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Downloading the Current State of Podcasting on Campus: What Are the Implications for Teaching and Learning?

A podcast is any digital media file, or series of files, distributed over the Internet for playback on portable media players and personal computers. In this study, we explored the attitudes, perceptions, and use of podcasting as reported by instructors and students at a large Midwestern university. We examined the results of an online survey focusing specifically on items related to teaching and learning. Findings suggest that students use podcast materials largely for reviewing concepts and issues raised in lectures that they previously attended. While instructors and students agree that podcasts help students learn, students are less sure about podcasts improving instructors' teaching. We argue that podcasts can help instructors change face-to-face instruction from traditional didactic lectures to more constructivist learning practices. Every new generation of learning technology brings with it a new deep conceptual issue that learning technologists must untangle in order to unlock the learning value of raw technological potential (Roschelle, 2003, p. 260-261). Take a stroll across the campus of any major college or university in America today and you will inevitably see students with white earbud headphones nestled into their heads. Recent national studies indicate that more than 80 percent of college students own at least one portable audio device like an iPod that can download and play audio, and sometimes video, recordings (Lum, 2006). As institutions of higher education begin integrating this technology into courses, questions arise about implications for teaching and learning. Is podcasting a technological tool that can expand the "space" where learning occurs (Zukowski, 2007), or will students inevitably "be replaced by iPods, (and) professors ... by tape recorders?" (Schneider, 2006, p. B5). These kinds of conceptual issues and questions are increasingly important as podcasting moves from solely audio and video entertainment to potential tools for learning. In the study presented here we explored the attitudes, perceptions, and reported use of podcasting by instructors and students from a large Midwestern university campus where podcasting and other technologies are used to supplement traditional face-to-face classroom instruction. We examined the results of an online survey, focusing specifically on items relating to teaching and learning. To examine if the results from the podcasting survey were representative of the larger campus population, we compared these results with a larger survey about information technology (IT) and our campus' Learning Management System (LMS).