Podcasts

In keeping with my teaching philosophy of moving learners from an Instructivist to a Constructivist pedagogy and closer to a self directed learning - engagement and media rich online course activities seem the way to go (Vanderbilt). Creativity helps students better express themselves and feel less constricted, leading them towards an active learning approach. It makes sense to use Podcasts or audio commentaries as a way to get students involve in the course topic and past their commenting hinderances (Crosslin, et al 2019). Giving them different media options that are not text will hopefully keep them motivated and involved (Gannon 2020; Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014)).

BuzzSprout is a platform that hosts podcasts once recorded. It always helps learners through the whole process of setting up a podcast if they are following it as a serious side job. Students can record their podcast with their mobile phones and edit it in Audacity our next tool. While in FlipGrid learners create and respond to their own prompts, for the podcast they will be responding with audio commentary to a discussion prompt that I give them. Students will create a podcast no longer than 5-10 minutes that responds to the prompt and upload it to BuzzSprout. This activity will assess their critical thinking and applied knowledge understanding while using the TPACK technology integration framework at all levels.

Audacity is a sound editing tool in which you can splice an audio track or unite two different ones. Students would use Audacity to edit their recordings and create a podcast out of them. They can add music or spacing as needed to match their commentary. Audacity uses the TPACK technology integration model at all levels by teaching students learn how to edit soundtracks. In addition the activity leads to the assessment of being detail oriented and delivering content fit to the target audience.