Tuning into Podcasts: Collaborative Research into the Value Adding Nature of Podcasts in Teacher Education

Abstract

Digital pedagogy has become an increasingly viable, popular and effective component of higher education teaching and learning at Edith Cowan University and elsewhere. Components of digital pedagogy are diverse with new examples, such as podcasts, regularly being created, released for use and adopted in educational, recreational and business contexts. Consequently, university students use much of this technology both in their employment and recreational lives. This study explored processes of using and developing the students’ existing technological skills within their university studies. This paper documents the processes and findings of a collaborative research project that was implemented across six units of study during two semesters in an undergraduate teacher education course. During this period, podcasts were produced and broadcast to purposely increase student reflection and involvement in their own learning processes. These podcasts included question and answer sessions, teacher-student and student-student conversations, lecture presentations, summaries and reviews. Students were provided with opportunities to contribute to and nominate the content of these podcasts. Data was gathered and analysed from both the students’ and the teachers’ perspective about the perceived effectiveness of podcasts. Findings from this data were considered especially in terms of the value-adding nature of podcasts in undergraduate courses to better engage students. Finally, the research study’s results will be compared with findings from other recent studies using podcasts for educational purposes.