Students tune in to profs' podcasts

Media files a new way to get notes from missed lectures

By Joe Johnson
The Collegian

Fresno State students may be able to use their iPods for more than just music as professors explore new ways to accommodate students.

“Provost Echeverria motivated us all to find ways to help the student athletes become more successful students,” linguistics professor Gerald McMenamin said. “I noticed a number of my students were missing class, such as moms and parents who had children and no one available to care for them. So, I started recording my sessions.”

What McMenamin is referring to is a podcast, which is a media file that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on mobile devices and personal computers.

Many of the more popular podcasts are like radio shows, featuring music and banter between multiple hosts, but some are beginning to move into the realm of education.

Ross T. LaBaugh, coordinator of library instruction at the Henry Madden Library, created a series of podcasts called “InfoRadio” that were designed to improve the information literacy skills of college students.

“These were distributed across all of the CSU campuses, then made available commercially,” LaBaugh said. “It even won an Innovation in Instruction award from the Association of College and Research Libraries.”

McMenamin has been producing podcast versions of his class since the fall semester, in order to better accommodate people who cannot make it to class.

“I did this primarily to accommodate for athletes, but you can’t offer this kind of thing to one group of students and not the rest,” McMenamin said. “I don’t even think that’s legal. So, I told my students that they could miss class five times a semester, as long as they listen to the podcast and take the quiz on the next class session.”

For each class session, McMenamin would place a digital voice recorder in his shirt pocket and conduct class like normal. Since Blackboard requires that the podcasts be small in size, his subjects for each class would be divided into three sections, so as to keep each podcast self-contained.

“The students would sometimes say something into the recording for the people who were absent, which made many of the podcasts a bit more personal and attractive to the students,” McMenamin said. “There was a volleyball player in one class that was away at games a lot and her friends in the room would say things to her like, ‘Good luck.’”

While McMenamin has been successful with podcasting so far, other faculty members fear that this service might be taken advantage of.

“I think it is a great tool, so students can have all of the notes and keep from missing anything in class,” assistant professor of mass communication and journalism Tamyra Pierce said. “On the downside, students may feel they can skip class and still get all of the notes, which is not good. It is a struggle to make sure students come to class in the first place.”

“Unless it was tied directly to homework or a test, people are just going to hear it on the go,” business major Jessica Hurwitz said. “I’d listen to a class session in the car or other places where I wouldn’t have to take notes, but I’m not going to sit at my computer and listen to it.”

But before students can decide whether the service is useful or not, Fresno State faculty members will have to be convinced.

“There is an uneasiness there which would need to be discussed with the faculty,” McMenamin said.

“But, when they first started using Blackboard years ago, people had tons of problems. Now the learning curve has changed. If professors start podcasting and it becomes part of the student-professor culture, like Blackboard is now, then it’ll become like chewing gum.”

McMenamin believes the most important factor is not ease of use, which will come in time, but giving students additional options.

“It is up to us to find ways to help students who really want to do the work, but have problems getting through it successfully,” McMenamin said. “That attitude has been slow in coming for some faculty, myself included. I’ve taught the other way for 35 years and I’m just now coming around. But if a student wants to try, I’m going to find a way for them to make up the work.”

Comment on this story in the News forum >>