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Monday, August 10, 2009

Podcasting for E-Learning – Storytelling and Teaching

Sound – especially the human voice - has been a fundamental part of the transmission of information and knowledge since pre-history.

In Western culture, for example, the oral tradition – story telling – was the primary means of passing on the learned, shared values of culture, encoded in legends, myths, and fables until the invention of writing. We still have these stories today – Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are two examples well-known examples. Significantly, these texts begin with the words “Tell us…” and “Sing to me…” respectively, demonstrating their origins as stories told to audiences.

Half a millennium later the philosopher Plato, founder of the Academy in Athens - the first institution of higher learning in the Western world - chose to render the teachings of his mentor Socrates as a series of dialogs.

We can all think of great orators. Consider Winston Churchill’s speeches in WW2

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

In this 40th anniversary year of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, think too of JFK’s 1962 speech:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…

A few years later, Martin Luther King inspired a nation with his immortal phrase:

I have a dream.

Only a few months ago, Barak Obama popularized the slogan "Yes we can" during his 2008 US presidential campaign.

We can say then, that audio has be a core component of teaching for at least 3000 years. The problem with sound though, that it is ephemeral – it is not permanent – once spoken, the words are gone forever. Until the later 19th Century, transcription was the only way to capture spoken words permanently.

This all changed in the late 19th Century, when the basic components of what we know today as multimedia were invented.

In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. One year later, Thomas Edison’s invented the phonograph. These devices enabled the mechanical recording and reproduction of audio, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects for the first time in history. In 1878, the first motion-based pictures were filmed in England.

So within three years of each other, mechanically recorded audio and video, supported by an electronic transmission infrastructure were invented, and elements are still the core elements of recording, reproducing, and distributing media content.

Next time: Digital audio and podcasting for e-learning

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New E-Learning Curve’s Other Podcast episode release:

In Part 5 of Transatlantic: The Flying Boats of Foynes

Part 5: Foynes goes to War

Appeasement has failed. On September 3rd 1939 Britain and her allies declare war on Germany after the Invasion of Poland. 314_podcastcover5_300In neutral Ireland, the government initiates a state of emergency, an official euphemism used by the Irish Government during the 1940s to refer to its position during World War II. The flying boat service In the west coast town of Foynes in County Limerick. Rationing is introduced, but the influx of passengers and cargo ensures that this town on the River Shannon has it a little easier than the rest of the country…

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Click here to view the transcript of this podcast (PDF, 24K).

Even though this is an e-learning blog, the observant among you will notice that the podcast isn’t about e-learning. That’s OK – the point of e-learning is to provide training professionals with a means of creating and distributing content that enables people to acquire information, knowledge, skills, and expertise on a diverse range of subjects: as e-learning practitioners, it’s our job to facilitate this process.

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