Podcasting Drives Inclusive Education

Profiles in Success: Hurstpierpoint College

Podcasting is delivering a double benefit at Hurstpierpoint College in Sussex. Students can study their course content more effectively — via online podcasts, accessed in their own time, reviewed at their own speed, and enlivened by multimedia. Meanwhile, teachers are able to free up precious classroom contact time, especially during the revision period, to focus on their students’ key learning needs.

“Curriculum and exam pressures today mean that there is less flexibility to go deeper into a subject”, says Richard Cooke, ICT Coordinator at Hurstpierpoint College. “But technology can improve the way course content is delivered, and how teaching time is managed. Podcasting can extend studying beyond the classroom, so teachers can use their time in class to focus on critical course learning points or answer questions more fully”.

Hurstpierpoint College is a private school for children aged between 3 and 18. It has a mix of boarders and day students, and is well regarded for its academic achievements and extra-curricular activities.

Its philosophy is to ensure an inclusive approach to education, and all students get the chance to ‘have a go’ at a wide range of opportunities to develop their potential. “Using a football analogy, our Headmaster, Tim Manly, says ‘no-one is left on the bench’”, explains Cooke.

The school has a strong tradition of utilising technology in teaching and learning. It offers IT and Computing courses at GCSE and A level grades, and its ICT department is encouraged to be innovative in support of teaching across the curriculum.

“The iLife suite gives us all the multimedia capabilities we want for images, movies and music. And because you can run Windows on it, the Mac platform provides complete flexibility.”

Richard Cooke, ICT Coordinator at Hurstpierpoint College

A recent significant development is the introduction of a virtual learning environment (VLE), where teachers, students and parents can access a wide range of powerful academic resources, and a growing suite of podcasts created by staff and students.

Hurstpierpoint College uses the open source Moodle system for its VLE, which runs impeccably on Mac OS X. Cooke finds the Mac platform is ideal for generating attractive learning content. “Of course Apple has great software for podcasting, as you would expect. The iLife suite gives us all the multimedia capabilities we want for images, movies and music. And because you can run Windows on it, the Mac platform provides complete flexibility”.

Cooke and his ICT colleagues began to populate the VLE using classroom screen captures, enhanced by audio. They then utilised Apple’s GarageBand software and video cameras to make more compelling podcasts. And now, whiteboard content is regularly condensed and converted into podcast format for a range of different curriculum subjects.

“We’re beginning to build a bank of ‘perfect answers’ for past exam papers in some subjects”, says Cooke. “Going through past papers question by question is not always very useful, because if students know the answers they tend to turn off. But by creating a podcast that shows an exceptionally good answer, it makes them stop and think”.

Visiting speakers have also been filmed, to provide additional study material. Podcasts are used to fulfil part of the school’s pastoral role, by featuring interviews with former students, and capturing achievements of current students.

Next Page: Flexing Time to Enhance Teaching

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