Students benefit greatly from opportunities to interact with others. Podcasts increase the potential for interaction while promoting other worthwhile learning goals, as well. While originally associated only with the iPod, podcasts can be created for any computer and most digital audio players, as well.
Teachers in all disciplines value the composing process. While teachers may traditionally think of composing as an activity done with pencil and paper or at the word processor, there are other ways for students to compose their thoughts. As students work at this, they are articulating their understanding of the concepts and developing complex cognitive structures to support them. Composing can be as simple as thinking about what one will say before speaking or as complex as writing a novel.
Composing can be done with images, as in a collage. It can be done with combinations of spoken words, written texts, and images, as in motion pictures and other multimodal projects. Podcasts permit students to compose and share what they have created and what they understand. Podcasts permit students to learn by composing their thoughts, learn effective oral presentation skills, and construct new knowledge by creating podcasts or listening to the podcasts created by others.
Composition and the Podcast
Students who spend time composing their thoughts and rehearsing prior to actually recording a podcast may come to a greater understanding of the material about which they are podcasting. Successful podcasts are often written out in advance either as notes, a storyboard, or a full script. An additional advantage of the well-prepared podcast is that the notes, storyboard, or script give listeners a means of following along and organizing their own thinking about the topic if these are posted along with the podcast.
Presenting the Podcast
Adults in a study published in 1973 (Bruskin Associates) indicated that they fear public speaking more than anything else, including death. While it cannot be said that adults would rather die than speak in a public forum, this information does make clear how stressful public speaking can be. Podcasting may alleviate this concern in many ways. First, podcasting allows the speaker to rehearse and record many takes until just the right version is created. Second, other speakers can join in and sound effects can be added making the task a social activity and one with more potential for fun.
Constructing Knowledge
Researchers who study writing in schools long ago understood that when students compose, they are doing far more than just showing what they know. They are also learning as a result of the act of composing (e.g., Applebee, 1981). However, podcasts also create an archive classroom students can use to help them learn. Students might create a series of short podcasts on important vocabulary they use in a science class. These podcasts can be posted on the class webpage or elsewhere for students to use when they need to review a term. A set of student-created podcasts about study-skills would help the podcast creator to understand the skill, but these podcasts would become part of a classroom knowledge management system students can use when they need to improve their own study skills.
Ideas for Student-created Podcasts
- In math, students might create podcasts describing how to apply algorithms.
- Science students may want to create a podcast taking a position on an academic controversy in the sciences.
- Literature students can record podcasts advertising books they have read and which others can consult as they look for the next novel they want to read.
- In social studies, students often need to explore several aspects of a topic. For example, students can divide up and create podcasts as soldiers from different divisions or at different ranks (corporal, colonel, etc.) about battles in the American Civil War. They can then share these with each other to create a larger understanding of how the battles were important to the outcome of the entire war.
Podcasts
Students often enjoy the opportunity to share what they know about a topic in a way that permits them to construct knowledge rather than simply report it. When students have an audience, their motivation also increases. Podcasts permit students to construct knowledge by bringing together diverse sources of information by composing and to share what they have learned with their peers and parents.
Applebee, A. N. Writing in the secondary school: English and the content areas. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. 1981.
Bruskin Associates. "What are Americans afraid of?" The Bruskin Report, 53. Edison, NJ: Author. 1973.
Tom Wolsey - Tom Wolsey, Ed.D., is an educator and author. His articles on literacy have appeared in professional publications such as Action in ...
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