25th October 2005

Podcasting stirs more higher education debate

posted in disruptive-technology, podcasting |

The October 20th Chicago Sun Times article “Missed class? Try a podcast” again reveals increasingly familiar battle lines on the topic of university professor lecture podcasts. On one side are the students, and some professors, claiming the technology provides more options for students to obtain class content and stay caught up. On the other side are dissenters, composed mainly of professors but also parents and others, who fear podcasting technology because it might keep students from coming to class.

Several article quotations stood out for me:

[Dr.] Carlson downloads her lectures to iTunes as well as the Purdue site. After she was featured on the home page of the iTunes Web site, the number of subscribers to her podcast shot up to 750 from 100. A history major e-mailed to say he enjoyed her lectures, as did an engineer who graduated from college years ago. “When I saw the subscribership shoot up to 750, I started getting nervous. I love an audience, but an audience of 750 that I can’t read or get feedback from is intimidating,” Carlson said.

First a technical but important correction. No one, Dr. Carlson or anyone else, is “downloading lectures to iTunes.” iTunes and other podcasting directories like Odeo do not host podcast files, they just index and link to feeds. iTunes has a link to Dr Carlson’s podcast feed (Physics 415: Thermal and Statistical Physics). When she saves a new podcast to a server at Purdue, and links it from her class podcast blog, iTunes and other podcatcher software programs automatically download the latest podcast for subscribers.

Secondly, it is also not entirely accurate to say that a podcast audience cannot interact with a professor, although the interaction modality certainly can change. There are more tools for out of class interactivity available than ever before. Instant messaging and asynchronous discussion boards, in addition to more traditional email and phone calls, are tools professors are using with success to provide feedback to students. It is great this professor (Erica Carlson) wants to provide feedback and interactivity for students. I know some professors who teach online and minimize interactive exchanges with students whenever they can. That is a crime when those students are paying to take a course from the professor. For students who are not paying, like many of Carlson’s iTunes subscribers, it is an exciting prospect for anyone in academe to have so many people voluntarily choosing to listen and access presentation materials. Isn’t this a big reason we educators are doing what we are doing: to get others to think about our ideas and potentially be changed as a result of an educational learning experience we have together? If podcasting advances that goal (and it both can and does) then educators should embrace it.

This comment in the article by a concerned parent reveals the perceptual fantasy land that many people continue to live in when it comes to traditional, face to face instruction:

“I would be rather upset with that,” said Elizabeth Tenison, who said she isn’t worried about her daughter skipping class. “Part of going to a university is hearing alternate points of view … and that would be lost in large part if students didn’t attend. They would hear it, but they wouldn’t be participating.”

In many, many university classes, especially at the undergraduate level but also the graduate level, students may be there in person, but the are NOT participating! They may be looking at the professor, may even be taking some notes, but when content delivery is predominantly in a one-way lecture format, there is little room for interaction during class. Dr. David Nickles, a computer science professor at the University of Hawaii quoted in the article, is on the right track providing lectures to his classes of 600 students via podcast. If it is possible for students to have a comparable intellectual experience listening to a podcast lecture, then by all means the institution and the professor should provide this learning option.

All this discussion again hightlights how podcasting is a disruptive technology. It offers potential to change instruction in fundamental ways. As I have said before, it is the professional obligation of educators to embrace podcasting and use its disruptive potential for constructive opportunities. That will be the subject of my short paper presentation tomorrow here at the eLearn 2005 conference in Vancouver.

Yes, I’ll be posting my remarks as a podcast! Because I’m guessing the synchronous, face to face audience for my presentation will be rather limited, compared to the folks online who might want to download and access those comments. :-)

On this day..

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 at 10:06 am and is filed under disruptive-technology, podcasting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 6 responses to “Podcasting stirs more higher education debate”

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  1. 1 On October 25th, 2005, Learnandteachonline.com said:

    […] More on podcast naysayers in the academy. Wesley Fryer says educators have a professional obligation to embrace podcasting. I don’t think I’d go that far. […]

  2. 2 On October 26th, 2005, collegewebeditor.com » How to educate your director, VP or president about Podcasting said:

    […] But, you should also have a look at “Podcasting stirs more higher education debate”. In this post on his personal blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity, Wesley Fryer, Director of Instructional Support Services and Webmaster for the College of Education at Texas Tech University, offers his critical analysis of this article from the viewpoint of an academic podcasting evangelist. […]

  3. 3 On October 28th, 2005, Ponto Media » Podcastings no ensino said:

    […] Missed class? Try a podcast Podcasting stirs more higher education debate Podcasting as Disruptive Transmediation Stanford on iTunes List of Academic Lecture Podcasts […]

  4. 4 On October 29th, 2005, Tama’s eLearning Blog » Blog Archive » Stanford on iTunes … Where Podcasting & Academia Get Together said:

    […] Update 3 (29 Oct 05, 7.10pm): Wesley Fryer from Moving at the Speed of Creativity has some thoughtful responses, too: Secondly, it is also not entirely accurate to say that a podcast audience cannot interact with a professor, although the interaction modality certainly can change. There are more tools for out of class interactivity available than ever before. Instant messaging and asynchronous discussion boards, in addition to more traditional email and phone calls, are tools professors are using with success to provide feedback to students. […] All this discussion again hightlights how podcasting is a disruptive technology. It offers potential to change instruction in fundamental ways. As I have said before, it is the professional obligation of educators to embrace podcasting and use its disruptive potential for constructive opportunities. […]

  5. 5 On October 31st, 2005, Tama’s eLearning Blog » Blog Archive » Stanford on iTunes … Where Podcasting & Academia Get Together said:

    […] Jodi S. Cohen writing in Newsday has an article called “Missed class? Try a podcast” [Via] which begins: When Purdue University senior Marcos Kohler skipped a physics class to attend a concert in Chicago, he didn’t have to borrow a classmate’s notes to catch up. Instead, he connected his iPod to a computer, downloaded the lecture, and from the comfort of a campus coffee shop, listened to the two-hour discussion on particle physics. “It re-creates the entire class experience,” said Kohler, 22, who missed another lecture at the West Lafayette, Ind., campus when he overslept for the 1:30 p.m. class. A video conference class would be even better, he said, but “to go from paper printouts to audio, this is a step in the right direction.” […] Rick Bischoff, admissions director at Caltech, said a podcast is a perfect way to grab the attention of busy high school seniors. “I want high school students to listen and imagine, `That is a community I want to be part of.’ Or say, `That doesn’t sound like any place that I want to be a part of.’” Some universities, such as Purdue and North Carolina’s Duke University, have university-wide programs that make it easy for professors to podcast. Podcasting, itself still a newish technology with barely a year behind it, has definitely hit the university scene. Lectures have been available in digital recording form for years, but almost always as streamed audio which required you sitting behind your computer to enjoy your academic audio! As I discussed earlier in ‘Podcasting & eLearning‘, the same systems which created streaming audio can be re-tooled for podcasting (downloadable audio files) without too much hassle (as has happened with the UWA developed iLecture/Lectopia system) and the flexibility of taking your recorded lectures (and other audio and even video) with you in your iPod or other portable media device removes almost any excuse for missing a lecture (at least, that is, in the many hubs of broadband that characterise many Western universities). The potential application for podcasting is extremely broad: in the business of selling learning, podcasts offer a try-before-you-buy sampler; in the business of flexible delivery and eLearning, podcasts offer a reliable, full-quality, portable time-shifted lectures (with audio, now possibly video, albeit without the interactivity of the lecture theatre … sometimes); and for educators looking for creative tools for getting students at any learning level engaged with their material, getting them to podcast–creating their own innovative digital audio–offers an enticing new assessment/project mediaform. At Stanford, these technologies have been brought together in a way which will likely set the standard for podcasting within a tertiary framework. Enter iTunes on Stanford (I keep wanting to say iTunes upon Stanford, but maybe that’s a bit too Shakespearean!) which is described thus: Stanford on iTunes provides university-related audio content via the iTunes Music Store, Apple’s popular music jukebox and online music store. Stanford on iTunes gives alumni and the general public free access to a wide range of Stanford-specific digital audio content. The project includes two sites: [X] a public site, targeted primarily at alumni, which will include Stanford faculty lectures, learning materials, music, sports, and more. [X] an access-restricted site for students delivering course-based materials and advising content. In action, it looks like this… [Click screenshots to enlarge.] For more information, you can read Stanford’s iTunes on Stanford FAQ (PDF), but I definitely think this is the most sophisticated and appealing academic podcasting arrangement I’ve seen so far (can anyone point out any others that are this far into development?). While there will undoubtably be some backlash about ’students not attending lectures’ (etc.) I think flexible learning and eLearning are a part of most university structures, and podcasting offers the best digital lecture combination as far as I’m concerned. Moreover, if we still think of universities as producing, public knowledge, then podcasts offer a wonderful avenue for sharing knowledge outside the ivory tower of academic. Indeed, now I think of it, UWA’s Institute for Advanced Studies records and releases streaming versions of many of our public lectures (with speakers as diverse and interesting as Gillian Beer and Mark Poster). There’s a streaming archive here, but I must ask them to look into podcasting future lectures. Yes, I think this podcasting thing is here to stay … Update (22 Oct 05, 10.15pm): Here is the Official Stanford Press Release. Inside Higher Ed are also talking about Stanford on iTunes and may spawn an interesting discussion on the merits of podcasting. Update 2 (23 Oct 05, 11.50am): D’Arcy Norman makes two important points: Very cool. Great to see a Big School “get it” that by sharing resources freely they are not shooting themselves in the foot. Every university should be doing this as part of their contribution back to the community. ps. Yes, I know it’s not really podcasting, but close enough. The spirit is the same, and they provide some handy hooks to download all content at once. So it’s not fed to you via RSS. Whatever… I completely agree that in the spirit of the university producing public knowledge and the life of the mind, as much as possible should be available publicly. Of course, Stanford on iTunes is, as far as I can tell, just on iTunes (so far, at least), which does exclude normal file downloading without the Apple iTunes interface (which, admitedly, is free, but does chew resources rather greedily on older model PCs). An alternative web-based interface might also be the way to go to make sure everyone can download if they want to. Update 3 (29 Oct 05, 7.10pm): Wesley Fryer from Moving at the Speed of Creativity has some thoughtful responses, too: Secondly, it is also not entirely accurate to say that a podcast audience cannot interact with a professor, although the interaction modality certainly can change. There are more tools for out of class interactivity available than ever before. Instant messaging and asynchronous discussion boards, in addition to more traditional email and phone calls, are tools professors are using with success to provide feedback to students. […] All this discussion again hightlights how podcasting is a disruptive technology. It offers potential to change instruction in fundamental ways. As I have said before, it is the professional obligation of educators to embrace podcasting and use its disruptive potential for constructive opportunities. […]

  6. 6 On November 1st, 2005, Tama’s eLearning Blog » Blog Archive » Stanford on iTunes … Where Podcasting & Academia Get Together said:

    […] Update 3 (29 Oct 05, 7.10pm): Wesley Fryer from Moving at the Speed of Creativity has some thoughtful responses, too: Secondly, it is also not entirely accurate to say that a podcast audience cannot interact with a professor, although the interaction modality certainly can change. There are more tools for out of class interactivity available than ever before. Instant messaging and asynchronous discussion boards, in addition to more traditional email and phone calls, are tools professors are using with success to provide feedback to students. […] All this discussion again hightlights how podcasting is a disruptive technology. It offers potential to change instruction in fundamental ways. As I have said before, it is the professional obligation of educators to embrace podcasting and use its disruptive potential for constructive opportunities. […]