We have mentioned in previous posts that many people use audio podcasts as a way to learn or practice a language. Sites such as Chinese Pod (a Praxis site) and LearnItalianPod show that canny entrepreneurs are starting to build businesses around this concept.
What about other types of learning? Should podcasts be considered as an educational tool?
I spotted a study in New Scientist, that looked pretty encouraging. Dani McKinney, a psychologist at the State University of New York in Fredonia, had some students listen to a live lecture, while others listened to a podcast of the lecture. Then, she gave the students a test on the material that had been presented. The students who listened via the podcast got a significantly better score on the test than those who did not.
The SUNY researchers speculate that the students who listened to the podcast benefited from being able to "rewind" to listen again to material they didn't understand. They may also have benefited from not having to take notes (we humans are not very good at walking and chewing gum--or doing any other two tasks at the same time!).
It struck me that podcasting could be a perfect solution for a number of educational challenges:
- Home schooling. Children who are studying at home would benefit from being exposed to a broad variety of material and teaching styles. Parents would not have to worry about exposing their kids to the Internet--they could directly control which podcasts went into their child's curriculum.
- Distance learning. Students who study at home suffer from endless distractions and interuptions. Adult students may have to squeeze study time into their commute or during breaks at their regular job. Podcasts are portable and a student can listen to an episode as many times as he or she requires, without any extra cost or trouble.
- Students with disabilities. A number of students have trouble handling long hours in a classroom, carrying and reading books, etc. Podcasts take almost no equipment and are easy to play and control.
- Giving top teachers more exposure. Most great teachers only get to reach one or two classes of students at a time. it is a shame not to give them the chance to influence hundreds or thousands of students--around the world. Some of the material that a top teacher presents may be suitable for only a few students. We can gather these scattered audiences together and move them all forward at once, using a podcast.
- Covering academic fields that generate a lot of new stuff. Doctors and lawyers need to stay up to date on new medicines, scientific studies, court cases, appeals rulings, new laws, etc. Podcasts of abstracts are an easy way to help them.
The folks at Finding Duclinea have done a super job tracking ideas like these, and pulling them together in various posts such as this one. There are already some good examples of educational podcasting sites. (E.g, The Education Podcast Network and Education.podcast.com.) We hope that more Internet entreprenuers will see these opportunities and start pursuing them. Of course, when they do, we encourage them to use our great tools for creating and managing podcasts!
