Podcasting as a teaching and learning tool in Higher Education

Autores/as

  • Ana María Ramos García University of Granada
  • Mª Jesús Caurcel Cara University of Granada

Palabras clave:

podcasting, ICT, teaching innovation, higher education, aural comprehension, collaborative tasks, self-directed learning

Resumen

This paper accounts for the results of a teaching innovation project developed at the Faculty of Education of the University of Granada (Spain) along the course year 2008/2009, in which podcasts were proposed as a teaching and learning tool at university level in order to expand the requirements of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA): ICT, self-directed learning, collaborative tasks, and tutorials.
A podcast is a series of audio or video files which is released and downloaded through syndication to the computer. Then, the file is ready to be used or to be transferred to the selected portable
device to listen to it whenever and wherever we like. Syndication allows constant reception of files whenever they are available on the web. Thus, there is a huge amount of listening material which
can be related to each student’s personal interests and hobbies. Therefore, apart from improving aural comprehension in foreign language student teachers by listening to authentic materials, ICT
are introduced in the classroom.
The main goals of the project were: to improve the students’ aural comprehension, to increase their motivation and to foster self-directed learning. Podcasts have been used as the unique listening material in the classroom. Students were explained how to locate and download them. Later, they were asked to develop and record a group podcast,
joining in the activity a collaborative task and technological competence. The experience was evaluated by means of an ad-hoc questionnaire “Cuestionario de valoración de la utilidad de los podcast como herramienta de enseñanza-aprendizaje” (Ramos y Caurcel, 2009) which comprised 36 items on a 5-point ranged Likert scale, and open answers were limited in length. The aforementioned questionnaire was accordingly validated by experts who considered that the reliability of the scale was α= .75. The students —by means of the evaluation questionnaire— state their satisfaction with the
experience; besides, they admit the improvement of their communicative competence, and podcasting is considered to be an excellent learning tool.

Citas

Bardovi-Harlig, K. y Salsbury, T. (2004). The organization of turns in the disagreements of L2 learners: A longitudinal perspective. En D. Boxer & A. D. Cohen (Eds.) Studying speaking to inform second language learning. (pp. 199-227). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Blasco Mayor, M.J. (2007). Beg your pardon? La comprensión oral en la formación de intérpretes. Granada: Comares.

Buendia, L. (1997). La investigación por encuesta. En Buendia, L., Colás, P. y Hernández, F. (Dtras.) Métodos de Investigación en Psicopedagogía. Madrid: McGraw Hill.

Eslami-Rasekh, Z. (2005). Raising the pragmatic awareness of language learners. ELT Journal, 59, 199-208.

Field, J. (2000). Finding one’s way in the fog: listening strategies and second-language learners. Modern English Teacher, 9/1, 29-34.

Jiménez Jiménez, M.A. (2003). La competencia lingüística de los alumnos de la titulación maestro especialidad de LE. Tesis doctoral. Universidad de Granada.

Lewin, K. (1946). Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Issues, 2 (4), 34-46.

Marcelo, J.F. y Martín, E. (2008) Podcasting. Guía Práctica. Madrid: Anaya Multimedia.

Ramos, A.M. y Caurcel, M.J. (2009). Cuestionario de valoración de la utilidad de los podcast como herramienta de enseñanza-aprendizaje. No publicado, diseñado dentro del Proyecto de Innovación 09-169: Aprendizaje por resolución de problemas con ayuda de las tics: blog, foros, podcasts y centros de recursos, concedido y financiado por la Unidad de Innovación Docente, Vicerrectorado de Planificación, Calidad y Evaluación de la Universidad de Granada.

Descargas

Publicado

2011-04-01