Traditional readings are a cornerstone of the university classroom experience, but professors like Meg Wilcox are working to develop alternative media more suited to class content.
Wilcox is a long-time broadcast journalism professional, having worked in podcasting and radio with the CBC before making a shift to teaching at Mount Royal University.
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Now, with nine years of teaching in the classroom, Wilcox is looking for different ways to teach podcasting to journalism and broadcasting students.
“In 2017, I remember asking the class ‘Who listens to podcasts?’ and two hands went up—and both of them were Joe Rogan,” said Wilcox. “So I am like ‘ok, what are we going to do,’ and my thought was, well, I have to show them what podcasts are.”
Her project, an assigned weekly podcast listening helps audio journalism students develop a good sense for both high-quality audio and the podcasting field in general.
“I think my hypothesis was that students were going to be interested in podcasts and maybe wanting to listen to more of them,” said Wilcox.
“There are some things students may want to learn by video, other things they might want to learn by audio, and even in the focus groups chatting with students, they know there are things they have to read.”