Polcasting: The Use of Podcasting in the learning and teaching of politics and international relatio

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Polcasting The Use of Podcasting in the learning
and teaching of politics and international
relations

• Jason Ralph, Naomi Head, Simon Lightfoot
• School of Politics and International Studies
• University of Leeds
• Esther Jubb, School of Social Science, Liverpool
  John Moores University

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Polcasting

• What is our project?
• University of Leeds and Liverpool John Moores
  University subject centre (C-SAP) sponsored
  project examining podcasting in the learning and
  teaching of Politics and International Relations.
  

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Audience attitudes to podcasts

• Do you know what a podcast is?
• Do you use podcasts either for fun or for
  teaching?
• Are podcasts useful in learning and teaching?
• Do students want more e-learning?

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Our session

• Today we will showcase the project website,
  highlight the availability and use of podcasting
  in the learning and teaching in this area,
• outline how we plan to discover student opinion
  at Leeds and Liverpool
• preparations for second semester trials on US
  Politics (Liverpool) and US Foreign Policy
  (Leeds) modules.

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Project Aims

• assist PIR students and teachers in consuming,
  podcasts by raising awareness of what is out
  there
• engage PIR students on their use of podcasts as
  part of a blended learning strategy
• offer a centralised point (a project webpage
  hosted C-SAP) which brings together material
  identified by the project as being pedagogically
  useful
• assist participating PIR teachers in the
  production, storage, cataloguing and use of
  subject relevant podcasts.
• identify success/fit for purpose criteria for
  use of podcasts in teaching.
• produce using podcasts guidelines for PIR staff
  and students and make these top tips available
  to the PIR community via C-SAP,

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What is podcasting?

• As we discovered not just putting audio files in
  a powerpoint, on the portal or on the internet!
  Common misconception
• Involves audio files on the Internet in
  conjunction with an RSS FEED that automatically
  downloads files over time
• Example-Archers podcasts
• http//www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers

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Implications for TL

• Appeals to the digital natives?
• Easy and low cost to create and distribute
• Caters for different learning styles
• Student centred in allowing choice about where
  and when to access, repeat etc.
• Maps onto the chronological nature of typical HE
  teaching?
• Source Low 2006

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What we planned to do

• Create a pod library
• Survey all PIR staff
• Survey PIR students at Leeds and LJMU and conduct
  focus groups
• Arrange 4 trials

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The Trials

• Were the 4 trials podcasting?
• substitution of traditional lecture
• enhancement of traditional lecture
• enhancement of traditional tutorial
• enhancement of communication
• New Trials
• Podule-weekly lecture summary
• Subscribe (and listen!) to relevant podcasts
• Tutorial-record student presentation

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What we will do!

• Survey all students using bristol online survey
  tool using questions already asked of Leeds
  medics
• Bristol Online Surveys (BOS)
• Utilise C-SAP survey to discover staff attitudes
• Student Focus Groups
• Create pod library but using social bookmarking
  site grazr.
• Project disseminations
• Social bookmarking allows us to create a
  community of practice

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Reactions!

• First time we have shown this website in public,
  so would welcome your initial reactions.
• We dont want to pre-empt your reactions so a
  quick brainstorm

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What to consider when producing podcasts

• Podcasting vs. Audio
• Do you want to produce audio (mp3) or video (mp4)
  files?
• Do you have the necessary equipment?
• Does your university have an appropriate storage
  space for audio/video files?
• How are your students going to access the
  podcasts?

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The output

• Polcasting Project
• NYPL, Audio and Video Archive
• Welcome to the IMPALA project
• http//www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/