Podcasting: A tool for enhancing assessment feedback?

Assessment is central to student learning and it is widely recognised that the potential to learn from assessment experiences is shaped greatly by the content of tutor feedback and student engagement with it. Technological innovations are providing new opportunities to alter the nature and delivery of assessment feedback, perhaps offering the potential to provide enhanced feedback, without necessarily increasing tutor workloads. This paper will summarise the details of a project completed within the Department of Geography and Development Studies at the University of Chester during the 2006-2007 academic year. The main purpose of the project was to explore how podcasts might be used to provide assessment feedback for students. The project focused on two different modules with dissimilar content and assessment exercises, although both having in common an e-learning component in the pre-existing teaching and learning strategy. One of the case study modules is at Level 1 with a student group of 24; the other a final year module with a class size of 26. The paper will report on both staff and student perceptions of podcastbased feedback, the latter collected through preand post-experience questionnaires and a focus group led by an independent facilitator. Whilst the subject-specific content of the case study modules is geography the lessons learned have wider applicability. The findings from this project point to a number of interesting technical and pedagogical issues. Introduction This paper provides an evaluation of the use of podcasts for assessment feedback, an innovation adopted for two modules within the Department of Geography and Development Studies at the University of Chester. Initially, the paper sets a brief context by outlining key issues related to technology-enhanced learning and assessment feedback. Secondly, the two case study modules and their assessment strategies are described, followed by a review of the research methods that were adopted to collect the views of participating students. The majority of the paper then discusses key findings, including the impact using digital audio commentaries seems to have on the nature and content of feedback and student engagement with it. Technology Enhanced Learning and Mobile Devices New technologies and software have the potential to change and refine key aspects of the Higher Education learning experience including the mode of delivery (Ginns & Ellis, 2007), the availability of resources (Lippincott, 2005), student-tutor and student-student interaction (Ellis, Goodyear, Prosser & O’Hara, 2006), recording and monitoring progression (Strivens, 2007) and assessment exercises (JISC, 2007). HEFCE’s elearning strategy (2005) notes important synergies between new learning technologies and other structural trends: a more diverse student body; increasing flexibility of provision; work-based and home-based learning; and individualised support for planning and recording achievements. In the same document they also remind educators of the importance of focusing “on student learning rather than on developments in technology per se, enabling students to learn through and be supported by technology” (p. 6). Within this context, the development of powerful mobile technological devices is facilitating a wide range of new opportunities (Naismith, Lonsdale, Vavoula & Sharples, 2004). In their good practice guide to embedding mobile and wireless technologies, JISC (2005) discuss case studies involving laptops, tablet PCs, mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), USB storage devices and electronic voting systems. The use of wireless, handheld devices seems to be generating particular enthusiasm with flexibility, immediacy, efficiency, personalisation and collaboration cited as potential pedagogic benefits (Motiwalla, 2007). The use of mobile devices for recording, storing and sharing field-based information is of inevitable interest to this paper’s authors because of their geographical/environmental science background. This potential extends to other public sites of educational interest such as museums and galleries (Scanlon, Jones & Waycott, 2005). One device which is increasingly commonplace is the portable MP3 or MP4 player, either as a discrete item (such as the Apple iPod) or embedded into other technology (most typically mobile phones). They play digital media files (MP3 – audio only, MP4 – audio and video), usually downloaded from the internet via a computer. Whilst their primary purpose is entertainment, the educational opportunities they provide are acknowledged across a wide range of academic disciplines (Boulos, Maramba & Wheeler, 2006; Brittain, Glowacki, Van Ittersum & Johnson, 2006; Chan & Lee, 2005; Georgia College & State University, 2005). Examples cited in the literature include recordings of lectures or lecture summaries, the provision of supplementary learning and support materials (both preand post-class), instructions for equipment use and fieldwork guides. Whilst