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Thursday, July 30, 2009

Producing Podcasts: Some Considerations for Content Creators

First of all, a (longish) pre-amble...

Anthony Bates, author of Technology, e-learning and distance education (2005) states that audio (via radio broadcast) has been used in education for over seventy years. Examples of its uses include school broadcasting, informal general education, social action programming, and adult basic education and literacy (p.117).

Since its inception in 1969, the British Open University supplied about one-fifth of its output via radio programming. Typically it such programming centered around:

Discussions of course material or issues covered in printed materials

  • Alternative viewpoints to those contained in the printed materials (i.e. guest speakers interpreting a text)
  • Source materials for analysis (i.e. children's speech patterns)
  • 'Performance' pieces, including poetry readings, dramatizations of literature, musical performances

There are of course drawbacks to delivering content via radio broadcast or via analog tape. tape_recorderRadio broadcasts are wholly dependent on the broadcaster's schedule, and minority programming is usually relegated to inconvenient "graveyard slots" - the learner has no flexibility around the schedule. Similarly, broadcasted material happens in real-time - the learner has no facility to 'rewind and play back' a presentation if they miss a point, unless they tape the program 'off the air' (if you're old enough to remember, you'll recall that this could be a messy business).

Cassette tapes had their problems too: analog recordings deteriorate with use and over time, tapes cassettes have many moving parts, the actual magnetic tape can break and become degaussed, and if you have a lot of them, they're bulky to store. crt_monitor

The introduction of CD-ROMs in the late 1980's mitigated most of these issues, and in a sense were the hardware breakthrough that presaged the beginnings of e-learning as we know it today. However, CD-based materials were expensive to produce, many pre-Pentium and PowerPC processors couldn't handle the multimedia requirements needed to view and listen to the material delivered via this medium (800x600 CRT monitor, anyone?).

It was the emergence of the internet that genuinely facilitated audio and visual media-based learning. But that, my friends, is a tale that's still being told, so I'm not going to discuss it here.

OU_iTunes The Open University today, on iTunes U

All I will say here is that the internet enables access to e-learning content:

  • For Anyone. E-Learning resources are available on-demand, via synchronous and asynchronous channels
  • Anywhere. Digital content can be distributed just as easily on a home-based PC, a laptop, or (increasingly) via a mobile device. Content can be viewed both online and offline for maximum flexibility.
  • At Any Time. You no longer need to rely on an IT department for distribution of large media files; content is easily delivered on demand to facilitate self-paced, OTJ and just-in-time learning.

Now read on...

The purpose of this long pre-amble was to emphasize the importance of understanding your target audience. When you start work on a podcast, you must be aware of not only what is to be said, but also to whom you want to say it. This is not merely a matter of your audience's intelligence, but also of background, experiences and outlook. It is also powerfully related to the things that the listener would like to do - ranging from learning Spanish for a vacation, to passing their Microsoft Office User Specialist certification.

Podcasts - like blogs - develop a distinctive 'personality' according to the characteristics of the source material, the type of audience that material is aimed at, and the individual or team who produce the podcast. So, a Wired News podcast reviewing the latest and greatest computer technologies will sound very different from a podcast about conversational French for beginners.

A study in to the effect of BBC educational broadcasts noted that too many 'teaching points' (what we usually call learning objectives) - more than six per 15 minutes of programming were definitely bad for the user's learning curve. Interestingly, where long, complex sentences with difficult vocabulary and a lot of prepositions did appear to have an adverse effect on intelligibility, the presence of a large number of adverbs and adjectives did not.

The conclusion was drawn that an apparent excess of facts, figures and descriptive terms is no disadvantage, because although they may not be assimilated themselves, they help maintain interest during the learning intervention.

More...
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References:

Bates, A. W. (2005). Technology, e-learning and distance education. Oxford: Routledge Falmer

Read more: http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/07/exploring-podcasting-for-e-learning-and.html#ixzz0MjnglJ8i

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