Episode 9: Podcasting with Students

We all know that composition classes are becoming increasingly multimodal. One way teacher/scholars have responded to that turn is by asking students to compose in the serial audio format of podcasting.

This is a practical episode, with lots of ideas. First we'll hear about Faith Kurtyka's success teaching podcasting and social justice to first-year students in the Cortina Community at Creighton University. Then we'll hear one of the assignments shared by Jennifer L. Bowie in her 2012 article on podcasting in the composition classroom. Then the episode ends with a detailed segment from Ryan Trauman, who digs into five excellent articles on podcasting pedagogy.

I hope you're taking notes, because I kind of want to try everything here.

How can I use podcasting in my composition classes?
Plugs, Play, Pedagogy

Episode 9: Podcasting with Students

Produced and recorded by Kyle Stedman ([email protected]; @kstedman), assistant professor of English at Rockford University, in cooperation with KairosCast and Writing Commons. If you have ideas for future episodes, please contact me!

Part 1: Podcasting Social Justice

First, I interview Faith Kurtyka (@fmkurtyka) from Creighton University about a recent podcasting assignment she gave to students in the Cortina Community, a living-learning community at her school.

We then hear an excerpt from one of the projects her students conducted: “The American System and Pay Inequality” by Vincent Salazar and Kaylee Stankus. You can hear their full episode and learn about all the other students work at the Cortina Community blog.

Part 2: The Week in Review Assignment

Here, I play a brief excerpt from the gazillions I could have chosen from two 2012 pieces from Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy by Jennifer L. Bowie (@starre, screenspace.org): "Rhetorical Roots and Media Future: How Podcasting Fits into the Computers and Writing Classroom" and "Podcasting in a Writing Class? Considering the Possibilities."

Specifically, we hear about Bowie's "week in review" assignment, which asks students to use the serial audio format of podcasting to teach each other about what they've learned in class. The full episode, and the resources she mentions in this clip, are available here.

In the interlude before Part 3 begins, I mention 3 pieces of scholarship on podcasting in the classroom:

Ewing, Laura. "Rhetorically Analzying Online Composition Spaces." Pedagogy 13.3 (2013): 554-61.
Ng'ambi, Dick, and Annette Lombe. "Using Podcasting to Facilitate Student Learning: A Constructivist Perspective." Educational Technology & Society 15.4 (2012): 181-92.
Krause, Steven D. "Broadcast Composition: Using Audio Files and Podcasts in an Online Writing Course." Computers and Composition Online (2006).

Part 3: More Scholarship, More Ideas, More Trauman

Finally, we hear a segment prepared by Ryan Trauman (@trauman) with an overview of five pieces of scholarship on podcasting in the classroom. (By the way, I would love to feature more segments like this. What do you know about? What have you been reading?)

Bowie, Jennifer L. (2012). “Rhetorical Roots and Media Future: How Podcasting Fits into the Computers and Writing Classroom.” Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 16(2).
Friesen, Norm. “The Lecture as a Transmedial Pedagogical Form: a Historical Analysis.” Educational Researcher 40.3 (2011): 95–102.
Gray, Kathleen et al. “Web 2.0 Authorship: Issues of Referencing and Citation for Academic Integrity.” The Internet and Higher Education 11.2 (2008): 112–118.
Jones, Leigh A. “Podcasting and Performativity: Multimodal Invention in an Advanced Writing Class.” Composition Studies 38.2 (2010): 75–91. Print.
Reid, Alex. “Portable Composition: iTunes University and Networked Pedagogies.” Computers and Composition 25.1 (2008): 61–78.

End Matter

The theme music at the beginning of the episode is by Cactus May, graduate student in rhetoric and composition.

You also heard four pieces from OverClocked ReMix, a site filled with free rearrangements of videogame tunes:

Brandon Strader, Chickenwarlord, Hylian Lemon, & Tuberz McGee, "No Rain in the Desert"
Joey Grady, "The Seven Wise Men Shot First"
Djjd, "Serpent's Spiral"
Disco Dan, "Blue Lightning"

This episode is licensed by a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license.