Podcasting as a new educational means (#ecer2009)

Live blog captured during presentation by Raphael Struck, Heikki Kynäslahti*, Olli Vesterinen and Seppo Tella from University of Helsinki, Finland.

Podcasting as a new educational means — Students as content producers

Investigated mobile learning in the 1990s - using mobile devices to collect and transfer information. Also interested in student's pedagogical thinking (a new area of study) that becomes more important in Web 2.0 and user created content.

Comes from research on pedagogical thinking which considers that something has to sit between teaching and learning - studying. The student's pedagogical thinking supports their studying.

Worked with media education students who made podcasts in groups on a topic of their choice from the module they were studying. Research looked at what they learned while creating their podcast rather than what they learned from listening to others. They developed a number of skills: they developed pedagogical thinking, learned to express themselves in a concise manner and developed technical skills.

Mobility was not as great as expected - in general they created the podcast on a computer rather than a mobile device. However attitudes to mobile methods, especially listening, were positive.

The researcher considered where conflicts may arise. For example, if a student's pedagogical thinking considers the use of ICT to be important but teachers do not require it, there could be conflict.

The researchers think they could have explained why the podcasts were to be created and the students found it frustrating that nobody listend to their podcasts.