IMPALA project discusses higher education podcasting with WPF

Clearly, education is a major niche for podcasting. Podcasting is flourishing in universities and education-related businesses. Driving this is the fact that many of us find ourselves in educational institutions many years, as well as involved in other types of educational experiences. In Italy's iTunes, in number two is a series of professionally-produced historical lectures, with number 4 being a series of Philosophy Lectures. In China, a few of the top twenty podcasts are educational as well, including Lets Learn English.

Universities are proving to be an especially innovative environment for podcasting. With large numbers of students owning mobile media devices, content-rich schools, and innovative teachers and administration, higher education institutes are busy exploring whether and in what form podcasting can add value to the learning experience.

Of the many university projects taking place around the world, the IMPALA project, initiated by the University of Leicester in the UK stands out as being relatively large scale and comprehensive. It has also been run in several academic institutions for quite some time.

Of the several goals of IMPALA, two stand out:

1. Many students own and regularly use iPods and other MP3 devices for entertainment. Would these users be willing to consume educational, non-entertainment content if make available?
2. What are the models for using podcasting within institutions of higher education?

As is not surprising, the university community embraced the project with a passion. Benefiting from the youthful community orientation of the iPod, an innovative environment, good content and audio files being a pleasurable informal experience, the project caught on. Initially one university, the project grew to include several, with hundreds of students, across a diverse range of disciplines, utilizing the new tool and services.

The initial measurables were obtained. Podcast services had a clear positive impact on student retention rates, better test outcomes and student active involvement. Teacher-student relationships were also improved.