Perhaps falling under an ‘Obvious’ category, Campus Technology concludes:
“Podcasting does not contain any inherent value. It is only valuable inasmuch as it helps the instructor and students reach their educational goals, by facilitating thoughtful, engaging learning activities that are designed to work in support of those goals.”
We here at Praxis see technology as ‘plumbing’ so this is no surprise to us.
Of move value is the 15-page introductory PDF whitepaper ‘Teaching with Technology: Podcasting’ which explores the use of podcasting for (1) recorded lectures, (2) supplementary learning content and (3) student produced exercises. Some points of note:
- Studies have shown that as many as 80% of students listen to or view podcasts at their computer, rather than on a portable device in a mobile environment.
- Most students perceive lecture podcasts as a tool for review, rather than as a replacement for attending lectures.
- Among the most commonly noted shortcomings of lecture recordings is the inability to hear questions from students or discussions that take place in the lecture hall.
- Student surveys show a ‘reasonable duration’ for a lecture podcast is between 3 and 15 minutes.
At Praxis, we produce both lecture and supplementary podcasts for our lessons, but we really haven’t tried podcast student assignments. Should we enable students to upload podcasts to assess Chinese tones or general speaking abilities? Enable students/teachers to create their own podcasts that could intermix with SpanishSense lessons? Something else?
Hank.
Extra Credit Reading: Socrates in Earpods? The Ipodification of Education
I don’t know about uploading podcasts per se but I would like to have the ability to post recorded Practice Plan sessions. Maybe an option to flag them as public or private, or to choose individuals that can listen to them. This way we can truly learn from one another, from our success and our mistakes.
Hi Hank
1st, I am a three time graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University. I always love seeing stuff from alumni no matter the field. CMU is hell but heaven on earth follows graduation.
Tomorrow I will be on a 2 hr bus ride from our HQ in Tokyo to our R&D Center in 小 山 (xiǎo shān) Aoyama (in Japanese) I will take the time to read the article carefully as well as a few of the links on the bus ride.
I will also listen to a few Chinesepod casts while I view the pdf files of the transcripts cruising along the highway.
With time I think the distinction between the hardware one uses to listen (I-Pod) and a mobile down-loadable (in real time) piece of hardware will cease to exist. Then it becomes a question of how much multi-tasking one can do efficientaly.
For me one task (studying Chinese takes all my bandwidth) so walking around with my nanopod listening to chinesepod has only reinforcement value and not absorbing new lessons.
Equally, I am not sure what is the definition of a mobile device. For sure, Japan is way ahead of the US. I have seen people watching TV on their cell phones on a high speed train, whereas I have no cell phone reception in my house in the US. Auntie Sue always talks about slow/costly downloads in Australia.
At the same time for business I am able to multitask eliminating some air travel by video conferencing three continents at least three times a week. So sometimes in a global world I am 1st world and sometimes 3rd world.
Going back to my CMU days; Did I learn more in class, studying in the library(pre-PC) or hanging out with fellow classmates in one of our rooms ?
I think the answer is all of the above. And that is why the total service offered by Chinesepod is benefitial in our current world. I view chinesepod.com as our campus.
So please reconsider the following; Chinesepod technology brings a global campus together as oppposed Chinhesepod technology permits us to learn when we want, how we want.
Mike in Singapore (almost)
C-POD HQ
So why can’t I write xiao shan in Hanzi as part of my reply? It looked good before I sent it.
Mike in Singapore (fighting technology and my thumbs on the keyboard)
I don’t know that anyone can benefit from my mistakes really, I don’t have much interest listening to others either. My bandwith is anyway past saturation as it is with native content…
Uploading of examples could be interesting, e.g. radio excerpts, little audio clips from movies, street recording etc. But these would only be valuable if they came with annotations of sort, possibly transcripts, a review mechanism, could be tagged, rated and searched… in other words, user-generated lessons?
I agree that “Podcasting does not contain any inherent value…”, but I’m surprised to hear that “We here at Praxis see technology as ‘plumbing’…”
This is a very narrow view or a poor analogy - for one thing, plumbing is not dependent upon externalities (or network effects) in ways that internet/web2.0 is, which I assume underpins all CPod/PraxisLanguage online projects and daily life. You might obviously agree that at one level technology is plumbing, but the qualitative effects are quite far-reaching.
The argument is different for universities, even if CMU probably stands there, but their core competency (infrastructure) being lectures, they can only see technology as plumbing. I would argue CPod core competency is a successful if hybrid of contact technology and teaching vision, not lectures.
I would also be interested to see how CPod usage patterns compares with the lecture-in-a-box of CMU?
SUPPLY,DEMAND,QUALITY ASSURANCE - In Korea this already exists in quite a mature form, but I underlying drivers such as national tests, and ratings push the service.
I don’t think there is this underlying “need” in North America, thus a traditional lecture refactored into a podcast will only have a very small niche audience.
But teaching-tainment, which can be rated by consumers, and where different teachers have various incentives could be a very compelling model, with the right plumbing taking 2/20 of course.
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http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oG.....184325405/**http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BUSINESS/05/14/ft.korea.megastudy/index.html
“At least part of its success is due Megastudy’s choice of teachers or lecturers who can quickly take on star status.
Instructor Peter Yoon left a career in a conventional classroom to teach for Megastudy. His online lessons have made him so well known that students often approach him for autographs when he makes personal appearances at study sessions.
“Teaching English through the online services has made me more popular… from just a local teacher to kind of a national teacher,” says Yoon.
Teachers such as Yoon take home a cut of the profits from their online lectures. The more students registered, the more teachers earn.”