The Idea Man at Southwest : Weblog

Podcasting in the Memphis City Schools ::

Although this has gotten some negative attention, it's not necessarily a bad idea.  After all, if MCS is graduating only 48.5% of their students, what harm can come from trying it? One harm would be to spend money on software and expensive hardware from proprietary vendors that could be used elsewhere, especially since there are free and open alternatives.  But assuming that the school system doesn't buy a boatload of expensive gizmos before they even begin, what other harm could there be?  Perhaps it would divert teachers' limited time resources to less productive means.  Maybe, but we don't know the answer to the question:  will podcasting in fact be less productive than good old fashioned front-of-the-class-with-chalk-and-blackboard teaching? 

A more practical question is this: how will the students even listen to these podcasts?  I don't have the statistics, but my gut feeling is that the students who are dropping out are more likely to come from poor backgrounds than not.  So getting them to buy expensive gizmos, or assuming they have a computer and internet access at home, is unwise and/or unlikely.  Cellphones could be an answer here.  Their sheer ubiquity would make it possible to have them as deployment platforms, if they could play mp3s.  But that capability is not universally here yet, but I bet it won't be long.  This is where buying a propietary solution upstream could also hamstring the system, especially since some vendors sell hardware for the consumption side as well. 

Honestly, I don't think it will work, but who made me Nostradamus?  Give it a try!  I have to assume that no one likes the status quo, so let's give it and other ideas a shot.  If you make your ideas inexpensive you can try lots of things.  If they don't work, you move on.  If they do work, they work.