STUDENTS´ DISTRIBUTED DATABASE PODCAST: A THREEFOLD LEARNING EXPERIENCE

As part of the “Educational Podcast” second study project, currently in progress at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, School of Engineering (UABC, Mexico), a group of five students from the Educational Technology Engineering class, were invited to participate in a study case. They attended Distributed Database and Educational Technology Engineering classes, in order to be able to develop an educational Podcast.
They studied database horizontal and vertical fragmentation subjects as well as instructional design to combine technology and educational concepts in their final product. The threefold objectives of the project were to promote (i) learning by doing exercises related to both classes,(ii) learning how to develop Podcasts which in turn is aim to serve as a (iii) learning tool for their peers on future classes.
To study this experience, participating students were interviewed before designing their Podcasts, and were observed during and after finishing their work. Since the five students belong to a larger group from the Distributed Database class, their class assessments (grades) on Podcasts´ contents were compared with students‘ grades who did not participated in the project. All these in order to find out the impact of Podcasts´ development on students course achievements.
A qualitative study was performed based on students’ observations and quantitative one regarding grade comparisons. The study showed students learned about Distributed Database fragmentation while preparing the Podcasts. Since this is an ongoing research, part of the results are presented. Future evaluation will take place after Podcasts are used by students from new semesters in order to find out how the Distributed Database Podcasts impacted on those who used them as a learning tool.