Classroom Integration

Integrating podcasts into classrooms does not mean playing a podcast episode during class for everybody to listen to. When the teacher and students are all present in a room, listening to a live lecture that can be interactive would be more valuable than listening to a recorded podcast. What podcasts provide the opportunities for is mobile learning (m-learning) and flipped classrooms. The recorded podcasts, either of the teacher’s own lecture or carefully curated by them, would be a resource the students can take advantage of outside the classroom. The cost to produce an audio podcast is a lot cheaper than producing video or textbooks or apps. As mentioned, the bare minimum and basic requirement would be a microphone and a platform to distribute the content from – and an average smartphone can easily take care of both. Since podcasts are usually audio files (.mp3, most commonly) that can easily be downloaded, or listened to live with minimal data usage, they are accessible and convenient. The ‘classroom’ can now be at the gym, at the park, on the bus, in the kitchen, or wherever appropriate. This ‘whenever, wherever’ convenience of podcasts is what makes it so great for m-learning. The podcasts can be privately shared with the students in one class or school, or they can be made public, thus, reaching millions of students per year. A powerful advantage of this is that it teaches students that learning is not confined to the walls of a classroom or doing homework; learning can easily and simply be woven into various aspects of life in a familiar way.

An advantage of m-learning and flipped classrooms is that in addition to convenience, it also provides flexibility in the pace of learning. Students can be located anywhere in the world, come from any background, and take whatever time they need to get through a lesson. In a regular school classroom, this flexibility allows teachers to focus and connect with each student in the class one-on-one. A constructivist, and/or social constructivist approach can be called upon to enable students to be the ones actively involved in meaning-making and constructing knowledge. Students can listen to the podcasts prior to class, be engaged in discussions with their peers or the teacher about the content, and then come to class for opportunities to interact with the content, work with it and apply it (through projects, labs, research papers, etc.), while getting valuable attention from the teacher. As the recordings are available constantly, they can be archived for future use, to revise for tests and exams, and to search through to locate important or forgotten information.

Podcasts would be of great benefit to students who may be ELL’s, visually impaired, dyslexic, or challenged by other learning disabilities. The ease and convenience of accessible, personalized, recorded lessons would help ease some anxieties and prepare students better for learning.

One of the most obvious skills that can be developed significantly using podcasts is that of listening. Learning content is sometimes difficult enough, however, learning content in an unfamiliar language is even more challenging. Students can listen to recorded podcasts at a lower or higher speed, can pause, rewind, skip ahead, or replay as many times as they need to. This gives podcasts an added advantage over live lectures (but it takes away the interactive element of engaging with a live instructor in the moment). Additionally, teachers can assign keywords or grammatical tenses or concepts to pay attention to when listening to the podcast. Repeating unfamiliar words or phrases can help students improve their grammar and pronunciation, especially building confidence and motivation for ELLs. Familiarity with using podcasts can enhance focus and help students retain and recall information more readily, as repetition enables stronger neural pathways to be formed.

Creativity and communication skills are also meaningfully enriched via podcasts. Integration of podcasts into the classroom can also mean having students become the creators/producers rather than merely consumers. Podcasting can help students hone their literacy, creativity, and oratory skills. Projects involving role play and interviews would allow students to explore the language and the content at a deeper level, encourage concise expression of their understanding, and work together to produce an artifact they can be proud of. They also learn audio recording and production skills simultaneously, which can be as simple as recording a voice note on their phones, or as complex as editing audio on software such as GarageBand, Audacity, and Logic Pro among others.

Education is not just about teaching the content, it is about teaching students. Often, valuable life skills and core values can be developed at school. Students also need to learn how to become critical thinkers and responsible citizens, and podcasts can definitely help with that. They can access podcasts for numerous global issues, politics, community service, creative arts, or whatever cause they are passionate about. A number of these podcasts result in the building of a (global) community of listeners with shared interests, resulting in shared meaning-making and even collaborative calls for action. They can also learn to identify biases and address their own prejudices. Students can create their own podcasts, cultivate a community of listeners (local or otherwise) for philanthropic causes they are invested in, and take a step towards becoming active and responsible citizens beyond their schools.