Faculty reel students in with podcasting
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty and instructional staff are constantly striving for new, more effective ways to reach “Internet generation” students. Today’s learners are at home in the electronic age: The average 13- to 17-year-old now spends three and a half hours per day on digital media (Internet, games, listening to digital music), according to EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.
The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has responded to this need by granting 80 Engage Awards to help UW–Madison instructors integrate podcasting into their teaching efforts. The awards included $800 and up to 10 hours of instructional technology support.
Podcasting is transforming both student and faculty learning and is providing unprecedented mobility for anytime, anywhere learning. UW–Madison faculty are using their podcasting awards this spring and fall to
- provide portable access to course sound files (e.g., bird songs, historical speeches, music performance demonstrations);
- elaborate on concepts and provide summaries of research results in class (e.g., interview experts, explain new examples, relevant research findings);
- combine pedagogy and entertainment into new lessons for foreign language, such as mock radio shows and interviews with celebrities in the target language; and
- give tips on completing assignments or preparing for class activities.
“There’s something more personal, more direct about hearing a professor’s voice on a podcast that you don’t always get in a large lecture hall with several hundred other students,” says Erin Lee Lesselyoung, a fourth-year art major.
Podcasting is a technology that makes it easy to deliver and receive digital audio files. Podcasts are often spoken-word recordings created by instructors to augment learning, but they can also be other audio recordings such as biological sounds or musical demonstrations. Instuctors place audio files on a Web server, and listeners use the same methods they use for accessing digital music to download and listen to podcasts on an MP3 player or computer.