1 What Happens When Podcasting Is Integrated Into Language
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1 What Happens When Podcasting is integrated into Language Instruction? by esther hattingh – Graduate Student at Sac State ABSTRACT This research addressed the usefulness of Podcasting for language instruction. Eight students were asked to listen to Podcasts recorded in Japanese as part of a course at a four-year university and then to respond to a questionnaire on the ease of access, audio quality, understandability, and usefulness of the Podcasts provided. Although the limited feedback obtained was overwhelmingly positive, a surprising result was that only three of the students in fact used the Podcasts, prompting the question of why more students did not make use of a potentially beneficial technological device to aid learning. INTRODUCTION The focus of the study was to have audio pedagogical content available to students anytime, anywhere. The setting was a multi-language environment in which students could, as a community of practice, subscribe to the broadcast system called Podcasting in order to hear spoken Japanese. Podcasting is a web-based broadcast medium of content that is automatically delivered to subscribers. Podcasts are time- shifted, meaning that subscribers control when they listen to the recordings. Podcasts are not just for iPods. The audio content is accessible as MP3 files and students can listen to them on the run. Best of all, Podcasting can be made available without cost to the students. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess the impact of Podcasting on the process of language learners. www.ztcprep.com What Happens When Podcasting is integrated into language instruction? 2 My research questions addressed the following variables: 1. Use of Podcasts prior to the study 2. Technical ease of access to the experimental Podcasts 3. Speed of technical access to the experimental Podcasts 4. Audio quality of the experimental Podcasts. 5. Usefulness of the experimental Podcasts despite lack of visual aids. 6. Ability to select just parts of the experimental Podcasts. 7. Repeated use of the experimental Podcasts. 8. Delivery device used for the experimental Podcasts. 9. Preferred delivery device of the experimental Podcasts. 10. Why used the experimental Podcasts: convenience, catch-up, preparation for homework or exams, clarification, and repetition of content. 11. Potential of the experimental Podcasts for increasing involvement in the course of study. Given the major finding that so few students, even after consenting to the study, actually used the Podcasts provided, an appropriate question for further research is how to increase the likelihood that students will use new technology in learning. The attention and motivation elements may be explored when emerging technology is introduced to students. For instance, if a student does engage in experimenting with emerging technology what will keep her or his attention? Also, when a student does explore an emerging technology what will motive a student to use the new find technology for pedagogy rather than for entertainment? Also what can be researched is the appropriate type and length of education for the instructor offering an emerging technology to students. www.ztcprep.com What Happens When Podcasting is integrated into language instruction? 3 SETTING Eight students during the winter intersession and five students during the summer semester volunteered to participate in the Podcasting study. All the students had been taking Japanese for more than three years. The students took the class as a requirement for the Japanese program http://www.csus.edu/fl/japanese/jpminor.htm at Sacramento State. DESCRIPTION The community for the focus study was comprised of students who had taken Japanese for three years at Sacramento State. The students who wished to participate downloaded a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed aggregator. The computer program known as an aggregator collect and automatically send MP3 files to any digital music-playing device that can play WMP formats. The initial Podcasts consisted of the instructor’s reading the headlines from a Japanese newspaper with comments about the articles. The content was uploaded to an audioblog. The audio was (and is) available to students to listen where and when they want. The emphasis for this innovation was that it would be driven by participation from the students. Together with the instructor, the students were to decide whether the content was beneficial and kept their attention. The outcome of the results and suggestions from both the students and the instructor indicated that more research is needed in the factors that might increase the use of new technology for learning. www.ztcprep.com What Happens When Podcasting is integrated into language instruction? 4 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY The smallness of the original sample precluded generalizability from the beginning; however, the finding that so few students in the sample actually used the Podcasts may indicate the need for a change in the direction of the research, as mentioned above. There are some factors that may have contributed to the low rate of usage. First, the instructor was sick during the spring semester and perhaps was not able to follow up on the use of the Podcasts. In addition, the instructor was sensitive to one student who apparently had technophobia; consequently she did not want to expose the student to my presence in the classroom. Lastly, the newness of this emerging technology limited the motivation factor for the students. The major finding in this study is that five out of the eight students who consented to using Podcasts did not use them, even though doing so might have benefited their learning. This finding could be defined as a (literal) failure to connect using new technology and raises various questions. Initially the project was explained to the students in Professor Masuyama’s class and the students’ consents were obtained. Students were then emailed individualized emails. One example of such an email was: Attached is a questionnaire regarding lesson 10’s Podcast. I would appreciate your feedback. Your feedback helps me tremendously in completing my research. I do appreciate your time because knowing how busy our lives are makes your effort so much more valuable. Thanks. However, when students were emailed the questionnaire (see Appendix), it was discovered that only three students actually listened to the Podcasts. www.ztcprep.com What Happens When Podcasting is integrated into language instruction? 5 TIMELINE March 2005 I attended a technology conference. One of the workshops concerned Podcasts and was offered by Steve Sloan. The PowerPoint slides of the speaker can be viewed at http://www.edupodder.com/conferences/index.html Next I read Cochrane, T. (2005) Podcasting The Do-It-Yourself Guide, Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc. Also, I found online tutorials and studies from Duke University http://www.isis.duke.edu/events/podcasting/casts.html and Stanford University http://itunes.stanford.edu/. I purchased the software program Casteasy http://www.casteasy.com to do the encoding and downloaded Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to do the audio recording. I also bought a Logitech headset (http://www.logitech.com/) and a Griffin iMic http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/ for the professor’s Mac laptop. The instructor told the students, at the last class meeting in fall 2005, that she would be posting Podcasts during the Winter Intersession for my graduate project. She asked the students to complete a consent form. The following consent form was given to all the students in the class: Hi I am a graduate student in Educational Technology. For my final project, I am exploring in how to create a mobile language-learning environment. Professor Masuyama has offered her Japanese expertise to record newspaper readings for Podcasting distribution. www.ztcprep.com What Happens When Podcasting is integrated into language instruction? 6 The primary objective is to observe what happens when a student listen to a Podcast for educational purposes. The student will have the liberty to listen to a Podcast on a computer or a MP3 player. The student has a choice to listen to the Podcasts from Professor Masuyama. The student’s grade will not be affected whether he or she participate in the exploration or not. That being said, would you please consider to listen to at least one Podcast from Professor Masuyama? Please sign your name below at the appropriate place regarding your decision in this matter. I need the form signed by all regardless if you are participating or not, because CSUS Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects requires that I do so. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Masters of Educational Technology, CSUS I ________________________________________________ choose to participate in the volunteer Podcasting research for Spring 2006. I ________________________________________________ choose not to participate in the volunteer Podcasting research for Spring 2006. _______________________________________ Student Signature Eight students gave their consent. They were not enrolled in Japanese classes during the Winter Intersession, but submitted their email addresses with the consent form. I contacted them via email. www.ztcprep.com What Happens When Podcasting is integrated into language instruction? 7 I met with Professor Masuyama in the beginning of December 2005 and gave her documentation that had step-by-step instructions in how to record an audio file and publish it on her Sac State Web site. The following PDF files were emailed to the instructor: How to use Audacity at http://imet.csus.edu/imet8/hattingh/eportfolio/showcase/kazue/Audacity.pdf How to add a Podcast at http://imet.csus.edu/imet8/hattingh/eportfolio/showcase/kazue/addpodcast.pdf How to add an episode http://imet.csus.edu/imet8/hattingh/eportfolio/showcase/kazue/addepisode.pdf How to publish a Podcast http://imet.csus.edu/imet8/hattingh/eportfolio/showcase/kazue/Publish.pdf We did a trial recording and posted it. Dave Margolis, Sac State Webmaster, and Andrea Shea, a critical friend and a Japanese student, were present at the time.