Faculty members interested in exploring new ways of connecting with their students might want to consider making a podcast as a supplement to the classroom experience. Last summer, with the help of LTS, I made my first podcast and integrated it into the class assignments for the American Art course that I was teaching at the time. It proved to be a very effective teaching tool.

The content of the podcast was a response to a special exhibition of photography on view at the Museum of Fine Arts by the artist Laura McPhee. In order to make the podcast more engaging, we chose a conversational format. I invited Dr. Dena Gilby, Professor of Art History at Endicott College, to join me for a discussion of the exhibition. The result was an engaging conversation about the exhibition. The podcast was posted to the Wentworth website and available for anyone to download.

One of my class assignments was for my students to listen to the podcast while visiting the McPhee exhibition. With iPods in ears, students were now able to view the exhibition on their own, and at the same time benefit by the insights provided on the podcast. Clearly, I might just as easily have taken the students over to the museum as a group and discussed the work with them in person, and I do not mean to suggest that the podcast is a replacement for that important kind of interpersonal experience. But the podcast does provide different types of benefits that enhance traditional modes of teaching. With the podcast, students were able to determine the pace with which they went through the exhibition, rather than going at the pace of a group. Podcasts also provide the additional benefit of “replay,” in which students can re-listen to specific comments for further reflection. Overall, I think that podcasts allow for a more introspective experience of art than group tours. In the case of the Laura McPhee podcast, students also benefited from the expertise of my colleague who would not have been readily available for a museum visit with them.

The podcast assignment led to an interesting in-class discussion of McPhee’s photography, which, of course, was the purpose of the assignment. As for the students, the podcast assignment was nothing out of the ordinary. For a population so used to playing music on their iPods and mp3 players, the assignment seemed like a logical extension of the podcast’s use, neither innovative nor new, but an obvious means of communicating.

My next podcast will be a discussion of the American art collection on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, which I also plan to integrate into class assignments. I invite everyone to get out their iPods, download the podcast, and make their way to the MFA! But even more, I invite faculty members in other disciplines to consider the possibilities of podcasts as a teaching tool.