5.3.5: Podcasting - a great article

Oliver McGarr gives a great overview of the potential for podcasting in his contribution to AJET 25(3), 309-321 article, "A review of podcasting in higher education: Its influence on the traditional lecture" (PDF). Surprisingly, though (or perhaps not...) McGarr cites research indicating that most students who use podcasts tend to do so at their desk, during study time and not on-the-go. Most users, it seems, do not multitask when listening to podcasts. In other words, podcasting is not generally considered an m-learning solution. It seems that making lecture podcasts available does not adversely affect lecture attendance, and that students appreciate such podcasts being made available. Most usefully, McGarr sugegsts three broad categories of podcast use in higher edcuation:

1. Substitutional - the lectured podcast is a substitute to attending the class itself.
   
2. Supplemental - summaries of lectures and additional (but optional) materials.
   
3. Creative - students generating their own podcasts for sharing with others.
   

We have considered podcasting lectures here at Laidlaw College. Unless it can be easily facilitated and add clear value, it is probably more than we can handle for now. Still, with cheap portable digital recorders able to record one hour's audio in only 10MB or so of file (or even less), it is not difficult for faculty to do this themselves... the extent to which this might substitute for the actual lecture or provide primary materials to distance students is probably minimal (particularly the latter!)