Today, Ruth Reynard posted another interesting article for T.H.E Journal in which she discusses ways to “move beyond the obvious” in the educational usage of podcasts. Reynard asks: “Can more be achieved with podcasting in the context of student authorship and academic collaboration that would heighten student engagement and maximize knowledge building in instructional contexts?”

In response to her own question, Reynard begins by asserting that student engagement through authoring is an area in which podcasts can serve a tremendous educational purpose. She suggests that with the mobility and compact nature of podcast technology, capturing and publishing student voice becomes even more powerful for students as a publicly accessible and multidimensional representation of that voice. The public nature is accentuated through the mobility in that student voice can now be heard by multiple users and within multiple contexts and it can both present a multimedia publication and receive multimedia and multi-user input.

Reynard goes on to state that podcasting is also a powerful way to build knowledge through collaboration; it can provide a great way both to represent and to modify new ideas. She writes: “through individual or group authorship, ideas can be represented symbolically or realistically through the use of various media and published in a public space. Once the idea or ideas are made public they are not owned but can be modified by others through a process of collaboration.”

If you’re interested in working podcasts into your instructional repertoire, be sure to check out Reynard’s full article in T.H.E. Journal.