Mar
5
Podcasts – Another Excuse To Skip Class?
March 5, 2009 | Tagged iTunes, online learning, podcasts | Leave a Comment
Last year I attended the TCEA conference in Austin, Texas for the first time ever. The technology that generated the most interest for that conference was podcasting. Teachers were piling into sessions, workshops, and speeches about podcasting. Some teachers were already podcasting, some were getting into it, and some had no clue what podcasting was. It was great seeing all these teachers interested in such a great technology tool that could easily be integrated into the classroom, not only for student use, but for parents, teachers, administrators and the community.
This year as I attended the TCEA conference, I noticed that podcasting, although on the list again for sessions, workshops and speeches did not seem as popular as last year. Had teachers become experts on podcasting within one year? Was podcasting just a fad? Had teachers given up on podcasts altogether? Im really not sure.
However, Dr. Dani McKinney of SUNY Fredonia, has published a paper on the use of podcasts to help with studying for exams. Although the New Scientist website has an article that says podcasts are better than attending a lecture in class and therefore students have another excuse to skip class, Dr. McKinney’s published paper goes into a little more detail than that.
From the conclusion:
The finding that students in the podcast condition did significantly better than students who attended the in-class lecture was unexpected and somewhat novel in the body of literature on the use of technology to aid learning…The original intent of this study was to explore if getting a copy of the audio (along with copies of the PowerPoint slides) from a class lecture a student missed during the term would show the same detriment. The results of this study show there was no detriment—in fact, there was a significant advantage.
Although I strongly believe that podcasts will never truly replace teachers it does make sense for teachers to pay attention to podcasts and some of the ways we can use podcast technology to ENHANCE our lessons and our classroom instruction. If we use podcasts in our classrooms will that really give students another excuse to skip class? Or, would podcasts be a reason students would want to attend our class, a classroom that is being geared to 21st Century learning; learning that is being requested by our digital native students?
What are your thoughts?
