Proposal

Across the Years, Across the Miles: A Critical Podcast Exchange Over the course of the 2009 -2010 school year, third graders and tenth graders in two different Midwestern states exchanged podcasts framed around social justice texts and advocacy issues. Throughout the course of this project students developed a range of literacy skills, gained expertise in using digital tools and engaged in “participatory culture,” (Jenkins, 2006) in which there are authentic opportunities for artistic expression, civic engagement, informal mentorship, and connecting with others. This year’s theme asks presenters to consider literacy experiences that inspire and empower students and connect them with a wider community of literate people. Podcasting is both playful and productive – students write for real audiences in order to inform, persuade and to entertain. Writing and producing a podcast allows teachers to honor both “traditional” and out-of-school literacies. Students infuse their original segments with humor, popular culture references, and aspects of theater and performance. It also allows teachers to work with their students to create authentic products, shifting away from the traditional role of evaluator or judge. While it has been popular for several years – the // New Oxford American Dictionary // selected “podcasting” as the word of the year in 2005 – there are very few studies on the use of podcasts in K-12 settings. In a literature review on podcasting in education, Hew (2009) notes that studies are mainly focused on college-level courses wherein professors make their lectures and supplementary materials available to students in downloadable audio formats. Our project, in contrast, examines the way this genre can position students as participants in Lankshear and Knobel’s (2006) sense, wherein their contributions to the podcasts are vital to “building a practice or an affinity or community that may continue to evolve” (p. 9). A focus on critical literacy pedagogy throughout the project allows students and teachers to “reconnect literacy with everyday life and with an education that entails debate, argument, and action over social, cultural and economic issues that matter” (Luke and Woods, 2009, p. 16). In this session, presenters will share audio clips of the podcasts and review the production process, including sharing the picture books and websites that inspired podcast compositions and performances. Critical discourse and visual analysis methods will be used to gather and information and draw conclusions about why and how podcasting allowed students to view themselves as contributing members of a literate society that spanned spaces beyond the school walls. Hew, K. (2009). Use of Podcasting in K-12 and Higher Education: A Review of Research Topics and Methodologies. // Educational Technology Research & Development 57(3), 333-357. //   Jenkins, H. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Retrieved from < [|http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/{7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E}/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF] > Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2006, April). Blogging as participation: the active sociality of a new literacy. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Retrieved from 