PODOMATIC

Creating podcasts can be invaluable for students because if they are the creators of the podcast, many different skills must be utilized for an effective podcast to be created. These skills include researching (depending on what is being done), preparing what will be said (scripting), recording, and technical skills with the computer work. If the students are working in groups, collaboration and communication will be necessary. As you can see, plenty of skill are being developed while using Podomatic. Thus, I would highly recommend that teachers and students make good use of this tool. What's more, I dare say that educational podcasts are on the rise, and for good reason. While there is no substitute for in-person teaching, the resources you use to complement it can make or break how well students do. This is true of education at any level. Whether you’re at a primary school, high school, college or university, podcasts can help students of all ages learn. They are a great way to spice your lessons up.

New technology always has a heavy impact on education, and Podcasting is no different. Many learning institutions are cutting back on textbooks and investing in technology enhanced learning. Podcasting, as one of the latest mediums to emerge into the mainstream, is one of the forefront technologies in this change. In this article, I'll show you how podcasting in education can increase accessibility and encourage engagement.

Podcasting offers the opportunity for lecturers to easily broadcast engaging audio content, which students can then listen to at any time and wherever they are. A student only needs to subscribe to a podcast feed and suddenly you can push educational content to them, rather than wait for them to come. Podcasts can easily be used in Schools, universities or colleges to engage students, and improve your teaching and learning practise.

Many learning institutions which have incorporated podcasting in their education system, have reported really positive results. This can be attributed to the ease of creating and consuming podcasts as well as the various ways in which education podcasts enhance the students' learning experience. There are a lot of advantages of podcasting in education. Let's take a look:

Flexible Availability – 24 hours a Day

One of the greatest advantages of education podcasts is the portability and convenience they offer. Podcasts can be downloaded to a mobile device, allowing the student to access the learning resources anytime, anywhere, with very little effort.

There are podcast subscription apps available for nearly every smartphone, and these make the process even easier. In fact, iPhones come with an excellent podcast app installed by default.

Once the student has subscribed to a show, they don't have to initiate the download: it's sent automatically to their app whenever a new episode is available. So, as soon as they sit down on the bus, there's a teaching resource there waiting for them. This makes podcasts very convenient and also paves the way for truly flexible learning.

Students Listen for Longer than They'll Watch or Read

One of the great powers of podcasting is the attention is attracts. It's tricky to encourage students to spend 30 minutes reading an article or watching a recorded lecture. That's because text and video require the student's full attention – they need to sit patiently, doing just one thing. As you probably know, this is tricky, not least because of the range of distractions just sitting waiting on the next browser tab.

Podcasting, on the other hand, can be done in otherwise wasted time, or alongside a routine activity. Students are far more likely to listen to consume your material if they can do it on the bus, driving the car, washing the dishes or in the gym. Because they're already distracted with a rote task, the content gets great attention. While text and video struggle to attract 2 or 3 minutes of viewing, podcasts routinely run an hour or more. One of the most popular shows in the world is a history podcast than can run for 3 hours!

If one guy can persuade listeners to stick around for 3 hours at a time to learn about World War I, then you should be able to manage 10 minutes on your own show.

Student Created Content

One of the most interesting and valuable uses of Podcasting in Education is the concept of student created content.

You might allow students to create their own podcast, perhaps including questions, discussions, presentations or projects. These can then be made available to their classmates. This allows students to take control of an aspect of their education and, therefore, encourages engagement in the material. They can question, they can contribute and they can teach each other.

Lecture Review

One of the simplest uses of Podcasting is to record your existing lectures. This makes them easily accessible for students and creates invaluable study aids.

Students can use the podcast for reference purposes or when preparing themselves for upcoming examinations. Any student who had challenges understanding a topic in the classroom can listen to this podcast. The can study the content and understand the topic at their own pace.

This capacity to review, again and again, is particularly valuable to students from an international background or with learning difficulties.

Finally, as we mentioned earlier, it's a struggle to encourage students to watch a 1hr video recording of a lecture. Instead, give them audio and they can consume it while they do their chores.

Make up for Missed Classes

When a student misses a class, it's not always because they're lazy. By offering a podcast, your unlucky, sick student who has missed a number of classes can, instead, download recordings of the lectures. As a consequence, they're able to “fill in the gaps”.

Moreover, a lecturer who is unable to attend his or her classes for a week or two can create a podcast of the lecture instead. This is made available to the students and thus makes up for any unattended lectures.

Consistency of Student Experience

Lecture recordings can help a teacher or professor to ensure that they always cover any given topic in the best way possible. This comes in handy when the lecturer in question teaches multiple sessions of the same class. It helps the teacher to ensure that every student gets the same experience, the same information, and that the syllabus is covered uniformly.

Benefits for Mental and Visual Impairments

Perhaps one of the greatest pedagogic characteristics offered by educational podcasting is the chance to learn through listening.

To many of the current student generation, learning through listening is enjoyable and less tedious than reading. Educational podcasts are appealing and may encourage students who don't like reading.

Many students may struggle with reading through mental impairments, such as Dyslexia, and podcasts can be a big aid in this. Podcasts are equally useful in cases where a visual impairment makes traditional learning methods arduous.

What is the conclusion then?

So there you have it, plenty of reasons why including podcasts in your teaching practices is such a good idea.Using a podcast in your teaching can encourage your students to engage with your classes, your material and to never miss a thing. Podcasting is one of the best things you could do for your students. Why not give it a try! What's more, podcasts can really come in handy these days! Now that everyone is having to adapt to a post-pandemic world, new ideas are coming all the time. It’s a perfect opportunity to experiment a bit. Even if you’ve never really got into podcasts before, they could be the big new idea that innovates your students’ learning experience. Especially useful for working from home, there’s never been a better time to invest in podcasts. Now, let's explore a nice tutorial that will definitely help you get to know podcasts and how these can be created.

The Triple E Framework, developed by Dr. Liz Kolb in 2011, is a framework designed to help educators measure how well they integrate technology tools into instruction and provide ways to help increase its use. In fact, this framework is a useful extension of previous technology integration frameworks like SAMR (Puentedura, 2012) and TPACK (Thompson & Mishra, 2007), which focus guidance on how teachers should design learning. In contrast, the Triple E Framework focuses more on what students do with technology. The goal of the framework is to ensure that technology use supports student engagement, and then, while engaged, their learning is enhanced and extended by technology. Overall, it could be said that this framework is based on three main components: engagement, enhancement and extension. If you are able to achieve these learning goals in terms of integrating technology into the classroom, then you will have hit the "sweet spot" - the perfect lesson.

The tool students need to use definitely enables them to focus more on the task with no or less distraction. Given the fact that the activity is based on an authentic situation, this exercise might motivate students to carry it out. Besides, there is a shift in terms of the learners' behavior since they play a more active role. This is very much related to this idea of engagement, one of three components proposed by the framework discussed above. The use of Podomatic also scaffold learning in a way that could not achieved by means of traditional methods; getting the chance to create a podcast and share it with others is unthinkable without the use of tech. What's more, this tool allows students to demonstrate a more sophisticated understanding of the content through the creation of the podcast about the novel, so enhancement can also be said to be present in this plan.