Making Decisions Based on What You Hear

In the Speaking and Listening Standards under Comprehension and Collaboration, the following standards are addressed:     

Grade 8  2. Analyze the purpose of information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind its presentation.    
Grades 9-10 --- evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source.    

Grades 11-12  --- in order to make informed decisions  and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and  noting any discrepancies among the data.    

Of interest is the fact that these are speaking and listening standards. The standard addresses analysis, decision-making, and problem solving. What are the motives that the presenter of the information has for decisions about how to present the information – via audio? Do you listend to podcasts? Do you listen to the radio? In the car, students may listen to talk radio and radio commercials. On their iPods, phones, and computers, they listen to podcasts, music (Pandora, Spotify) and the always unwelcome commercials.

If you have not listened to podcasts, now is the time to get famliar with them and think about evalutaing motives behind their presentation and how the information presented in them is being used as a source of data by students. What kinds of decisions are made about how this information is presented?
 

Just take a look at NPR’s podcast directory and see what is available:

Podbean is a source for podcasts of all kinds. You and I can post there. So can reputable news sources. Who is the person behind the podcast?

iTunes has a plethora of podcasts from a variety of sources, including universities. Who is making them?

Here is a sampling of other sources for podcasts:

• http://www.loc.gov/podcasts/
• http://www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast
• http://www.nytimes.com/pages/podcasts/index.html

If your students like a podcast, they can subscribe to it. This means that their device (computer, smart phone, and tablet) will automatically download the most recent podcast and store a pre-determined number of episodes. Determining the source of the podcast is key to understanding bias.

This article from The Internet TESL Journal addresses the advantages of using podcasts http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Constantine-PodcastListening.html  in the ESL classroom.

To help your students better understand the validity of podcasts, consider having them create their own. The tools that are available to create them are quite simple (and can get as complex as you’d like).

Audacity – for Windows

GarageBand – for Apple

To learn more about podcasting, check out:

• http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/fanfaq.html
• http://www.commoncraft.com/video/podcasting
• http://podcasting-in-education.wikispaces.com/

In previous posts, we talked about evaluating the differences when content is delivered using a variety of media. Another standard asked them to evaluate the purposes of using different media. This standard asks our students to evaluate credibility, accuracy, and motive to make informed decisions and solve problems. There are many guides available that you can use to develop this key literacy skill:
·         http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/
·         http://mediasmarts.ca/
·         http://toolsforsearch.wikispaces.com/
·         http://205.247.101.11/
·         http://sdst.libguides.com/content.php?pid=184760&sid=1555556
·         http://blogs.cornell.edu/askalib/2012/03/13/evaluating-website-credibility/
·         http://library.uoregon.edu/guides/findarticles/credibility.html

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