A Case Study – iTunes U in Cultural Policy and Economics

In this video I talk to two lecturers at City who have used iTunes U to publish recordings of their lectures to their students and to the public.

Dr Dave O’Brien lectures on the MA Programme in the Centre for Cultural Policy and Management, and is currently acting Senior Tutor for Research at the Centre. Professor Keith Pilbeam is Director of the MSc Business Economics/International Business Economics in the department of Economics.

Dr O’Brien began self-recording his lectures for Contemporary UK Cultural Policy, a module for postgraduate students, in the Spring term 2012. He contacted the Education Support Team to find out about using iTunes U to publish them. Professor Pilbeam also contacted us in order to record his lectures on Introduction to Macroeconomics, a core first-year undergraduate module.

Both lecturers have seen impressive usage statistics for their podcast series, and suggested that publishing their lectures had not only benefitted their students, but freed up some class time for questions, or reduced their own workload. You can hear more about their experience in the video.

Download Dr O’Brien’s podcast series on iTunes U or as an RSS feed.

Download Professor Pilbeam’s podcast series on iTunes U or as an RSS feed.

Learning Development Centre Showcase and Debate, 1st February

The Education Support Team will be participating in the Learning Development Centre Showcase on Wednesday 1st February. City University London staff are invited to come along to find out more about the projects being run around the university.

We will be showcasing two projects:

iTunes U

iTunes U is in its second year at City University London, with over 7000 downloads to date. Our site contains recordings of lectures, presentations and guest speakers, as well as interviews with students and video diaries. iTunes provides a well-known, easy-to-use platform for multimedia publishing and podcasting, which is a great way to showcase research, teaching and learning. Example podcasts from our site will be shown on the stall, along with suggestions of how podcasting and iTunes U can benefit your teaching and research profile.

Feed Forward project

Feed Forward is a tutorial system hosted on Moodle which is designed to help students make the most out of the feedback they receive from their assignments. Students combine the markers feedback they receive on an assignment with a quiz on that provides operational feedback. Students then write a short reflection on their work in which they explore areas for improvement in their next assignment based on the different forms of feedback they have received. This reflection is then discussed in their next meeting with their tutor. This system helps students get more out of both their assignment feedback and gives tutorial meetings an educational focus rather than purely pastoral care. We will be demonstrating the system and will be on hand if you have any further questions.

To register to attend the showcase please complete the booking form

iTunes U in Arts and Social Sciences

Last week I ran a workshop on iTunes U in the schools of Arts and Social Sciences at City. I wanted to give people an update on how far we have got with introducing podcasting in the Schools, as well as going over the basics of what iTunes U is and how to access the content we have on there. As it happened, every member of the audience owned an iPod, iPad or iPhone,which made my job a little easier.

This is the first year in which City has been recording lectures, seminars and conferences and hosting them on iTunes U. In Arts and Social Sciences, we’ve published guest lectures, research seminars and conferences in Cultural Policy and Management, Economics, International Politics, Music, Psychology, Publishing and Sociology.

Besides recording lectures – which can be a valuable tool to aid students’ revision, boost the research profile of the university, and expand the audience for our events – the big challenge for our iTunes U and podcasting project is to start creating more tailor-made content, which takes advantage of the podcast’s key characteristics – mobility, brevity and ‘linkability’. Research and best practice (references below)  into educational podcasting suggests a number of ways in which downloadable, subscribable audio/video files can help students, and we’re planning to get underway with some of these over the summer and in the coming year.

In particular, we’re hoping to interview academic staff in different departments about their careers, their research interests, and talk in detail about the issues that are central to the courses they teach on. We are also working on a series called ‘Introduction to…’ which discusses what a potential applicant should expect when they choose a subject to study at university. Further, we need to explore the more pedagogic applications of podcasting, such as creating revision presentations for students before exams, giving tasters or teasers ahead of new modules, and as a way of giving supplementary explanation of difficult concepts and topics beyond what can be given in lectures.

A number of questions were raised during the presentation, including the issue of how we can monitor usage and downloads from our iTunes U site. Now that we have these stats, we can use them to inform the content, format and pitch of our future material. Another question was around the ability to link to podcast episodes from and to iTunes. iTunes allows you to link directly to a podcast series, so you can email or tweet the URL of a podcast’s location in the iTunes store. Here’s a link to one of our most recently updated podcasts.

If you are a member of staff in Arts and Social Sciences at City University and you are interested in experimenting with podcasting, or if you already have some experience and want to get more involved, please contact Mo Pamplin or a member of the Education Support Team.

References

Cheetham, J., S. Ackerman and K. Christoph (2009). “Podcasting: a Stepping Stone to Pedagogical Innovation”. [Online] http://engage.doit.wisc.edu/edu_podcasting/. Accessed 18/05/11.

Division of Information Technology, University of Wisconsin (ND). “Teaching & Learning with Podcasting”.[Online] http://engage.wisc.edu/podcasting/teaching/index.html. Accessed 18/05/11.

Guertin, L. et al (2007). “Questioning the Student Use of and Desire for Lecture Podcasts”. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 3 (2), 2007. [Online] http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no2/guertin.htm. Accessed 18/05/11.