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Connection Between Podcasting and Education
It has long been a common practice in colleges and universities for students to record lectures for later review. This often results in the professor being confronted with a sea of microphones and tape recorders on the front row. The use of podcasting would allow a "perfect" version of a lecture to be made available for students to play on their computers or iPods. This also creates an excellent back-up if the professor is ill or unable to attend class. A podcast lecture would allow the course to move forward on schedule.
Beyond a lecture podcast, software for recording audio loaded on a laptop or a portable MP3 recorder enables professors to conduct interviews with experts and to more easily augment their own course material with "guest" lectures. It is even possible that highly motivated students or those seeking to do "make up" work could receive extra course content via podcast.
Moving beyond the traditional, physical classroom environment, a tailor-made relationship exists between distance learning and podcast technology. Education delivered online or via "correspondence" course instantly achieves a new level of material delivery when the students have the ability to listen to the kind of verbal content they would normally receive only in a classroom setting. In this way, an entire course could be converted to podcast format and offered to distance learners.
Because advanced versions of the Apple iPod and similar devices now have the additional ability to play video, many podcasts are going visual.
This means that demonstrations - for instance a biology procedure or the demonstration of a technique in an art class - could also be made available for download.
The marriage of podcasting and education should be limited by nothing more than the imagination. Given the large size of classes on many college campuses, any technology that adds another layer of interaction to the educational exchange can only mean better and more effective delivery and consumption of the material.
Will Podcasting Change The Face of Education?
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It should be emphasized, however, that no one is envisioning podcasting in the classroom taking the place of attendance. Podcast education is about augmentation, not replacement. There is nothing that can take the place of the interaction and energy that occurs between a good teacher and a motivated class.
Early adopters of podcast technology in the classroom are usually professors who are themselves "techies" and who recognize the potential of the medium.
However, as the use of podcasting evolves, especially on university campuses, more IT departments will begin to offer assistance and facilitation in creating and editing podcasts. Of course the best case and most efficient scenario is the technologically skilled professor who, armed with a recording device or software, can create his own recording and provide it to the IT department for uploading or, better still, manage the course website himself.
It is a recognized practice in podcasting to provide some kind of "show notes." This supporting text material can either be a complete transcript of the audio session or an outline of its major topics. Show notes are an excellent place to track the use of copyrighted materials in any podcast. (Note that if music is used, permission to play the track may be required.)
By embracing podcast technology, education has taken an important step toward new and effective teaching techniques.
Without question, the use of podcasting in higher education will continue to evolve as educators further realize the potential of marrying this technology with the ubiquitous ownership of iPods and other MP3 by their students.
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