Guey-Meei Yang has used podcasts to tape guest speakers
in her classrooms and plans to expand the technological
practice to include students, faculty and art gallery viewers
discussing a particular piece of art. Toni Knechtges
has used podcasts as a launching point to have her students
debate business practices that showed up in the news. And,
for Jim Berry, using podcasts is a key component to using
technological pedagogy in the classroom as a whole new
way of teaching.
 |
ART LESSON: Amy Yancho, a senior from
Montrose,
simulates listening to a podcast of artwork
in the New
Student Center. Guey-Meei Yang, an assistant
professor of visual arts education, plans to have
some
of her students, during the winter term, use
podcasts
that include comment from faculty showing
art at the
Faculty Art Show, art historians and
gallery visitors.
Yang was one of a dozen EMU faculty
and lecturers
who participated in the EMU Podcasting
Initiative, a
pilot program, this
past fall. Photo by John Ryan
|
Ten Eastern Michigan University faculty and two lecturers
recently participated in the EMU Podcasting Initiative.
The pilot program, which took place during the fall term,
was an innovative collaboration between ICT, Continuing
Education, Faculty Council and the Bruce K. Nelson Faculty
Development Center.
"One of the things faculty have worked on and learned
is how to put together a quality streaming and audio podcast
that supports learning in the classroom," said Debi Silverman,
assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences and
a Faculty Development Fellow.
A podcast is a Web feed of audio or video file that is
placed on the Internet for anyone to subscribe. The subscription
feed automatically delivers new content using
an RSS or Really Simple Syndication. This feature distinguishes
a podcast from a simple download or real-time streaming
audio or video. The process of podcasting enables educators
to provide students with audio recordings that can be accessed
— any time and any place — even when the student is not
connected to a computer.
Silverman said the Faculty Development Center worked with
faculty to learn and pedogogically understand how to use
a podcast while ICT provided a framework of support with
equipment. The program was modeled after those used at
Purdue, UCLA, Duke and Penn State, which are recognized
nationally as early adopters of using podcasting.
"We're definitely at the front end of the pack in using
this type of technology as a resource for student learning," Silverman
said.
Art School Confidential
Yang, an assistant professor of visual arts education,
used podcasting in her "Technology in Art Education" course,
a class designed for future art educators. For example,
the art department hosts a "speaker series" in which guest
artists, art historians and educators visit campus and
speak to art students and the general public about some
aspect of art.
Yang audio recorded these lectures, including an introduction
of the speaker, the lecture itself, and a question-and-answer
session between the guest speaker and the audience.
 |
LET'S TAKE A LOOK: Eastern Michigan University
student Julie Warmbrodt, a senior from Coply, Ohio,
downloads a podcast as her instructor, Guey-Meei
Yang, an assistant professor of visual arts education,
looks on. Photo by John Ryan
|
"I tried to show students this is very cutting-edge. You
can provide information in lectures even if students cannot
be there," Yang said. "You can reach out to more people."
In addition to students listening to her audio podcasts
on a PC, students also have the option to download the
podcasts on to their iPods, which gives students the advantage
of portability. They can listen to the lecture anywhere
at anytime, Yang said.
She also had her students create mini-movies, one to two
minutes in length. Yang then converted her students' work
to movies that can be viewed through a podcast.
Yang plans to continue implementing the use of podcasts
in her classroom during winter term, with an emphasis on
securing multiple views of art teaching techniques and
various pieces of art.
Future ideas include having her students compile of list
of questions they have for art teachers in area K-12 schools.
Yang will take the most-frequently-asked questions and
record the answers in a podcast.
"For example, students may ask, 'how do you handle parent-teacher
communication?'" Yang explained. "They may ask the question
of three different art teachers or three different student
teachers. The answers may be quite a bit different.
The answers are recorded. And then I turn those interviews
into podcasts. Students can listen and then have online
discussions about the answers."
Yang also has her eyes on creating a podcast around the
Faculty Art Exhibit, which will be on display beginning
in mid-January at the EMU Student Center. This is part
of her eFellows project with Rina Kundu, a museum specialist
with the University of North Texas.
Yang plans to interview four faculty artists who
practice different styles or mediums, such as surrealism,
abstract, installation art and jewelry. She will ask the
artists about their individual mediums and the process
they use to create their art.
"I will mesh the artwork with perspectives of four
art historians. The art historians will pick an artist's
work to talk about," she explained. "I'm not asking for
a critique. Just 'how do they (art historians) approach
an artwork?" and 'what is the negotiation between you
(the viewer) and the artwork?'"
Yang wants to bring in a third element — guests
viewing the actual artwork. She plans to stand various
patrons in front of pieces of art and audiotape their views.
"I want to start a conversation between gallery visitors,
artists and historians. I want to engage them in some conversation
about art, bouncing ideas back and forth," she said. "I
want to create an informal conversation about art."
Yang said this podcast will be made available to the public,
and her graduate students in her "Technology, Research
and Teaching Visual Arts" course will participate in the
podcast project.
"This is a way to show them you can use technology in
a constructivist way and engage students in teaching and
learning projects," Yang said.
Business "In the News"
Toni Knechtges, a full time-lecturer in the management
department, used podcast assignments as optional, extra-credit
assignments for students in her Management 483 Staffing
course and her Management 484 Labor Relations class.
She typically took some topic in the world of business
and created a 3-5-minute "In the News" audio podcast for
her students. The students who chose to (those most likely
to already owned iPods) would download the audio snippets
from ITunes and either listen to them on a PC or their
iPod. After listening to the short news item or "edu-bite," as
Knechtges dubs it, the students were asked to start a
discussion thread.
What is a Podcast?
A podcast is a Web feed of audio or video file
that is placed on the Internet for anyone to subscribe.
The subscription feed automatically delivers new
content using an RRS or Really Simple Syndication.
This feature distinguishes a podcast from a simple
download or real-time streaming audio or video. |
What she found most interesting was the way students were
much more candid online when discussing a question than
they ever would be in the classroom.
"It's a much more robust discussion," Knechtges
said of the podcast thread. "It would take hours of class
to get to this point, to get the discussion this comfortable.
You don't have that kind of time in the classroom."
She also said the portability of podcasts, if downloaded
to an iPod, makes it easier for students to listen and
participate, whether simultaneously working on another
project or going for a job.
For winter semester, Knechtges said she is considering
creating a study guide in the form of a podcast rather
than handing one out for classes. Her podcast news snippets
also will be mandatory assignments and information from
them will likely show up as exam questions.
"Trying to keep up with technology as a teacher and facilitator
for courses is incredibly important," she said. "Students
are expecting it. They are very tech-savvy. For those students
who aren't tech-savvy, this will give them an opportunity
to be."
A New Way of Teaching
"Doing podcasting for me is just an element of what I
call learning to use the 'technology pedagogy,'" said Jim
Berry, professor of leadership and counseling. "Podcasting
is part of an overall approach to me using technology
as part of online teaching."
In addition to podcasting, Berry added he uses other elements
of the technology pedagogy, including threaded discussions
online, audio, video, online quizzes and supplemental articles
on Web sites. These were used in his graduate level courses, "Instructional
Supervision and Program Evaluation" and "Educational Leadership."
 |
VIEW FROM A POD: This screen capture is
a portion
of a video podcast graduate students
created in one
of Jim Berry's courses. Berry, a
professor of
leadership and counseling, said podcasting
is one tool
he is using to better teach what he
terms the
"technology pedagogy." Screen capture
by John Ryan
|
As a result of using podcasting and other technological
elements in his teaching approach during the fall, Berry
said he is converting all of his classes to an online,
hybrid format.
"Like Tiger Woods, for him to improve his golf game, he
re-invented his swing," Berry said. "As a teacher, I would
always want to come to class and teach face-to face. I'm
trying to figure out how to be a teacher in this hybrid
format and become a better teacher."
While Berry said he would never want to totally do away
with meeting with students in class, he said students'
response to using podcasts and other technology teaching
approaches has been enthusiastic and, often, more reflective.
"One student might respond to a question in class. Online,
they all respond," Berry said of audio/video snippets he
uses as reminders to emphasize points made in class. "They're
required to respond and they not only respond to the question,
they respond to each other. It's made interactive. What
I find is their responses are more thoughtful, more reflective
in how they respond."
Those online responses are often launching points to continue
the discussion in class and move into the next unit of
information, Berry said. He will often point out what one
student said online and then remind another student they
said something completely opposite. The result is often
lively discussion, he said.
In addition to his own growing curiosity in learning how
to put together podcasts, often with music and video snippets
interspersed, Berry also is being practical. The
Michigan Department of Education is requiring — starting
with the senior class of 2011 — all students take
at least one virtual or online course as part of graduation
requirements.
Berry said that not only do current EMU faculty need to
learn this, they need to learn it so they can teach it
to current EMU education majors who will one day be teaching
in Michigan's K-12 classrooms.
"I'm committed to it. This is more than a passing phase," Berry
said. "This is the direction of higher education."
Faculty Call
"This coming semester, we will be issuing a call for a
second group of participants to come from faculty,
full-time lecturers and one additional position to be selected
by each academic dean, that might include an administrative
position," Silverman said. "All participants are
provided with the equipment necessary to prepare, edit
and distribute (podcasts), using an EMU designated server
or either the eCollege or WebCT course management systems.
The Bruce K. Nelson Faculty Development Center is accepting
applications for participation in the EMU Podcasting Initiative
during winter 2007. For an application and information,
please visit www.emich.edu/facdev. Deadline for applications
is Monday, Jan. 15. For more information, e-mail aavp_fdc@emich.edu or
call 487-0020, extension 2111/2112.
