(Part of a series on the rationale for the use of Web 2.0 tools in online and hybrid courses).
Why would you consider using podcasts in on online course? Podcasts come in three essential varieties from a faculty perspective: faculty created, learner created, and outside source.
Faculty created podcasts can be used to add interest for learners and to convey faculty enthusiasm for a subject. It is difficult to convey an instructor's enthusiasm for the course material through text alone. An audio file (podcast) can warmly welcome learners to a class and let them know how excited you are about the subject and about the coming term where plain text can fall a little bit flat.
Audio files can also be used by learners to change the time and location of the course – correctly formatted they can be downloaded by learners and listened to at a later time and in a different place. Many of today's learners have MP3 players such as ipods that they can use to facilitate shifts in time and location.
Audio files may also catch a learner's attention when they aren't looking (literally) – think about the learner who starts the login process, then wanders off to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee. While waiting, an audio file starts automatically as soon as the login process is complete. The resultant noise may pull the student back to the class or at least remind them that they were doing something in the other room before they headed for the kitchen. And hearing a reminder that there is an assignment due on Wednesday at 3:00 may be more memorable than more traditional ways of imparting that information (text).
Unfortunately creating audio files is a technically challenging process that requires equipment and skills that not everyone has. The alternative is to use podcasts that others have created. An economics course I taught several years ago used a podcast from the University of Washington's Last Lecture series. The topic of the lecture was the “Morality and Ethics of Capitalism”. That was a wonderful discussion topic with which to begin a class on basic economics. Podcasts which are updated on a regular schedule are a great way to keep your class current and to encourage learners to listen to the same material you listen to on a regular basis. If you encourage your iTune addicted students to subscribe to the podcasts you like from within iTunes they will get the updates automatically.
Speaking of which, a source for academically oriented podcasts is iTunes University. To see what is available go to the iTunes music store and look for the iTunes University. Most lectures are free. You can also google iTunes University to see a list of the many schools that are offering lectures in this format. MIT's Open Courseware project is there for example, as is Stanford U.
What about learner generated podcasts? I still think there are problems with this, primarily on the “ease of grading” side. I do think it's great for students to work with the course content in any way you can get them to. To create a podcast someone has to develop a script, which of course implies someone did the research required to write that script. From that perspective, allowing learners to create podcasts is a very good thing. You just encouraged them to spend a significant amount of time working with the course material. On the other hand, the faculty then has to listen to the podcast. That has to happen in real time, possibly more than once. Faculty need to be watchful of their time in this case.
Lisa
11/2/07
Web 2.0 Why?
Wiki's and Blogs and Podcasts, Oh Why!?
Last month CCCOnline surveyed our faculty on their training and professional development needs. Like most surveyors we included a comment section. One frequent response from faculty in that section was the question “Are we expected to use all of these new technologies in our classes?” If we answered “Yes!” to that question the follow-up would almost certainly be “Why?” Web 2.0 has brought with it a myriad of tools for adding content, editing content, and shaping what students see and do on the web. A critical question to ask though is “Why?” Why would we choose to use one of the new tools rather than those that are already built in to the learning management systems we are already using. What do these tools add the the learner experience?
What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 has been called the teaching and learning web (Rob Stephenson, NROC presentation spring 2006). The web is transitioning from its original incarnation as a set of websites developed by a group of people and looked at by the rest of us. Web 1.0 was all about providing information more or less instantaneously. Web 2.0 expands the original group of web developers to include the rest of us. Now anyone with a computer and an internet connection can not only surf the web looking for information they can provide information through use of a free blog, a picture or video sharing site, or a more complex website such as a wiki.
In Web 2.0 users control the information flow through the use of personalized home pages (google, or netvibes perhaps) with RSS feeds from their favorite blog or news sites. Users create social networks through communities such as MySpace and FaceBook. In all of these spaces users decide what information goes up and how it is formatted. Web 2.0 is all about user control.
Web 2.0 Tool Examples:
Over the next couple of months I am planning a series of posts that will try to answer the “Why?” question for several popular Web 2.0 applications in the context of thier use in either an online or hybrid (partially online) course. First up -- podcasts, followed by blogs and wikis.
Lisa Cheney-Steen
Last month CCCOnline surveyed our faculty on their training and professional development needs. Like most surveyors we included a comment section. One frequent response from faculty in that section was the question “Are we expected to use all of these new technologies in our classes?” If we answered “Yes!” to that question the follow-up would almost certainly be “Why?” Web 2.0 has brought with it a myriad of tools for adding content, editing content, and shaping what students see and do on the web. A critical question to ask though is “Why?” Why would we choose to use one of the new tools rather than those that are already built in to the learning management systems we are already using. What do these tools add the the learner experience?
What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 has been called the teaching and learning web (Rob Stephenson, NROC presentation spring 2006). The web is transitioning from its original incarnation as a set of websites developed by a group of people and looked at by the rest of us. Web 1.0 was all about providing information more or less instantaneously. Web 2.0 expands the original group of web developers to include the rest of us. Now anyone with a computer and an internet connection can not only surf the web looking for information they can provide information through use of a free blog, a picture or video sharing site, or a more complex website such as a wiki.
In Web 2.0 users control the information flow through the use of personalized home pages (google, or netvibes perhaps) with RSS feeds from their favorite blog or news sites. Users create social networks through communities such as MySpace and FaceBook. In all of these spaces users decide what information goes up and how it is formatted. Web 2.0 is all about user control.
Web 2.0 Tool Examples:
- Customized Homepage - Netvibes, Google
- Tagging - Del.icio.us
- Pictures - Flickr, Picassa, Buzznet, Deviantart, Photobucket
- Video - YouTube
- Blogging - Blogger, WordPress
- Podcasts - podcast.net, podcastpickle.com
- Sharing - MySpace, Eduspaces, Facebook
- Virtual Worlds - Second Life, Croquet
- Wikis - Wikipedia
- Slideshows – Slideshare
Over the next couple of months I am planning a series of posts that will try to answer the “Why?” question for several popular Web 2.0 applications in the context of thier use in either an online or hybrid (partially online) course. First up -- podcasts, followed by blogs and wikis.
Lisa Cheney-Steen
10/29/07
Why use Web 2.0 Tools
For those of you who attended the webinar I gave last week on why to consider using web 2.0 tools in your class, here is an example of a class assignment using Wikipedia: http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/29/wikipedia.
This article is a report on a presentation at the Educause conference last week given by Martha Groom, faculty at University of Washington. She asks students to write an article for Wikipedia, which requires them to write for a much larger audience than herself and also to learn to write an encyclopedia article.
Lisa Cheney-Steen
This article is a report on a presentation at the Educause conference last week given by Martha Groom, faculty at University of Washington. She asks students to write an article for Wikipedia, which requires them to write for a much larger audience than herself and also to learn to write an encyclopedia article.
Lisa Cheney-Steen
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