Pod-Cast Interest Group (2)

First Pod-casting meeting: Monday, June 18 at 2 pm

Ways in which pod-casting is currently being used:

Larry Sleznikow: Used for faculty development and training  Helped organize PassPort to Technology to promote the use.

Bob Hoar: Posting solutions to class and/or quiz problems in a math course.  These pod-casts were posted on the course web page.  Used Camtasia to capture screen writing as a problem is verbally described.  On quizzes, used this opportunity to highlight common student errors and roadblocks as well as suggesting and guiding students through problems.  Majority of students used these pod-casts throughout the semester.  Much positive feedback given about having them available.

Brian Udermann: Used for an on-line intro-health course.  Audio only lectures were recorded and students were also encouraged to open and move through the powerpoint lecture as they listened to the audio recording.  These pod-casts were posted on D2L.  80+% of students said they had never used a pod-cast before.  At the end of the course, only around 14-15% said that they used all of the pod-casts.  Most said that they only used some.  Biggest downfall was that students felt that they could read the information off of the powerpoint slides and that the audio didn't add much value.  We wondered if the question was asked about MP3 files the response to knowing about pod-casting would be much higher.

Bill Cerbin: used to record interviews with lesson study groups as well as with experts on lesson study.  These were then posted on a Blog for other lesson study groups to use.

Rick Rodrick: Used for a communication theory course.  Students asked to develop three pod-casts during semester (audio only).  First is just to introduce themselves and learn how to use the free software: Audacity or garbage band.  Students then had a smaller mid-semester project and finally a larger group project on describing a communication theory that was not in their text books.  These were then posted on the course web page. After several semesters, these are now generating a library of pod-casts on communication theory.  In general, students did not have issues finding and using the technology needed to generate these pod-casts.  Students gave very positive feedback on this experience.

Equipment available:

Two quiet rooms for generating pod-casts: one in education technology and one in the library room 274 (see Bob for a key)

Some microphones available from educational technology and Bob has one in the library room

Bob ordered several extra copies of Camtasia (~$70-80) if anyone is interested in purchasing one

Tablet PC's may be available from educational technology

Bob recently purchased an external tablet that links into any PC (~$150), you can ask him more about this item if you are interested.

Future interests include:

Using this to train Pre-K-12 teachers on instruction as well as content

Studying the overall effect on student learning and/or perceptions on learning using pod-casting

Adding in problems from more math classes that could be linked to upper courses as help for gaps in understanding

Posting lectures with pod-casting and using lecture time for more group/active learning

Asking students to generate pod-casts at the beginning of a course to capture pre-/mis-conceptions about content

Asking students to think out loud how they solve problems

Writing a collaborative grant to support faculty time to generate pod-casts, equipment needs (although much is available already), faculty development opportunities (including inviting outside speakers who research pod-casing in educational settings).  Possibly support from UW-system curricular redesign.  Wondered if Pod-casting might be a good topic for a future LTDC meeting.

Larry mentioned organizing three 1-hour meetings per semester on technology related topics for faculty development.

Several people in the group agreed to help each other with peer-review of pod-casts that we generate.

Comments

[jean]

I did not know there was a podcasting interest group. This is something I am very interested in and have expressed my interests to others in IT and am disappointed this was not "advertised" to more of the faculty and staff. This often seems the case with events going on with technology on this campus. I am starting my second year as a professor here and it seems since I am not yet in the "group" I often miss out on activities. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way. I would be interested in helping publicize these events to "ALL" facluty and staff if needed.

[Jamie Schneider]

I appreciate your comments. This literally started as a conversation between a couple faculty members this summer and then turned into a meeting of a few more interested people. From those conversations we decided to try to publicize this interest to more people through this blog site. I am glad that you did find it. I definitely will send out a more global announcement if and when we try to get together again. Admittedly, I was worried to clog people's emails before we knew if there was enought interest to get started. Feel free to email me if you would like to find out any more information or if you would like to share some podcasing ideas/work.