The use of iTunes U. for automatic feed creation has made podcasting very easy and convenient for instructors on our campus. They are very happy with this convenience. Just upload a file and POOF! the feed is updated. In the end, the only indication that the podcast tracks are available via subscription is a very tiny, grey ‘Subscribe’ button.
But we’ve learned through surveys that students are not hitting that button. The reasons are numerous:
- Students access iTunes U. via our course management system, D2L. They are often in the system for other reasons like taking quizzes, checking grades or writing in discussion boards, so these audio and video files (I won’t call them podcasts) for their courses are never far away. Students figure, “Why do I need to subscribe when the files are just as easy to get to when I’m in D2L?”
- iTunes U. allows the student to view or listen to the audio and video right off the servers in California. There is no need to download them to the local computer.
- When you couple #1 and #2 with the fact that the campus has ubiquitous wireless and lots of computer labs spread throughout, students have easy access to their podcasts from pretty much anywhere on campus that has a computer. With such access, there is less need to download the files for viewing at time when you don’t have network access.
- Students don’t want to put academic podcasts on their iPods if they don’t have to because these materials take up space that could otherwise be used for storing music or videos.
- Most instructors are not creating materials that leverage or necessitate the portability of an iPod. Some have done audio or video flashcards that allow students to practice/learn in the field or in non-traditional learning environments, but the majority of the content can be consumed at the student’s desktop or laptop.
- iTunes U. makes the process of feed creation so seamless that the purpose of and technology behind that ‘Subscribe’ button goes unnoticed, unused and unappreciated.
- Finally, as a learning technology consultant, explaining the value of subscription in this environment is especially challenging. Given everything I just said, instructors wonder, “Now why should students subscribe?” I’ll address how we go about this in a later post.
So while iTunes U. makes “podcasting easier,” the fact that the ‘Subscribe’ button and RSS feed don’t get used means, to me, that this is not podcasting AND we are sacrificing the instructor and students’ understanding of the technology for what is easier and more convenient.
This bothers me.
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July 17th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Ironically, subscription through RSS, in the end, seems to me an easy and convenient way to go from the user’s point of view. This was certainly the case for me as a French student last semester. I had all of my audio and video available to me as an RSS feed from the course’s digital learning lab page. I subscribed to the feed, entered my password, and poof! All of my course related audio and video was right there in my music library and on my portable media player. I also dropped the feed into my browser bookmarks, so the audio was available there as well whenever I needed it.
That flexibility and portability is the beauty of RSS. Want to use iTunes and an iPod? No problem! Rather use Juice and a Zune? Go for it! Want to make the feed part of your google homepage? Great idea!
There are a few problems here. Often, we’re not making it clear to students what their options are and how to realize them. Our current implementation of iTunesU doesn’t make that subscription process particularly transparent, nor does it make it easy for users to put that RSS feed to use anywhere outside of iTunes.
And so, I’d have to agree with Ron when he says that in many cases we’re not really podcasting here.
Should we be? I’ve often wondered - Without subscription, why not just put the audio in L@UW? If the students are logging in to L@UW to get to the audio anyway, why put them through the extra step of then opening up iTunes?