Business School E-learning Blog

Podcasting For Pedagogic Purposes

A HEA Special Interest Group
Lots of information on their wiki here:

http://podcastingforpp.pbwiki.com/

The Thames valley university podcast day started with a demonstration by Derek France (d.france@chester.ac.uk) about student experiences and podcasting.

Example One:
A pilot in the geography department where students had 5 minute maximum audio podcasts uploaded to the feedback area of their VLE. We can do same in weblearn.

He recommends: 2 minute generic audio clip (which each student would get) followed by 2 minutes of audio feedback which is ‘spliced’ under the generic material (more on technology later). Thus students get 2mins generic, 2 minutes specific then the mark and an invitation to come in for face-to-face meeting. Their trial with 200 students – only 4 didn’t listen to the audio file and all others really appreciated it. Possible issue: he marks using their standard marksheet, then uses this as a prompt for creating the audio – adds 2 minutes per script plus time to combine files (he reckons one evening as a practised user) and then uploading. 80% of students listened ff campus in their own time. Great for enhancing student experience….

New book – Derek wrote chp 5 and the link below will get to an example of different podcasts
Podcasting for Learning in Universities
http://www.atimod.com/podcasting/index.shtml

Example Two:

Students on a geography field trip creating their own podcast rather than write a report. Transformed student learning experience- most students didn’t need equipment, they had their own, but best investment was some £25.00 tripods to keep camera stable while filming. Similar scheme for group of students taking a migration module – they had a template of 10 slides for putting photos in, and created their own audiotape to tell the story of a group of migrants. Would work really well with Londonmet Tate Modern artgallery project.

Lots more information at www.impala.ac.uk Informal Mobile Podcasting And Learning Adaptation projectwesite
Projects and resources for podcasting are available here:

http://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/impala

Practical session led by Alan Carr (acarr@midchesh.ac.uk)
Website is here:
http://www.rsc-northwest.ac.uk/content/view/209/197/

he runs radio podcast station: www.darkhorseradio.com

led session on ‘how to’ podcast. Let us have fantastic CD with lots of resources on, including the free download from audacity (free software for podcasting) with accompanying .DLL file that is needed to make package run. Also copyrightfree music, handouts and lots more. Debbie Holley and Linda Johnson both have copies of the CD, as do the TLTC trainers, Mimi and Amanda.

Alan uses free server at http://www.podomatic.com/ - but it is San Francisco based and updates tend to be made at night over there – which is afternoon here, so beware if you plan a presention! http://www.libsyn.com/index is what he uses professionally, this costs around $10 a month and is more stable.

He recommends using a USB mike, and check it can automatically output mp3 files, this makes the job of editing and moving files much faster.

Using audacity – hints – save project! Then save final as either WAV file (original quality but big) or mp3, which is compressed.

Debbie and Linda plan to set up a working group to develop some pilots with Chris O’Reilly (one of the multimedia developers with expertise in the area) and Amanda and Mimi from TLTC. Please join us.

Debbie Holley
20/10/08

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