Get Your Students Listening!

One issue that faculty commonly face is connecting the materials from the textbook to examples that students can "touch and feel." Often it is important to students that faculty make the content relevant in an up-to-date and "locally connected" manner. Management and marketing are two curriculum areas that can benefit from connections to local business information and content available via the web.

In every major metropolitan area, savvy businesses are setting up podcasts (web-based radio shows) that inform and educate prospective clients about the news, theories and applications, technologies, and opportunities in their industries.

The benefit to podcasts is their portability. Many students have MP3 players or iPods to which they can download podcast content and then listen to the materials during exercise routines, in traffic congestion, and during breaks at work. The audio format can be especially helpful to students whose learning style preferences are spoken language.

Not every student will have access to portable audio players, and students with hearing impairments might not be able to benefit from the content (unless it has been fully transcribed, which is seldom done), so the use of podcasts should be as supplemental material to the course (not required in activities or assessments).

Faculty teaching business topics might want to investigate:
http://www.ibizradio.com/


When possible, it is best to feature locally produced podcasts. Finding local businesses and organizations that offer these online audio segments is a bit of a hunt.

For Minnesota, one site that offers links to local content is:
http://podcastmn.com/
Many of these are music, humour, and adult podcasts, but there are also some with academic appeal.


In the Minneapolis metropolitan area, here are some podcasts examples.
(Note: I have not financial or other ties to any of these sites, and these are offered as examples without endorsement.)


GENERAL ECONOMY and POLITICS
http://www.minneapolis.org/podcast/ - Minneapolis.Org: Features about the quality of life, activities, and events in the Minneapolis area
http://del.icio.us/TwinWest (and http://www.twinwest.com/ main site) Chamber of Commerce

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
http://technomicasia.blogspot.com/ - Technomic Asia: the China Business podcast

MARKETING
http://providentpartners.blogspot.com/ - Marketing Edge: Marketing and Public Relations
http://www.prweek.com/us/podcasts/ - Public Relations Week

SMALL BUSINESS
http://www.sba.gov/tools/resourcelibrary/Podcasts/index.html - Small Business Administration