Institute/Session Summary:

Purpose

Busy lives for students require them to become more efficient with their limited time for study and mastery of course material for their classes. Sometimes they skip the supplemental learning assistance activities since they don’t have the time for travel to campus and attendance at another scheduled meeting. They want flexibility to complete academic tasks on their own schedule and use the time often wasted while traveling or waiting for the next event to occur. Rather than listening to a repeat of the teacher’s voice, many students crave to be more engaged with the course and hear the perspectives of fellow students who put the course into their own words.

Just as students have busy lives, so do the student paraprofessionals, staff members, and faculty. It is difficult to wedge in more meetings, professional development seminars, and reading time for these busy professionals. Limited travel funds preclude travel to many conferences. These people could listen to important content while traveling, exercising, or doing other tasks.

This session reports on the use of podcasting, an Internet Web 2.0 learning tool, with students, staff, and faculty members for both learning assistance and professional development. Podcasting is like a radio show except that it is listened to over the Internet for free. Think of it like an audio book, except that the individual chapters are sent sequentially to your computer once each week or so. Some people listen to the weekly shows through their computer or download them to their iPods or other personal media players. Practical examples will be shared during this session about use of podcasting for learning assistance of students, training for student study review session leaders, and professional development of staff and faculty members.

Learning objectives

1. Understand podcasting use in education
2. Review podcasting experiments by the session presenter
3. Identify methods for conducting research on the efficacy of podcasting
4. Each session participant generates a list of ways to implement podcasting on their own campus, with colleagues at other colleges, or with their professional association.
5. Discover resources for further learning about the topic

Outline of content

1. Provide short overview of podcasting in general and develop competency with a working vocabulary of it
2. Review professional literature concerning podcasting use in education
3. Presenter shares personal use of podcasting in several areas in the past year:
   a. Podcast with students enrolled in a history course for learning support
   b. Podcast with campus student study group leaders as ongoing training c. Podcast with college colleagues at other colleges as professional development
4. Review research study conducted by presenter of podcast use in history course
5. Work in small groups to identify potential uses of podcasting with students in a class, paraprofessional students serving as tutors or study group leaders, professional organizations serving the needs of their members, and other potential venues
6. Small groups report back to large group with ideas generated through discussion
7. Presenter provides summary comments and identities resources for further investigation and learning about the use of podcasting in education.

Significance for the field

Podcasting is an emerging learning tool that learning assistance professionals can implement with their classes to increase student academic success. Learning assistance professionals have often been early adopters and innovators with instructional technology. In addition to increasing learning outcomes for their students, the learning assistance professionals who use podcasting can influence other campus faculty members and administrators through their pioneering work that can serve as a campus model.

Relevance to CRLA members and other conference attendees

Many CRLA members are responsible for either teaching classes or managing student paraprofessionals. Podcasting can be used to increase the efficiency and quality of training as well as a major pedagogical enhancement to student learning in the class. Podcasting use by a professional association such as CRLA can have a profound impact upon their members by providing another avenue for professional development.

Plans to engage the audience

There will be several opportunities for audience engagement with the topic. At periodic stages within the presentation will be question and answer opportunities. The last one-fourth of the session will be a small group brain storming activity on how to adapt and implement podcasting with students, student staff members, or professional colleagues in the field. Each small group will be given a marker and a huge sheet of self-adhesive paper to record notes of their discussion. The session will conclude with reports from each of the small groups reporting to the large group with strategies to implement podcasting.

Media used or instructional materials provided to participants

The presenter will use a combination of overhead transparencies and audio recordings of podcast programs to illustrate the session content. Each session participant will receive a series of handouts related to podcasting and its use within education. In addition, a CD of audio podcasts featured in the presentation will also be given to everyone. A website will be created to provide additional materials related to the topic, http://podcasting.arendale.org

Presenter’s experience with the topic

The presenter has been using podcasting in his history class with his students for the past year. In addition, he has also used podcasting for professional development for a major national organization as well as hosts a weekly show that features national education leaders and campus administrators of learning assistance programs. He has conducted training workshops and provided consultation to other educators who have sought to integrate podcasting and other Web 2.0 learning tools into their courses.