International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 2009, Volume 20, Number 2, 251-261 http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/ ISSN 1812-9129 Simplifying Podcasting Prachi Parashar Panday Human Karigar, India and MindMedia, The Netherlands The article intends to simplify the different aspects of podcasting. The article covers types of podcasts; the pedagogical benefits of podcasting; the connection between theory and podcasting; answers to questions, queries, and apprehensions. Before trying out a new tool, it is important to understand why we do things the way we do. A crucial part of using any tool or technology is to understand, test, and determine the pedagogical appropriateness of it for specific context. Through the article, the author has tried to suggest some of the uses of podcasting along with the pedagogical appropriateness in different scenarios. At the end, the author has tried to (through pictorial representation) describe the podcasting community and the tasks performed by the community members. Also, through a pictorial representation, the author has provided a gist of the podcasting creation process as a producer and as a consumer. Podcasting is the hottest topic in the training people as possible. How do young people learn? Young industry, including the educational as well as corporate people want hands-on experience, action, interaction, sectors. With this new tool in the market, different identity in cyberculture, and connectivity with the groups of people have emerged – Naïve, Inquisitives, world. They want a change in the role from consumers Beginners/First-timers, Experimenters, Enthusiasts, to producers. They want learning to be a social process. Intermediates, Experts, and Critiques. Often, the term To enable social learning, educators are coming up with “podcasting” overwhelms many people, especially who the ideas of social software. Podcasts, blogs, and wikis plan to or who try it out for the first time. The process fall under the category of social software. The term of podcasting can also frustrate people if podcasting “social software” came into use in 2002. The use of this does not work the way they expected it to work. The term is credited to Clay Shirky, who defined social first-timers, naïves, beginners can refer to the article to software as “software that supports group interaction” get an overview of the podcasting process. The group of (as cited in Owen, Grant, Sayers, & Facer, 2006, p. 12). experimenters, intermediates, and enthusiasts might According to Owen et al., (2006), social software and refer to the article to deepen their knowledge about the changing goals of education seem to be moving in podcasting. The group of experts and critiques might the same direction (p. 12). There is a growing trend of want to skim through the article to find solutions to the digital culture in the current generation of learners. The questions or queries on which they have been mulling time is not far away when young learners will be taught over for a long time. Many people are exploiting B for Blogs, I for iPod, M for MSN, G for Google, P podcasting (medium of entertainment) for education. for Podcasting, W for Wikis, and Y for Yahoo! There are different factors driving people’s attention Integration of technology in education and as a part of toward podcasting. their lives is a cultural phenomenon where these fragmented learners want continuous connectivity with Social Software the world and on-demand content at their “computer- step.” Learning is a social process. The medium of learning has transformed from face-to-face to e-learning Podcasting Definition to c-learning (communicative learning, collaborative learning, constructivist learning, or community Podcasting – a simple process of disseminating learning). The three most important things in c-learning audio content – tends to overwhelm many first time are interaction, social feedback, and social networking. users. Wikipedia (2007) defines Podcasting, as “a Today’s competitive world requires us to provide portmanteau of Apple's ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcasting’, a resources and inculcate skills that will help today’s method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing generation to keep up with the rapid growing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files technological world and to continue learning automatically by subscription, usually at no cost.” I throughout their lives. The questions we should ask define podcasting as, Providing on-demand content at a ourselves are, “What do today’s learners want? How do student’s desktop in the net generation. Podcasting is an they want the learning to occur? What are the best ways optimum way of using the music devices, especially to teach today’s young generation?” Learning is a mp3 players, for the purpose of education. Earlier mp3 process of rich and diverse experiences that are possible players symbolized activities such as Listen and Enjoy! through collaboration and interaction with as many Now, they symbolize activities such as Listen, Enjoy, Panday Simplifying Podcasting 252 and Learn! Podcasting, an amalgamation of two words - to influence cognition through clarity of instructions iPod and Broadcasting has spread rapidly in the field of and emotional aspects of learning by conveying education throughout the world. There are a myriad immediacy and a connection with the teacher (as cited uses of podcasting – ranging from the uses in corporate in Edirisingha, 2006). Hargis and Wilson (n.d.) relate world to uses in the academic world. People are using the concept of podcasting to information processing and podcasting in as many areas as possible; where there is conceptual learning. According to them, a podcast (a audio, there is podcasting. Podcasting is a simple collection of real, raw, and spontaneous ideas) captures process of capturing human voice, uploading it online, the attention of the listener and can sustain this and sharing it with the whole world. In today’s attention to transfer the concepts into the long term education system, educators are trying to create a memory. Also, the podcast creation process facilitates community-based, collaborative learning environment self-correcting of ideas and concepts. The hype of the as opposed to narrowcasting learning to a single iPod has spread to such an extent that it has become a learner. The New Oxford American Dictionary entitled social symbol to have an iPod. For educators this can be “Podcast” as the Word of the Year for 2005 an advantage – students already use these mp3 players (MacDailyNews, 2005). A podcasting process involves – educators can ask them to use it for the purpose of the following: education. According to Clark and Walsh, listening to an mp3 player in public is “socially acceptable” – Thinking about a topic to podcast today’s modern young learners (who may be impatient Creating a podcast with traditional forms of teaching and learning) like o Recording podcast episodes (mp 3 format) these devices that have a consumer appeal (ac cited in o Uploading the podcast episodes on a Chan and Lee, 2005). According to Ractham and Zhang webpage (2006), podcasting is a knowledge distribution model Creating an RSS feed for the podcast and represents useful knowledge management artifacts. Subscribing to the podcast Podcasting can serve as a learning strategy for the Listening to the podcast auditory learners. In this fast-growing technological o Downloading the podcast world, it is very important to provide information to the o Transferring the podcast to an mp3 player students in different formats and to offer different dimensions of learning. Kolb’s experiential learning Pedagogical Benefits of Podcasting circle outlines four phases highlighting four different abilities: concrete experience, reflective observations, Why Should I Get into this Complex Process of abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Podcasting? Based on these activities, Kolb suggests four types of learning styles: (a) converger, (b) diverger, (c) Audio plays a very important role in the learning assimilator, and (d) accommodator (Smith, 2001). Now, process. Audio has a few characteristics that text lack. let us see how and where the process of podcasting can Audio can have a significant impact on understanding fit in. of some information. Often, we understand better in a According to Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, face-to-face lecture than when we read the same content based on the immediate and concrete experiences, the on our own. According to Clark and Walsh, “listening learner provides reflections and observations. These is instinctual, [whereas] reading and writing are not” (as reflective observations and thinking serve as a cited in Chan and Lee, 2005, p. 62). Frequency foundation for abstract conceptualization. These modulation in human voice has an advantage over text abstract concepts drive learners’ further actions in a when conveying any information. Audio is powerful new situation and thus create new experiences. As a mode to communicate information – it can add a flavor consumer, listening to a podcast is a concrete to information; however, audio does have some experience after which the listener makes observations drawbacks. Too much of information in an audio and reflections. These reflections facilitate format might tend to distract the listener’s attention and strengthening of his/her learning and understanding. In interest. According to the Scottish Council for this process, the learner might form abstract concepts Educational Technology, audio is an extremely which might drive further actions in his/her learning. powerful medium for conveying feelings, attitudes and As a producer, in the podcast creation process, the atmosphere, and less powerful for conveying detail and learner creates a podcast (concrete experience); then facts. From a 30-minute audio tape, one will remember reflects on the podcast created (reflective observations) general opinions and arguments and not very many – in terms of concepts learnt; then mulls over the facts and figures (as cited in Chan and Lee, 2005). options for improvement (abstract conceptualization); Podcasting encapsulates the power of audio.