1. Polcasting: The Use of Podcasting in the learning and teaching of politics and international relations Jason Ralph, Naomi Head, Simon Lightfoot School of Politics and International Studies University of Leeds Esther Jubb, School of Social Science, Liverpool John Moores University

2. Polcasting What is our project? University of Leeds and Liverpool John Moores University subject centre (C-SAP) sponsored project examining podcasting in the learning and teaching of Politics and International Relations.

3. Audience attitudes to podcasts Do you know what a podcast is? Do you use podcasts either for fun or for teaching? Are podcasts useful in learning and teaching? Do students want more e-learning?

4. Our session Today we will showcase the project website, highlight the availability and use of podcasting in the learning and teaching in this area, outline how we plan to discover student opinion at Leeds and Liverpool preparations for second semester trials on US Politics (Liverpool) and US Foreign Policy (Leeds) modules.

5. Project Aims assist PIR students and teachers in ‘consuming’, podcasts by raising awareness of what is ‘out there’ engage PIR students on their use of podcasts as part of a ‘blended’ learning strategy offer a centralised point (a project webpage hosted C-SAP) which brings together material identified by the project as being pedagogically useful assist participating PIR teachers in the production, storage, cataloguing and use of subject relevant podcasts. identify ‘success/fit for purpose criteria’ for use of podcasts in teaching. produce ‘using podcasts guidelines’ for PIR staff and students and make these ‘top tips’ available to the PIR community via C-SAP,

6. What is podcasting? As we discovered not just putting audio files in a powerpoint, on the portal or on the internet! Common misconception Involves audio files on the Internet in conjunction with an RSS FEED that automatically downloads files over time Example-Archers podcasts http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers

7. Implications for T&L Appeals to the digital natives…? Easy and low cost to create and distribute Caters for different learning styles Student centred in allowing choice about where and when to access, repeat etc. Maps onto the chronological nature of typical HE teaching? Source Low 2006

8. What we planned to do Create a pod library Survey all PIR staff Survey PIR students at Leeds and LJMU and conduct focus groups Arrange 4 trials

9. The Trials Were the 4 trials podcasting? –substitution of traditional lecture –enhancement of traditional lecture –enhancement of traditional tutorial –enhancement of communication New Trials –Podule-weekly lecture summary –Subscribe (and listen!) to relevant podcasts –Tutorial-record student presentation

10. What we will do! Survey all students using bristol online survey tool using questions already asked of Leeds medics Bristol Online Surveys (BOS) Utilise C-SAP survey to discover staff attitudes Student Focus Groups Create pod library but using social bookmarking site grazr. Project disseminations Social bookmarking allows us to create a ‘community of practice’

11. Reactions! First time we have shown this website in public, so would welcome your initial reactions. We don’t want to pre-empt your reactions so a quick brainstorm

12. What to consider when producing podcasts Podcasting vs. Audio Do you want to produce audio (mp3) or video (mp4) files? Do you have the necessary equipment? Does your university have an appropriate storage space for audio/video files? How are your students going to access the podcasts?

13. The output Polcasting Project NYPL, Audio and Video Archive Welcome to the IMPALA project http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/