Exploring Podcasts: A Potential Educational Tool in Higher Education

Abstract

ICT and E-learning have completely restructured the traditional model of education and brought about significant changes in its pedagogical aspects by integrating technologically oriented methods of collecting, sharing and distributing information, thus, impacting the students' active involvement in the teaching-learning process and ultimately their academic performance. This paper looks at one of these communication tools known as 'Podcasts' and its adaptation into the field of education as a pedagogical tool to improve and enhance the students' performance, especially in an inclusive setup. As an innovative educational tool, this paper explores the role of podcasts in the teaching-learning process, assessment, and other such areas. The paper collates the research findings of various studies on the effectiveness of podcasts as an educational tool carried out in inclusive classrooms all over the world, a majority of which are based outside of India. The paper seeks to weigh the findings against the Indian context to gauge the effectiveness of Podcasts as an assistive technology in Indian inclusive classrooms.The paper intends to focus at the three major aspects related to use of Podcasts in the Education sector: its advantages over the traditional methods of teaching, the feasibility of using podcasts in terms of availability of internet services and the popularity of podcasts in India. One of the most important questions that emerge, and that this paper seeks to address, therefore, is that if podcasts can replace actual teachers and the traditional methods or can they be used as just an additional tool to enhance learning outcomes. Tracing the journey of podcasts as an emerging and successful educational tool in the European and other countries around the world and its growing demand in India in the last few years, the paper concludes that Podcasts seem to have the potential of becoming a feasible and effective learning tool in the Indian classrooms.