In Their Hands: Students as Podcast Creators

Teacher Daniel Foster jokes that, these days, he doesn't hold much hope for student writing. Student podcasts, however, are another story. Two years ago, he introduced podcasting to his English/Drama class, a course centered on the exploration of old-time radio production (see http://www.thetheaterofthemind.com/). The class culminates when students produce their own piece of podcast radio theater. "I think their [podcast] work is actually better than their writing is," Foster says. "They do all the acting. They choose the music. They do the sound effects. Their work is very professional-sounding. There are a couple of pieces on the Web site for the class that are really quite good. They can certainly stand up to much of the podcasting that's out there." After the class concludes, Foster delivers the class podcasts to the public on a monthly basis. To date, the site has had more than 150,000 visitors.

For some students, they would benefit from learning in this way. For those who are better speakers than writers, for those with short attention spans when having to sit through creative writing sessions...maybe this would allow them the opportunity to create the same output, but within a media that is more fluid and has less pressure? The students that have difficulty putting ideas down on paper, that worry about written spelling and grammar...I think this would almost be a godsend for them. Creating their story/writing audibly instead of visibly would ease the pressure and help to raise their sense of self efficacy surely?

John Vickery took Foster's course during the first semester it was offered. If he took it again, he says, his only suggestion would be to weed out the rest of the class papers in favor of more podcasts. "It was much more creative. I would never compare [podcasting] to any paper," says Vickery. "It's much better than writing a paper. It's more interesting, much more fun, and much more creative. You get a lot of time to work on it, and it's more collaborative because you're working with other people. You're creating the performance as you go and then continuously working on it." Creating a podcast didn't mean less work, he says. There was editing, song selection, rehearsals, and scriptwriting. But it did mean interacting with the material on a much more intimate level. Tiffany Chen also took Foster's class. "I don't hate writing papers," she says, "but I really enjoyed putting time and effort into creating a work that could be given to the public. It puts it on a different level of importance and allows for more creativity since it is in word and sound."

If students went into this knowing they were creating something for an audience (other than writing in a book for only their teacher to read) wouldn't they see the importance of thinking through what they were doing with a clearer view in mind of what they were wanting the world to see?

When it came to learning, the students say that the creation of the podcast provided a real and viable link to the course material. "We were able to study different methods used in old-time radio—we wrote papers discussing different uses of music, sound effects, and representation of characters—but it was especially useful to put these ideas into practice to truly understand the effort and thought that goes behind it," Chen says.

I like this...providing a real life context for students to relate to...giving them something to connect to and using the technology that is more relevant to them in today's society.

Throughout the course, students also listened to examples of old-time radio using iPods in class. "Without creating one yourself, I don't think you understand fully what it was to do a radio show," Vickery says. "Podcasts were really just another chance for us to do radio theater. You definitely learn a lot more physically doing something and actually seeing what people might have gone through to create radio theater."

I agree fully with this...the only way to learn fully and understand the complexities involved is to experience something for yourself. I personally didn't know how to use a mac computer at all until I took this ICT course...I've always been a pc girl. No one could explain how to use one...I had to learn through my own experiences of doing.

Part of that "learning through doing" came from learning the technical skills necessary to capture, record, and transfer their broadcasts. The class used Audacity, a freeware application with "some bugs," they say, and iPods provided by the university. Many students bought microphones or additional recorders to get better sound. "Even with an iPod, you could get pretty good sound quality," Vickery says. His group did a rebroadcast of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, and he had problems figuring out how to muffle the audio to create a "phone voice." "I had no idea how to do that, so I just messed around with the ways you could manipulate sound until I figured it out. It was really cool," he says. So cool, in fact, that the rest of the class wanted in on the secret. He refused to tell them.

That feeling of achievement has been demonstrated here. how great is it to discover a solution for your problem on your own?!

Mark Frydenberg, a professor of computer information systems at Bentley College in Massachusetts, says that watching his students experiment with the technology is one of the highlights of his "Introduction to Technology" course. Throughout the semester, he asks students to craft video podcasts, six to ten minutes long, that recap key lessons from the week. The first group, he says, started by simply reading a script to the class. As the weeks went on, the students discovered new features—screenshots, music editing, PowerPoint slides—and each subsequent podcast incorporated past elements and new ideas. By the end, the students were even tacking on "blooper" reels to get a few laughs.

"It was sort of a trial-and-error thing," says Sean Finnegan, who created his podcast for the class using screenshots. "It wasn't too difficult. We just recorded the video and edited it on the computer. We played around with it, and it all came out in the end. We could have talked about the information in a lecture, but that's different from making a podcast because you really have to know the material to be able to explain it to the class."

The students are asked to download their classmates' work and then comment on the podcasts in a class blog. Jared Westfall, who is currently enrolled in Frydenberg's class, downloads his peers' videos when he's bored and sitting around the dorm. "They are usually funny and reinforce what I have learned in class in a fun way," he says. "It's a better experience making it than having to sit in a lecture."

Besides the entertainment value, Westfall and Finnegan say that the podcasts were especially useful for reviewing material. They used the podcasts as refreshers throughout the semester and during exam time. In addition, creating a segment meant that they had to brush up on their own knowledge of the subject.

A terrific opportunity here to enhance student's study skills here. By recording their own podcasts of what they have learnt so far, students can use these audio notes to prepare for tests and exams. Wouldn't it be ideal, to spend time creating your own podcasts of what you have learnt, and know that you are able to help others revise and learn as they listen to your podcast?

Confessions of a Podcast Junkie