Hacettepe University

1. STUDENT’S REFLECTIONs about PODCAST CREATION AND USAGE PROCESSes IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V.

2. Introduction IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. • New ways of utilizing new tools and media to; • Enrich the education • Enhance the learning • Support training process • Provide students • creating collaborative products with peers • to participate actively in information construction • cooperation and interaction • personal reflection and critical thinking

3. Introduction IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Blog RSS Wiki Youtube Podcast Social Networks

4. Podcast IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Above all, as popularity of mobile media players increases and spreads out rapidly ; • Podcasting became an interesting and attractive way for distributing educational materials • Podcasting is considered to having pedagogical potential with limited technical skills and efforts • Many educators started to consider podcasting as an exciting learning paradigm

5. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Podcast Most valuable potentials of podcasting are; • Ease of production • Portable use • Being able to access information without being linked to a certain physical location • Being attractive especially for students who are now more mobile

6. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Podcast To meet individual learning or teaching needs with limited technical skills and effort,students can; • produce, edit and deliver podcasts as • course lectures, • interviews with experts, • document field trips, • observation notes • workshop reports • personalized content.

7. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Educational advantages of podcasts • Beneficial for students whose learning style is mainly auditory • An alternative to revise and review educational materials. • Students express ideas, share perceptions, debate issues and bring experts to class digitally. • Assist students who has difficulty to understand and miss course lectures or students who are non-native speakers, by providing reviewing records of events as many times and clearly

8. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Educational advantages of podcasts • Provide lecturers to criticize their own lectures and recording feedback for group works. • Replace full classroom or online sessions when content simply requires delivery • Alert learners about new material to be accessed whenever, wherever they want. • Enhance support for individualized learning preference and needs. • Support students’ engagement and interest in class discussions, labs, field, research and independent projects.

9. ETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Podcast While podcasts are currently available on many different subjects from; • music to technology • news to foreign languages, • politics to education the use of podcasting for educational purposes is explained rather a new idea and opportunity for higher education ?

10. ETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Problem It has been suggested that, by creating their own podcasts, students will produce students-centered content and develop their knowledge construction, active participation, critical evaluation, information searching, analyzing and presenting, creativity and reflective learning skills. • Most of the studies about educational usage of podcasts are merely surveys to investigate integration of podcasts into educational context and its effectiveness on learning and achievement.

11. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Problem The literature is still poor of examples, case studies and evaluations of students created podcast ! 10

12. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Purpose of Study • From this point, in this study, it is aimed to explain students’ experiences of both creating podcast and utilizing from podcasts by building an environment for students in which they could actively participate in and involve in groups to develop their own podcasts. 11

13. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Method Study Group The study group is consisted of 50 third-year students, from department of computer and instructional technology education. • 16 female and 34 males 12

14. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Method Data Collection • Data is collected with a tool, consisted of open ended questions.Questions are asked to determine; • Student’s prior experience of using or creating podcast • Technologies which students use for listening podcasts • Difficulties of students’ in the podcast creation process (organizing text, scenarizing text and recording sound). 13

15. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Implementation Process • Topics of course subjects are determined in terms of weeks • Topics are assigned to groupsto create their podcast by scenarizing subject after course • Group members took notes of their subject to prepare their podcast scripts in courses • Scripts are sent to lecturer for control and feedback to revise • Groups created their podcasts by recording sounds of content text and received approval content and sound quality • Weekly, students created podcasts are uploaded to Moodle 14

16. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Implementation Process At the end of the term, open ended questions were asked to all students to explain • students’ podcast creation processes, • utilizing from other groups’ created podcast, • general experience of podcast, • podcast usage. Answers of open ended questions are examined by contentanalysis method and similar or same answers were categorized. 15

17. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Findings and Discussion Students prior experience of using or creating podcast; • Only 1 student used podcast before this course • 4 students created podcast before this course. ! This finding pointed out that podcasting in this study, was a new technology for students. 16

18. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Findings and Discussion Technologies used to listen podcast Despitepodcast provide students to be listened where they want and when they want, most of students preferred to listen podcast on their computers 17

19. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Findings and Discussion • The experiences of students during creating podcast in group process are examined under four phases; • organizing text, • scenarizing text, • recording sound • other 18

20. ETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Findings and Discussion The difficulties during podcast creation process, expressed by students 19

21. Findings and Discussion ETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. The difficulties during podcast creation process, expressed by students 20

22. Conclusion IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. • While the participants were Computer Education and Instructional Technologies students, most of the students had no prior podcast experience prior this study. This result can be related to the fact that podcasts are relatively newer tools than many other learning management systems, wiki, blogs, forums or discussion boards. This finding can be related to the fact that, despite students listen music or watch video with their portable tools or on computers, they are not aware of this as a podcasting activity. On the other hand because podcast is relatively a new term for students which they probably met in this course, they responded to this question, taking into consideration only educational podcasts, ignoring their daily life. • Although all of these students listen to music or watch videos by downloading them to their portable tools or personal computers, only one student claimed that he or she used podcasts before. It can be suggested that, although listening materials can be found and listened to everywhere, to concentrate on and not to distract their attention, students preferred listening to educational podcasts on their computers while sitting although they listen to content of entertainment such as music or video on their portable devices. • Most of the students stated that they use their personal computers to listen podcasts. 21

23. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Suggestion • In future studies, the factors affecting the integration of podcasts into the learning-instruction context should be investigated in detail. • Because podcasting was the first experience of most students in this study, they had various difficulties while they were creating podcasts. Hence, in further studies, students’ experiences with podcasts at different time periods and different in different forms (user or creator) can be examined to reveal the differences amongst the processes or difficulties of podcast creation. 22

24. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Mazman, S.G., Usluel, Y. K. & Çevik, V. Suggestion This study investigated podcast with students of computer education and instructional technologies department who are already compatible with professional context and the course context. Future studies should also focus on the experiences of students studying at different departments in relation to their podcast creation, downloading, and listening processes. 23

25. IETC 2010 Hacettepe University Usluel, Y. K. & Mazman, S.G. THANK YOU s.guzin@hacettepe.edu.tr kocak@hacettepe.edu.tr vildanc@hacettepe.edu.tr