways in which these students are accessing and using the podcasts. Data has been collected for both on-campus and distance education students (Lee, Chan & McLoughlin, in press-a);
3. The benefit of the exercise for the student producers, including both deeper learning of subject content as well as fostering reflection and metacogniton, and the development of generic skills such as teamwork, research, interpersonal communication and problem solving (Lee, Chan & McLoughlin, in press-b; McLoughlin, Lee & Chan, in press).
Continuing work is aimed at developing a set of best practices that will inform the design, development and distribution of similar types of educational podcasts, as well as to analyse academic staff reactions to the use of podcasting and the ease of integrating it into their professional practice.
References
Please contact Mark Lee or Anthony Chan if you would like to request copies of one or more of these publications.
Chan, A. & Lee, M.J.W. (2005). An MP3 a day keeps the worries away: Exploring the use of podcasting to address preconceptions and alleviate pre-class anxiety amongst undergraduate information technology students. In D.H.R. Spennemann & L. Burr (Eds), Good Practice in Practice: Proceedings of the Student Experience Conference (pp. 58-70). Wagga Wagga, NSW, September 5-7.
Lee, M.J.W. & Chan, A. (2006). Exploring the potential for podcasting to deliver mobile ubiquitous learning in higher education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 18(1), 94-115.
Lee, M.J.W., Chan, A. & McLoughlin, C. (2006a). Educational podcasting using the Charles Sturt University Flexible Publishing platform. In G. Richards (Ed.), Proceedings of E-Learn 2006 World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare and Higher Education (pp. 2894-2901). Honolulu, October 13-17.
Lee, M.J.W., Chan, A. & McLoughlin, C. (2006b). Students as producers: Second year students’ experiences as podcasters of content for first year undergraduates. In Proceedings of the 7th IEEE Conference on Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training (ITHET 2006), Sydney, July 10-13, 2006.
McLoughlin, C., Lee, M.J.W. & Chan, A. (2006). Fostering reflection and metacognition through student-generated podcasts. Paper presented in the Australian Computers in Education Conference (ACEC) 2006, Cairns, October 2-4, 2006. Available: Open the paper
Chan, A., Lee, M.J.W. & McLoughlin, C. (in-press). Everyone's learning with podcasting: A Charles Sturt University experience. In Who's learning? Whose technology? Proceedings of the 23rd ASCILITE Conference. Sydney, December 3-6.
Lee, M.J.W. & Chan, A. (2007). Reducing the effects of isolation and
promoting inclusivity for distance learners through podcasting. Turkish
Online Journal of Distance Education, 8(1), 85-104. Available: Open the paper
#
