Podcast Authoring: Understanding and Remembering

Control over the rate at which ideas are presented is completely in the hands of the instructional designer and the content author, and it is one of the duties of the person producing a podcast (such as an e-learning professional or media production expert) to advise on how concepts may be best presented.

This can be achieved by:

• Giving workshops (with varying degrees of sophistication, depending on the skills and experience of the content originator, the SME and the instructional designer)
• Directing scriptwriters as to the needs and dynamic of audio presentations
• Rewriting particular pieces to make them more acceptable for audio delivery (in extreme cases)

Being literate by nature and education, the instructional designers and courseware developers often fall into the trap of assuming that what looks well-shaped in the form of a script on the page, will be so in audio form or when delivered verbally.

Unfortunately, this may not be the case. For it also depends at the rate at which new ideas are presented. Take the case of Pythagoras' theorem: this can be rendered as

In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (the two sides that meet at a right angle).

or

a² + b² = c²

or

Figure 1. Pythagoras’ Theorem

On the printed page, this fundamental of Euclidean geometry can be presented as a concise, elegant argument - and the eye will dwell on it until understood. In the medium of sound, such a construction is out of the question.

In order to ensure even a moderate degree of intelligibility, the argument must sometimes be slowed down to what may seem (in literary terms) like an impossibly slack pace.

For example, say the following aloud:

Click Insert –> Break –> Next Page.

This may be acceptable in a textbook, but to the user this is just a series of non-connected words (unless you know the context). In this highly condensed case, there is no exact or predictable control over what the user picks out. From an audio point of view, this construction is totally unacceptable.

Now (by again saying out loud), contrast the above with:

To insert a next page break into a Microsoft Word document, click on the Insert tab in the ribbon. Click on the Page Break button.

A next page break has been added to the document.

Here, the context is given, the language is logical, and the user is led comfortably and humanely through the procedure, feeling that they have achieved something, not that a series of demands has been made of them.

So even if a user is intellectually equipped and motivated to follow a concise, complex line of instruction, they need time - more time than it takes to present the bare bones of a set of directions - to let it ‘sink in.’ They need time to process the information in their short-term memory and undertake the requested actions or activities.

Direct faults in presentation are:

• Taking too much background knowledge for granted
• The use of unfamiliar words
• The use of unexplained jargon
• The use of flowery analogies or abstractions
• Poor logical construction
• Unnecessarily complex sentences

A good working rule to follow is:

Do not use language that you would not use yourself in everyday speech.

In a learning or informational context, I would suggest that you spend not less than two minutes of total podcast runtime setting the context of your subject matter or learning objectives if the audience is unfamiliar with the topic being discussed. Of course, this is a heuristic or rule of thumb: for unsophisticated subject it may be possible to do less, while a complex argument will need longer to establish fully. In the latter case, it may be better to break the discussion down into stages.

In a 10-minute podcast, for example, I my experience is that it’s possible to cover two major points. The rest of the ten minutes must be spent supporting and linking those points (through example, simulation etc.). If a third point is introduced, it is likely that one of the three points will be lost. To take an extreme case, if ten major points are introduced, then nearly all of them will be lost, and the user may be left with the frustrating feeling that they have missed something. Alternatively, they may remember one of the points that appealed to them, plus the thought that this was part of a pattern that included half a dozen other points that on first hearing seemed plausible.

Cast your mind back to your E-Learning 101 experience – practically the first thing you’re told is that unlike in the classroom, you can’t rely on feedback from your audience about the pace of delivery, which in ILT is subject to the immediate correction of the learners. In contrast, when speaking to an 'invisible classroom' there is a perception or pressure to 'get on with it', because there is nearly always more to say than time to say it.

More…

--