Carter, Dennis (2009, March 6th). Podcast trumps lecture in one college study . eSchool News, Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=57612&page=2
On March 6th, I bookmarked an article that I was going to read later. I bookmarked it on March 6. I finally did read the article on March 20, 2009. The article discusses how at one college, State University of New York Fredonia, students who listened to podcasts did better than students who actually went to the lecture. For those of you who may not know, a Podcast is a type of audio that is published online and generally has an RSS feed so that one can subscribe to future audio broadcasts that occur on the Internet. Using RSS, which stands for Real Simple Syndication, allowes for all future audio broadcasts to automatically download to ones computer. I found this article in eSchool News very interesting since, for years now, I have been teaching k-12 teachers and on occasion students how to podcast. And in my estimation, podcasting has never really taken off in our school districts. The main reason I feel it has not taken off is it is not easy enough yet. This is changing.
It seems that the main reason students who listened to the podcasts out performed students who attended the face to face class is the pause and rewind button. Many students took advantage of these buttons to process the information, take notes on it and re-listien to anything that they may have missed or did not understand. The article states:
Students who watched the lecture podcast--available from the iTunes U online video library--scored an average of 71 percent. Students who sat through the 30-minute classroom lecture scored an average of 62 percent, according to the study.
The article goes on to say that this was a very small sample of students who were tested, suggesting it may not be very reliable. The article also stated that some college professors were concerned about the study. Some professors felt that if students could perform better by listening to the podcast than students who actually came to class would make an argument to students that they really don't need to go to class. The article also touches on this concern:
For those professors who might worry that the technology discourages students from showing up in class, this statistic might be welcome news: More than 90 percent of students said they preferred "traditional lectures with computer-based learning as a supplement for revising" their notes.
I actually used to do the same thing when I went to college, well, I actually still am going to college. During my undergraduate schooling I would tape record all of my lectures. In my notes books, you know the blue line on the edge of notebook paper, I would fold it. I would take notes on the face to face lecture in class and in the folded area I would take notes from my tape recorder. This method really helped me get through many of my classes. Of course, when there was something I did not understand, I would rewind and listen to the part in question again. This older technology that I used is really not that much different than the technology of the podcasted lecture and how students at Fredonia used this newer type of technology.
