Podagogy

Talkingpanda.com has released a cool new tool for educational podcasters called iWriter (Beta).

This little tool enables the creation and linking of simple text based documents which can be loaded into your iPod. It has the potential for creating review quizzes, lecture notes, syllabi, and other supporting academic content, which can be viewed on your iPod. It runs on Mac OSX 10.3.9 or later, and Windows 2000 or XP (but you must have .Net Framework 2.0 installed on your PC).

There is a free 15 day trial available as of today, so I’ve been playing with it most of the morning. Using some of the materials from a course I just finished teaching, I put together a simple collection of materials that might be nice to keep on a portable digital device such as, a course schedule (including assignments and readings), my office location, hours, etc., required texts, a bibliography of suggested (optional) readings, days/times/location of class meetings, and a welcome message. Not exactly earth shaking. On the other hand, having an “iPod Preview Window” open let me see how my text looked as I entered it. Text display is not the iPod’s forte, but the idea suggests great promise. I’m using a 5th generation iPod (video iPod), so the text is very readable (even for a 50+ year old geezer like me). I wonder what it looks like on the monochrome iPods?

iWriter is very usable, but (the trial version) does not offer much in the way of editor control (e.g. controlling the order the pages appear on the iPod – but there are tricks). The web-based documentation shows an iWriter environment that is much richer than what appears in the trial version. I posted a question on the talkingpanda.com iWriter blog to get some clarification on the dispairity between what appears in the docs vs. what I see on the screen, but expect a reply will be forthcoming shortly.

In its current state I think iWriter is a usable tool with much potential. It remains to be seen whether the docs describe its current state, or a future state.

You can view a nifty screencast of iWriter in action at:
http://www.talkingpanda.com/iwriter/support.php

Coursecasting, recorded classroom lectures available for download by students (or the public) has been adopted by several major universities. In my region, the University of Michigan School of Dentistry developed a simple method for recording course lectures, adding metadata, and posting the audio file to their iTunes U site. The U of M model is both effective (meeting student needs) and efficient (no instructor intervention required). I hope to follow their lead this Fall in several of our larger lecture halls.

Having said that, I still believe podcasting (as opposed to coursecasting) holds even greater pedagogical benefits. Ideally, I envision the podcast providing “more” – additional content not covered in class, “stuff” requiring reflection by students, engaging students in substantive ways. In theory, this would free up class time for more substantive dialog and interaction.

In part, to prepare for this Fall, (and to complete an assignment in my new media course), I had the pleasure of interviewing 2 of the 3 hosts of the excellent NCQ Talk podcast, Dr. Susan Manning, and Dan Balzer. Kris Smith wasn’t available at the time. In my opinion, NCQ Talk represents the best of educational podcasting.

One of the topics discussed was the differences of podcasts used in traditional classroom settings, and those used for distance education. Susan was clear that in the traditional higher ed setting, podcasts should contain “something more” than the lecture itself. Dan provided several illustrations how he and Susan have provided the “more” in certain podcasts. Listen to their comments here.

Many thanks to Dan and Susan for taking time out of their busy day to chat via Skype.