Collaborative Narrative in the Classroom: Podcasts

Podcasts are much like oral blogs: they're delivered via audio medium rather than written. This has several advantages in terms of meeting learning styles needs and encouraging students to translate their thinking for an alternate sensory input. Many of our students are familiar with podcasts like Serial and RadioLab, but most will be daunted by the idea of using unfamiliar hard- and software technologies to produce their own. Podcasts, though, have high potential for classroom oriented on writing outcomes, as they can--

• Encourage the authenticity of student voices
• Promote collaborative learning through the production process
• Explore multi-linear narrative and multimedia text creation
• Give students valuable experience in technology literacy, especially in the wide array of tools available on their mobile devices
• Help students consider target audiences and writing goals in real contexts--catching a theme here? 

Unlike blogs and wikis, podcasts are enough work to produce that I strongly recommend only assigning them as formal assignments. Students will also benefit from considering the dis/advantages in producing a single episode or a serial narrative; just as with blogs, I prefer to start by having students examine an example text (in this case, one of the middle episodes of the first season of Serial; here's another example using a variety of episodes for analysis) before they begin to plan their own oral narrative. Some assignment ideas:

• For CO300, podcasts are an excellent option for adapting a previous argument essay for a new audience, or as the final goal of a semester-long investigation process. 
• For literature courses, podcasts provide a platform for investigating critical readings of a text, or offering some additional sociohistorical context for one of our authors.

This medium especially benefits from strict constraints (Cordulack 2012), as students can get caught up in the shiny glitz of radio production and lose sight of the assignment goals. 

Tools

Let's talk hardware. You and your students can check out high-quality audio recording equipment from the campus library, and our department has a small stash of video cameras that can also serve this function (just ask Sheila for help). I would strongly encourage you to help your students learn how to use these devices, rather than relying on their mobile devices: the finished quality will be much stronger. The flipside, of course, is that you will need to create some supporting documentation or schedule class time for this purpose.

Software is easier: Audacity is a free online tool for editing podcasts, and can even work on a mobile device if you're using podcasts in a fully online course. Students will need to download the program from the website or SourceForge (linked above). Once they have, you can use a getting started guide or the robust user community to help them get started with the program.

How to use in a classroom:

In a Canvas course, podcasts can be shared with other students through the Discussions tool, which can also offer the function of integrated commenting on submissions. Since podcasts can be uploaded as files, students can also submit them using the multimedia function in the reply.

Additional reading: 

• Cordulack, E. (2012). Four mistakes I made when assigning podcasts. The Chronicle of Higher Education: ProfHacker
• Deal, A. (2007). Podcasting: A teaching with technology white paper. Carnegie Mellon.
• Tremel, J. & Jesson, J. (2007). Podcasting in the rhetoric classroom. Currents in Electronic Literacy.