Griggio, VictoriaAplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés NSPT UTN 2013Written Assignment for Final Exam.

Podcasting as a Next Generation Teaching Resource

With new technologies emerging every day, educators have come to adopt

innovating ways for teaching their lessons, whether it is with good or bad response from the

students. It is the educator’s intention to achieve a new level of teaching and present their

students with multiple resources from which they can improve their learning process. In

this essay I am going to discuss the ideas presented in the chapter “Podcasting as a Next

Generation Teaching Resource” by Jenny Ang Lu, who introduces the use of “podcasts” in

different teaching and learning environments such as Universities or EFL courses and how

they can improve the learning process and revolutionize the way students work in and out

of the classroom with different kinds of assignments that require the use of podcasts.

The author describes the term “podcast” as a play on the words “iPod” and

“broadcasting”. These podcasts consist of audio files which can be downloaded and played

on a computer or any device that supports MP3 files (Jordan, 2007). Although it may seem

like you need and iPod to access this technology, you do not need to be in possession of

one to listen to podcasts (Selingo, 2006).

The author presents us with many reasons why using podcasts when teaching is an

advantage. To begin with, it can be very easy to have access to this technology. The

concept of downloading audio from the internet is not new; what differentiates podcasting

from previous forms of audio access is “the ease of publication, ease of subscription, and

ease of use across multiple environments” (Campbell, 2055, p. 34). The author says that the

process of podcasting is actually very straightforward and you can even have a program to

help you find and download these audio files called an aggregator or a podcatcher.

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Griggio, VictoriaAplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés NSPT UTN 2013Written Assignment for Final Exam.

Another important point mentioned by the author is the use of podcasts by English

language learners. This is particularly useful for EFL students and teachers for whom it is

now easier than ever to build a language immersion environment, regardless of their

physical location (Flanagan & Calandra, 2005); plus, there is a myriad of podcasts that

cater solely to English language learners (Stanley, 2006), and these often come with

transcripts to support language learners. Also, there is a wide variety of topics and issues

discussed in podcasts, there are currently tens of thousands of podcasts available on the

web covering a wide range of subject areas (Thomas, 2006); therefore the student can find

that which suits his preferences best. Podcasts are a natural addition to language classes

(Flanagan & Calandra, 2005) because language is ideally learned through exposure.

The author also shows us two types of podcasts that can be used in the classroom:

those created for the purpose of teaching languages, and those that were simply recorder in

the target language. Podcasts can either be part of assignments and projects; they can be

used as note-taking, for listening activities before, during or after class, for making

transcriptions or simply to provide an opinion about the topic discussed in the podcast;

podcasts are even useful for those students who were not able to attend a class. Another

good point in this chapter is the fact that allowing students to create their own podcasts and

reminding them that these can reach not only their teacher and classmates but also a real

audience will provide them with the incentive to create something meaningful; it is

motivating for them to know that they have the whole world as their audience (Selingo,

2006).

Although the use of podcasts in and out the classroom has proofed to be very useful

and encouraging for students, there are a few things to consider. For example, only a

handful of amateur podcasters stand the test of time because it is neither easy to regularly

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Griggio, VictoriaAplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés NSPT UTN 2013Written Assignment for Final Exam.

produce interesting content nor keep listeners interested enough to return on a regular basis

(Lu, J. A. 2007); this could disencourage some podcasters leading them to a less frequent

use of podcasting. In addition, there are some podcasts that can fail to succeed, since

monologues can be very boring and background music is not always well edited. An

interesting example is that of Janossy (2007) who made use of text-to-speech software to

produce podcast; the robotic output did not motivate students since it lacked human

emotion (Lu, J. A. 2007).

There are also other reasons for not taking advantage of such resource as

podcasting, some include lack of motivation, uninteresting content, lack of access to

equipment (Van Amelsvoort, 2007), poor quality, and lack of familiarity (Edirisingha et al.,

2007). Godwin-jones (2005) considers podcasting and similar emerging technologies

disruptive technologies, which he describes as “new and different ways of doing familiar

tasks, and in the process, may threaten the traditional industries” (p. 9).

In conclusion to this chapter, we can say that podcasting is an upcoming technology

and its many uses are yet to be fully uncovered. Jenny Lu makes a clear image of how

podcasts can easily be included in the classroom with great success helping the learning

process, regardless the few bad points some authors have referred to. Podcasting can

become an everyday useful resource for the English language class since, in the author’s

own words, “Language never ceases to evolve […] and educators and students […] can

take advantage of this resource by building their own language immersion environment

through exposing themselves to ample amounts of authentic input through available

podcasts”.

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Griggio, VictoriaAplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés NSPT UTN 2013Written Assignment for Final Exam.

References

• Lu, Jenny Ang (2007). Podcasting as a Next Generation Teaching Resource. In Thomas, M. (2009) Handbook of Research on Web 2.0 and Second Language Learning (pp. 42-59). Japan: Nagoya University of Commerce and Business.

• Campbell, G (2005). There’s something in the air: Podcasting in education. Educational Review, 40(6), 32-47.

• Edirisingha, P., Rizzi, C., Nie, M., &Rothwell, L. (2007) Podcasting to provide teaching and learning support for an unfergraduate module on English language and communication. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 8(3), 87-107. Retrieved November 2, 2007, from http://to-jde.anadoulu.edu.tr/tojde27/articles/article_6.htm

• Flanagan, B. & Calandra, B. (2005). Podcasting in the classroom. Learning and Leading with Technology, 33(3), 20-23.

• Godwin-Jones, R. (2005). Skype and podcasting: Disruptive technologies for language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 9-12.

• Janossy, J. (2007). Student reaction to podcast learning materials: Preliminary results. In Engaging the Learner: 12th Annual Instructional Technology conference, (pp. 98-107). Murfreesboro, Tennessee: middle Tennessee State University.

• Jordan, M. (2007, December 26). What a podcast is – and everything you need to know about podcasting. The American Chronicle. Retrieved January 13, 2008, from http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=47099

• Selingo, J. (2006, January 25). Students and teachers, From K to 12, hit the podcasts. New York Times. Retrieved February 4, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/technology/teachspecial2/25podcast.html?_r=2&pref=slogin

• Stanley, G. (2006). Podcasting: Audio on the Internet comes of age. TESI-EJ, 9(4). Retrieved December 2, 2006, from http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej36/int.html

• Thomas, M. (2006). iPods in education: Innovations in the implementation of mobile learning. The Knowledge Tree, 10. Retrieved April 10, 2008, from http://kt-

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Griggio, VictoriaAplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés NSPT UTN 2013Written Assignment for Final Exam.

flexiblelearning.net.au/KT_ed10-printversion.pdf

• Van Amelsvoort, M. (2007). Podcasting: A view from the trenches. In M. Thomas (ed.), Wireless Ready E-Proceedings: Podcasting Education and Mobile Assisted Language Learning, (pp. 121-134). ISSN 1995-4557. Nagoya, Japan: NUCB Graduate School.

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