Profcasting

UC tries out podcasting. The frame of the article below is telling. I think the equivocating over the value of podcasting is probably typical behavior when any new technology is adopted. First, we try to do the same things we've always done, except with the new tools. Then as the technology erodes the conventions of how we have done things in the past, we question the technologies value and wonder if we have lost anything by using it.

Here we have a lecturer replaced by ... the recording of a lecturer. Hardlyrevolutionary, but it gives the student the option for asynchronous andmobile listening. Some lecturers worry that no one will show up to hear themlecture. What do we lose then? The technology is calling into the question the pedagogical method as the recordings obviate the lecturer. So what we need to question is not the value of the technology but the environment and methods of teaching and learning.

What is missing from the discussion is the notion that the podcast does need to be a one-way street. Students can produce podcasts, share podcasts and listen to podcasts in almost any -- if they choose to search for them -- genre or academic discipline. Podcasting enables them to build their own course from the shared intellectual of educational podcasters around the world. Podcasting can be a way for students to present their own learning that requires clarity of thought and grace of expression that could only be achieved by preparing work that will be heard by all their classmates and, if not sequestered behind a log-in, the whole world. The disruptive question then, is what value does our institution, our knowledge and experience, add to this environment?

Here is one example of the creative use of podcasting. Look for more examples on the educational use of podcasts and blogs in future posts.

UC podcasting trial merges education with technology

By Lori Kurtzman

Enquirer staff writer


Something strange is strapped to Nancy Jennings' arm.

Standing at the front of a classroom, Jennings is reviewing the syllabus

of her Introduction to Mass Communication course, which started Tuesday at
the University of Cincinnati. She gives the students her e-mail and phone contacts and tells them they need to score 462 points to get an A in her class. And then she says this: "I am strapped in. We are recording. This is very new. This is experimental. This is the first time it's been done on UC's campus."

That thing on her arm?

It's recording everything she says.

This quarter, at least seven instructors at UC will wear digital recorders and record lectures and student presentations as part of a university experiment with podcasting.

"What's a podcast?" a student in Jennings' class murmured to his neighbor.

The word itself is a merger of "broadcasting" and "iPod," that ubiquitous little media player that Apple makes and that everyone's teenager wanted for Christmas.

Still too new for most dictionaries, "podcast" was selected as 2005's Word of the Year by the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary, who gave it this broad definition: "A digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player."

National Public Radio does podcasts. So does NASCAR. Now UC will, too.

Jennings, for instance, will record her lectures and put them online, where students - or anyone, really - can download them, play them on a computer, an iPod or any similar audio device, and learn all about mass communication.

Elsewhere at UC during this quarter-long experiment, an English professor will turn student presentations into podcasts, and a biochemistry professor will put his class talks online. Psychology, German, geology and anthropology instructors also are working podcasts into their classes.

UC's podcast pilot program might be the most coordinated among universities in Greater Cincinnati, but it isn't unique. Miami University's career services office launched job-search-related podcasts in October. The College of Mount St. Joseph offers podcasts for U.S. Army personnel taking certain online courses. At UC, a law student has been turning his class notes into podcasts for months.

And podcasting is already a popular feature at colleges and universities across the country.

In 2004, Duke University handed iPods to all of its first-year students to explore ways to marry education with the emerging digital technology.

Purdue University started its so-named BoilerCast project in the fall, offering 10 times as many courses as UC.

"I don't think it's going to be a fad," said Michael Lieberman, a biochemistry professor and dean of instructional and research computing, who led the UC experiment after reading about Purdue's podcasting.

But if the higher education podcast movement does indeed move forward, it won't do so without a little bit of fear. The idea of recording classes and turning lectures into podcasts has some educators concerned about the consequences.

Some say podcasts will make it easy for students to skip class - why show up when you can get it all online?

"It gives you little incentive to go," said sophomore Nathen Foster, who's in one of the podcasting classes.

Others worry some students don't have access to expensive gadgets such as iPods. There's also the issue of security - anything a professor or student says could potentially go to anyone, meaning original ideas could be stolen and controversial discussions might be misconstrued.

And then there's the question of whether this is a fad. Will students really jog down the street or chill out in their dorm rooms to the voice of their biochem prof?

That last question might get its answer at the end of the quarter, when Lieberman
plans to survey the 500 or so students in podcast classes to see what they think of it.

As for the rest of the concerns: Those participating in the pilot say the podcast won't replace a lecture, it'll supplement it. And to prevent skipping, some instructors offer incentives - in Jennings' class, for instance, a student gets 3 points just for showing up. As far as access is concerned, all it takes to get a podcast is a computer and an Internet connection, and there's plenty of both on campus.

And above all, Lieberman said, the project is voluntary. If instructors don't want their words and ideas captured in a podcast, they can keep the microphones out of the room.

"This is not a requirement," he said. "It's another tool."

E-mail lkurtzman@enquirer.com

	The Enquirer/Meggan Booker
Nancy Jennings records her Introduction to Mass Communications class Tuesday at the University of Cincinnati. The device on her arm records her lecture. This quarter, at least seven instructors at UC will wear digital recorders and record lectures and student presentations as part of a university experiment with podcasting.

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