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Podcasting: A Newbie Finds His Radio Voice

Another week, another Web 2.0 tool that I haven't used before. I have certainly heard of podcasting but never created one previously and never even listened to one prior to the start of this course. That's OK, I read somewhere that keeping your brain active by learning new things will pay off big time when I'm older...


The Process of Learning About Podcasting

Podcasting is huge and thus there are many sources available to introduce, explain, and help one get started. I started by reading the Podcasting section in Richardson's book (Chapter 8) which again gives a fairly good introduction to podcasting. Basically, a podcast is a voice recording that gets put on the web for everyone to listen to. I recommend a great article titled "Simplifying Podcasting" (Pandy, 2009) that offers everything you need to know if you are new to podcasting. This one is especially geared toward teachers and would make a great guide for implementing podcasting in your teaching and learning practices.

Beyond the readings, I used GarageBand's video tutorial in conjunction with readings from Nardo (2009) and Shamburg (2009) to help me start creating my podcast. My first podcast was for my family (and thus not available to those viewing this blog), as it contained copyright material that I can't put on the web. I ended up taking one of my daughters favourite bedtime stories and put it in a podcast complete with pictures and sound effects! My family was impressed. This "practice" podcast allowed me to play around with laying voice tracks, adding photos from iPhoto, and also adding sound effects from the GarageBand library. All three of these tasks were done separately and then combined together for the finished product. I especially liked the join feature that combined all the separate voice tracks into one. The entire process was frustrating at times, but also very cool. What made my practice podcast easy what that the story was "scripted" and I basically had to read what was on the page.

The podcast you can view was not scripted, comes complete with photos and a few sound effects. I hope you find it interesting!

http://web.me.com/mvmacau/Site/Podcast/Entries/2010/2/23_My_Favorite_Holiday.html



For this podcast, I spoke off the cuff and shared information as if I was chatting with a friend. I wanted to come across as speaking rather than reading which I hope will seem more natural to my audience.


My Personal Learning

Personally, podcasting has shown me another way to communicate with family and friends. While away from family and friends, email and skype have been my typical modes of communication. Email is great because of its asynchronous nature, skype is great because you can see and hear the person you are talking to. Can a podcast do anything that these two can't? I believe so. The one great aspect of a podcast is its downloadability. If I found myself away from my daughters for example, a podcast will provided them with a message (possibly with pictures or video) that they can view over and over if they choose. My message is also portable so that they can take it with them (if they have an iPod or MP3). This would come in handy if they miss me really late at night!

As a learner, I was happy to create my podcast using GarageBand. I really wanted to use an application I already had on my computer, as opposed to downloading one from the web. While Audacity is a popular application, I like GarageBand better because of the ability to seamlessly add photos or video from iPhoto and iMovie respectfully. GarageBand also provides numerous sound effects that I can use whereas if using Audacity I would need to import sound effects. While the professional setup and appearance of GarageBand appears daunting, I found it to be very user friendly once I spent some time playing with the tool. If I can learn to use this tool, anyone with basic of computer skills can too. The entire experience left me with a sense of accomplishment and pride considering my limited yet developing technological abilities.


Podcasting and Teaching & Learning

In an educational context, iPods offer a variety of opportunities to improve teaching and learning in the classroom. The one salient point here is that most middle school and high school students already own an iPod or a MP3 player thus they are learning with something they understand. As Pandy points out in her article, "Young people want hands on experience, interaction, identity in cyberculture, and connectivity with the world".(P. 251) I believe an iPod can provide all of these things. Some examples of possible uses of iPods include:

1. Administering oral exams
2. Providing extra help to ESL students and those with learning difficulties; students could replay information over and over
3. Increasing face time between students and teachers; as classes get bigger and teachers get busier, podcasts can supplement instruction in and out of the classroom (Mears, 2009, P.1) For example, if a lesson takes up an entire period, a podcast can contain all the information that the teacher did not have time to share: announcements, assignment due dates, quiz reminders, study tips, homework etc.
4. Students can display their knowledge and skills via musical stories, interviews, performances, and compositions (to name a few)

As a physical education teacher and a coach, I started thinking about practical uses in regard to PE and athletics. My last school didn't have many facilities nearby so the students and I often spent 5-10 minutes traveling to and from various arenas, swimming pools etc. This down time could easily and productively be used to introduce a lesson, announce teams, discuss rules and procedures, all via a podcast. For athletic teams, travel time is often longer thus even more information could be provided in a podcast. This could include photos, diagrams and even video that could help prepare for the upcoming game.


Conclusion

Considering more and more schools expect teachers to integrate technology into their teaching, why not use a technology most students are already familiar with? Students that are active and engaged will learn more and I believe podcasting is a great way to improve teaching and learning.


References

GarageBand Tutorial, iLife 2009. Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#garageband-intro

Mears, Derrick. (2009) Podcasts and Wiki's: Delivering Content Information to Students Using Technology. Strategies. Reston: Sep/Oct 2009. Vol. 23, Iss. 1, p. 29-34

Nardo, Rachel. (2009) See! Hear! Enhanced Podcasting With GarageBand. General Music Today, v.23, n1, p.27-30

Pandy, Prachi P. (2009) Simplifying Podcasting. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Vol. 20, No. 2, P. 251-261

Richardson, Will. (2009) Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and OtherPowerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin Press

Sahmburg, Christopher. (2009) Student-Powered Podcasting. International Society for Technology in Education. Washington, DC. www.iste.org

Delicious... and fat free!

Another week and another web tool to learn about; my adventures in web 2.0 tools for education continue. This weeks topic is Social Bookmarking and I hate to sound like a broken record but I have to admit that I haven't used nor even heard of social bookmarking prior to undertaking this assignment.

Considering what I've learned this past week, I've been missing out on a very useful tool. The concept is similar to bookmarking on one's own computer with some powerful extras. First, bookmarks travel with me where ever I go, as long as I have access to the internet. This is possible only after joining a bookmarking site such as Delicious or Diigo (more about them later). In the past I did bookmark the occasional site but this information was stored only on the computer I was using and thus this data was not always available to me.

Secondly, I can organize my bookmarks any way I like as I can assign a "tag" (description) to each link that will help me find the link at a later date. If I end up bookmarking hundreds of sites, the use of tags can help me quickly search for specific themes or topics.

Lastly, I can search the entire Delicious site for links by looking at what others have bookmarked using the same tag. For example, if I search the site for all links that have been tagged with "Web 2.0", I can see what others have bookmarked using this tag. Thus, I can perform a search within Delicious as opposed to using a search engine such as Google.




The Learning Process

There is a massive amount of information available on the topic of social bookmarking; my eyes are still sore from all of the reading and viewing while researching. I started with Chapter 6 - The Social Web in Will Richardson's text. This offered a fairly good introduction to the concept of Social Bookmarking although he only discusses the two more popular sites available on the web. A great introduction to the topic can be found in the common craft website under the title "Social Bookmarking in Plain English". The social bookmarking sites themselves offer tutorials and I especially liked the "how-to-guide" and "learn more" videos in Diigo; great stuff. YouTube offered some worthwhile videos that provided information about "getting started" and "how to" as well.

Considering I was a complete novice a week and a half ago, I feel that Social Bookmarking was easier to learn and effectively use than the other tools I've had to learn. The concept is simple and straight-forward with the added extras of tagging, using groups, and sharing being easy to set up and use. I can see myself using this tool regularly now that I understand the many possibilities available to me.




My Personal Learning

Prior to starting my research, I checked to see how many bookmarks I had on my desktop. I found forty-four and I can't remember the last time I even referred to one of them! I laughed at this and I asked myself if I had been wasting my time bookmarking. To be honest, I probably never even thought about my bookmarks and probably did a Google search instead.

I couldn't choose between Delicious and Diigo from the readings and tutorials so I decided to open an account with each. Creating an account was easy and straight-forward for both. I spent about the same amount of time with both and bookmarked the same sites just to be fair. This process was very easy once Delicious and Diigo were added to my tool bar (it's easy and I recommend it).

While both sites offer access to huge amounts of information, the ability to use a filter makes the search for information quite a bit easier. When I searched Delicious using the tag "social bookmarking" I had 10,677 results. When I added "web2.0", and "education" as filters, the number of results dropped down to a somewhat more manageable 230 results. This is a great option and makes searching so much easier.

Considering that these two sites are the most popular ones, I really wanted to join both so that I could share and search with the largest group of people possible. However, I do not really want to keep two accounts running and up to date for this purpose. Thankfully Diigo allowed me to "link to Del.icio.us" so that whatever I bookmark in Diigo will automatically be bookmarked in Del.icio.us. VERY helpful!

Overall, I liked the "look" and "set-up" of Diigo better even though both do primarily the same things. Diigo however also allows for highlighting, sticky notes and screenshots of websites (no more broken links) which are useful tools that I would even use, especially when sharing links within a group. Considering some links of articles or blogs could have multiple pages of information, highlighting or using sticky notes will allow me to quickly point out the important bits of information.

I have started using Diigo to organize the web 2.0 links that are mentioned in the readings, and by the participants in my class. There have been many, many great ones and I really want to keep track of them all and revisit them when needed. By using tags, I will have a large, easy to search data base of information on various topics by the end of this course.

My wife has also taken an interest in Diigo. While working on my laptop in bed (and ignoring her completely) she peered over my shoulder and started asking some questions. This tool was new to her as well yet after a brief explanation, she told me that she was going to sign up for Diigo and use it at work!


Social Bookmarking and Professional Learning

Other than the "bookmarking" aspect of this web tool, I see social bookmarking as a great way to "share" information with professional colleagues. I envision a group of teachers (i.e Math) that teach the same courses and use common evaluation tools. While this is common in many schools, how much sharing of tips, best practices etc. is going on amongst these teachers? The amount of sharing will vary but I can see the huge potential of using Diigo or Delicious in this regard. Sharing would not only take place amongst this small group but could also take place amongst math teachers from all over just by searching the Diigo site with the use of tags. In fact, this may become a preferred search method considering the information has been tagged by like-minded teachers and not some computer search program. Another bonus is that this method of sharing is asynchronous, which is great for busy teachers who probably don't have the time to regularly sit down together as a group.

For students, I can see potential uses as well. First, websites or blogs that offer "study tips" or help with "essay writing" would be great to bookmark and refer to when needed. This information can also be shared amongst a study group and this group could end up putting together quite the collection of resources. Secondly, bookmarks can be packaged very nicely into a slide show (when using Diigo) which would certainly look very professional indeed!

There are a few negatives (small ones) that I can find if using this tool in a personal or professional way. First, you have to join a bookmarking site. Some people may not want another account to manage or they may not want to give out personal information required during registration. Secondly, information overload is a potential problem. As I mentioned earlier, searching using the tag "social bookmarking" provided over 10,000 results. If a person does not understand the filtering process, this number could discourage them before they even start. Even when I used the filter tool, I still had 230 results. That is still a lot of bookmarks to review!

Overall, I enjoyed learning about Social Bookmarking and I see it as a powerful tool that I will use for both personally and professionally.






References

Annotate, Archive, Organize. Retrieved from http://www.diigo.com/learn_more

Beutler, Marty. Del.icio.us Demo. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXElviSRXM

Davis, Liz. Getting Started With Del.icio.us. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXElviSRXM

Richardson, Will (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin Press.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English. Retrieved from http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english

Teaching Today: Social Bookmarking. Retrieved from http://trailfire.com/joannedegroot/marks/199326