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What contribution can a podcast make to university studies? How can podcasts be used specifically in university teaching? What good podcasts about digital higher education already exist? In keeping with the publication of the third episode of the podcast by Campus Reloaded, the winners of our podcast competition “Podcasting the Digital Turn“, Markus Deimann is addressing these questions and taking us into the promising world between loudspeakers and microphone.

Podcasts, i.e. audio and/or video files that can be subscribed to via the Internet, have been known for many years as part of the interactive web (Web 2.0), but are only slowly finding their way into higher education and teaching. I still remember very well when in 2008, in connection with my work at the FernUniversität Hagen, I helped to design the Master’s programme in Education and Media and also had to consider wikis, blogs and podcasts. In our concept, the students should first look at a number of existing educational podcasts and then, building on this, develop a concept for their own podcast and then implement it. That was quite innovative at the time and over the years we received positive feedback from the students regarding the interlocking of theory and practice.

This resulted in some pedagogical scenarios with which podcasts can be used profitably for one’s own studies. With the help of podcasts, you can prepare for a term paper or exam and make it available to others with a modern approach. Similarly as with Blogs also here mutually should be commented, in order to improve the own product successively. Activities that are otherwise carried out alone, such as searching for literature, can be commented on and shared for others. The reflection of the own doing can be promoted in such a way, which is often connected with a positive learning effect. A review podcast on important literature, which is used as a basis in many courses of study at German universities, would be conceivable in concrete terms. The notes are prepared as audio comments and introduce others to the theory from a learner’s perspective.

The rise of podcasts

Outside of our course of study, the distribution of podcasts in all areas of society increased steadily and thus noticeably expanded the range and variety of programmes, which were classically determined by private and public media. This also opens up new opportunities for students to work on topics for their studies or research. A few years ago, I made good experiences with this myself and created an understanding for Foucault through podcasts. Then I found it easier to read his writings. A similar concept is pursued by the podcast “Transformatorische Bildung” (Transformational Education), which aims to create accesses to educational theory and also draws on pop culture. In an entertaining way, “Education-Alt-Delete” conveys interesting information about what was once called e-learning. Together with Christian Friedrich I run the podcast “Feierabendbier Open Education“, in which we discuss current developments in educational policy and technology and discuss selected contributions in the form of blog posts. Further interesting Bildungspodcasts are arranged on this website.

In addition to the information function, podcasts can contribute to another important aspect of contemporary education, namely the critical examination of socially relevant topics. At the HAW Hamburg, which belongs again to the project of the Hamburg open on-line University (HOOU), the Podcast “Hamburg hOERt ein HOUU!” shows Hamburg like this can look concretely. In this way, a podcast can come close to the debate culture of a good seminar and disentangle its boundaries by involving not only the students enrolled locally, but interested parties worldwide.

Podcasts for students

Against the background of this recent podcast development, the project of the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung (University Forum on Digitisation) aims to promote student podcasts. Since the beginning of the year, two student teams have taken over the microphones at “Podcasting the Digital Turn“. With its own format “Podcasting the Digital Turn” the HFD deals with many topics around the digitalization of education. If these and the podcasts listed above have made others want to become active themselves, this would be an intended side effect.