Did you know that NACADA has a listing of podcasts for academic advising professionals?
I didn't either until I went to Google and searched for them. Unfortunately it doesn't seem as though the page has been updated recently.
One of the podcasts that I found particularly intriguing is The Role of Silence in Academic Advising by Sarah May Clarkson of Juanita College. I haven't yet had a chance to listen to the actual audio of the podcast, but I think that silence is an important component of an advising session. Within my own practice, I'm not sure how well I actually do at working in this notion. Hopefully after listening to this podcast I will gain some insight into how to do it better.
I have recently tried to incorporate some podcasts into my Facebook fan page for my advising center. Currently, these podcasts are merely the reading of some of our most popular handouts. My intent with this practice is to assist students in obtaining advising information who might be more comfortable listening to information than reading it.
Even though in theory podcasting sounds like a great idea, I'm not sure how many students are actually utilizing this technology. Most ipods only contain popular music; most definitely not podcasts on choosing an academic major or planning for a career. My question at this point is whether or not I should continue to add podcasts to my site (and create them) or perhaps abandon this practice since students simply aren't using them.
Thoughts?
Additional links to information on podcasting in academic advisement:
Institutional Podcasts, Webcasts, and Audio Downloads
Lessons in Podcasting: A One Year Retrospective
LectureCasting: Podcasting Best Practices
Podcasting in Higher Education: An Annotated Bibliography
3 comments:
I think that your podcasting efforts are worthwhile. In addition to some students being more comfortable listening than reading there are bound to be some who are more willing to download a file than actually come to your office or call you with a question. I like to think of podcasts as a way to cover the things you find yourself explaining every single day (How do I register for classes? How do I change my major? How do I apply for graduation?). Even if you cover a topic during an appointment you can always refer students to the podcast so that when they forget what you told them they can re-hear it :)
Anne's thoughts seem to make a lot of sense. I wonder if there is some way to track how many times a podcasts is downloaded from your site. I don't know how to do that but maybe someone in the TLC at UB might have an idea. That way you would get a better idea of how useful the podcasts have really been.
Dr. Burgos
U. of Washington has done very well with their podcasting. Something like 5000 hits a month. Contact Clay Schwen if you want more info. cschwenn@u.washington.edu
the website is http://depts.washington.edu/advpdcst/new/wordpress/
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