These materials form workshop two of the Community Cafe workshop pack, on the topic of creating a podcast. This pack comprises a set of resources to support language teachers/trainers in running informal practice sharing/enhancement sessions complemented by learning technology workshops for novice users of e-tools to support language learning, e.g. Word, Powerpoint, Hot Potatoes, LanguageBox repository

Borthwick, Kate

Dickens, Alison

English

Language Box

Community Café Workshop Pack		Handout W2.2Podcasting@PortsmouthPodcasting gets a mention at the end of almost every media item these days. Some of you will have downloaded or subscribed to one, perhaps from a favourite BBC programme or a noted newspaper commentator. As you may have seen, the internet is peppered with audio and video clips: from those made by parish councillors to publicise the village fête to academics at major universities supplementing their students’ learning. Some of you will have wondered about using a podcast for your own educational purposes. But if you haven’t got round to actually making your own podcast or feel that it might not be for you, then read on. Podcasting has been made possible by bringing together three ideas: affordable video and audio recording software; broadcasting over the internet; and social networking sites (in education, Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs)). This bundle of technology started to work in concert three or four years ago.In 2007 we applied for Workshop to Go funding to run two day-long events on making and using podcasts. Our initial preparation led us to the literature on software, broadcasting and educational techniques related to podcasts. But we also started to research what others had experienced and how they described the transition from entertainment to educational uses of podcasts. Although social networking tools such as podcasts are relatively new, there was still a small but developing literature about making and using them for HE teaching purposes.However, as with many innovations, educators have a tendency to ‘do as they did before’ and not fully exploit the possibilities of the new technology. This conservative inclination can lead some educators to feel replaced rather than empowered by computers and the internet. Thus much of the early literature focussed on how a podcast could replace a lecture along with the attendant concern about whether students would continue to attend classroom-based lectures. Fortunately, not everyone was sceptical. The Impala Project run from Leicester University (Salmon & Edirisingha, 2008) contributed to the current debate and has shifted the emphasis away from lengthy podcasts to those which last three to five minutes – perfect for the modern media-savvy audience. But despite this refreshing change, Impala still kept the focus on overcoming the technical aspects of making a podcast.It was at this juncture that the 6P’s Podcasting@Portsmouth model started to emerge.Our own experience and initial findings from a research project involving data from interviewing other members of staff who had already made podcasts suggested that educational podcasts challenged lecturers in ways that other research had not captured. Those members of staff that we interviewed were extremely competent users of ICT in the delivery of their courses. But they were not entirely comfortable with how they might come across in this new environment. They were concerned that they did not have the right broadcasting skills to realise their expectations as to how they should sound in the podcast. Educational podcasting was not just a matter of learning how to use the software, plugging in a microphone, and recording your ideas.The 6P’s model has as its constituent parts: purpose, pedagogy, planning, participation, positioning and production. These are represented diagrammatically in Figure 1. As you can see from the figure, Participation is embedded into Pedagogy and Positioning is part of Planning. The model is both dynamic and interactive in the sense that decisions made in one aspect of the model impact the other parts.As we have already mentioned, the most obvious choice of Purpose for a lecturer is probably to replace existing content. But in our model we see podcasts as having a far wider role than for the delivery of content. Examples of Purpose might be related to time management, study skills, and issues relating to supporting widening participation. The second P, pedagogy, draws on the growing body of research on e-pedagogy. Lecturer understandings of what computers can and cannot do range from the dismissive (a fad) to the wondrous (they can read and extract meaning from student essays more reliably than us). What is clear is that pedagogical decisions relating to classroom-based courses will have to be re-examined in light of technology, including podcasts and other social networking tools, as it takes on a more and more prominent position in the HE sector. The next P in our model is Participation. As part of Pedagogy, it is defined as the extent to which the podcast allows for communication between its author(s) and its audience(s). As we are based within the School of Languages and Area Studies, interactivity is an important factor in encouraging language proficiency and cultural understanding. Participation can be achieved by embedding a lecturer-made podcast into a wiki, blog or any other discussion forum and accompanying it with a pedagogical task which requires a response from those who listen to the podcast.The challenge for HE staff is to provide an incentive for students to listen to their podcasts. Under the umbrella of Participation, we have encouraged student-created podcasts. These include student-generated content designed for a specific and known audience. For example, students returning from their year abroad can offer advice in a podcast to those who are considering their placements. In addition, podcasts can and have been used to assess oral proficiency. A number of student-generated podcast projects have appeared in the literature and they have all mentioned the positive student feedback. In an age where forms of communication become diverse, it seems expedient for language graduates to be able to present themselves effectively in this new medium.The next P is Positioning, which is essentially about how one comes across either in audio format or in a multimedia (video) clip. This is perhaps the aspect of podcasting which challenges lecturers the most. For example, one of our interviewees, Crispin, was used to tutorials and group discussions. But becoming a podcaster removed him from his lecture and seminar room environment and placed him staring down the barrel of a microphone. With the loss of a familiar audience and the non-verbal cues he was used to, he found himself talking to ‘no one in particular’ and feeling baffled and tongue-tied. His topical examples became stale. And even the jokes that he used as ice-breakers or cheerful examples sounded inappropriate. Finally, the fact that podcasts are stored and archived meant that he feared his words might come back to haunt him or be cut into embarrassing mash-ups.For several of the staff we interviewed the newness of podcasting had made them more cautious about what they said and more self-conscious about how they sounded. Who are our models in education? If we aspire to the same quality as BBC broadcasting, then we need to look to their media techniques for some help.A first step in getting over podcasting nerves is to understand your role. As a lecturer you write the script, maybe share it with colleagues, and edit it, first for content and second for a script that works well spoken aloud. A spoken script works best when it’s formatted into bite-sized chunks of language that you can get your teeth around and the listener can easily understand. This is the part of the model we have called Planning and it involves carefully organising a script so that the podcast achieves its purpose efficiently. For those making a podcast for the first time, a good starting point may be actually writing down what you want to say as a script. Of course, the script needs to be read out. A common mistake is to fail to take account of the differences between written and spoken language. Podcasts don’t respect full stops and capital letters. They are organised through chunking language into tone groups in order to sound natural. Broadcasters – and those making effective podcasts – speak in small ‘chunks’ where each chunk is a new idea. Not everyone needs to write an actual script. There are some who are able to use a series of bullet points or work more freely from cue cards. Whichever method is chosen, the script becomes a re-useable learning object which, if saved, can be modified and updated for subsequent recordings. The podcast can then easily be re-recorded for contemporary cohorts of students and to take into account current developments in the field.During the Planning stage, the process of making the podcast can be broken down into a variety of different roles. The advantage of doing this is that any Positioning concerns can be overcome by bringing in someone else to actually be the voice on the podcast. The lecturer doesn’t need to be the presenter. But at the same time, the lecturer has full control over the content as (s)he has maintained control over the editing and scriptwriting. Crispin, for example, found a student willing to present his material and the student even lightened up the script with a few jokes and student-friendly asides. The final P in our model concerns Production. This is the technical aspect of the model. Again, other colleagues or students with more expertise in this area can be seconded. An audio podcast can be enhanced with Flash graphics, by using avatars, or by adding copyright-free music. A series of podcasts can be attached to a website or social space and can be regularly distributed via RSS feeds to a student’s PC or MP3 player. They can be added to social spaces such as blogs which incorporate software to show how many visitors have been to the site. In thinking about production, the key thing for us was that technical issues should not dominate educators’ thinking about podcasting. Just as important is the process of becoming a podcaster and the issues and challenges that lecturers are facing in moving to the multi-media world.We may not all be charismatic presenters ripe for the age of 24-hour education. But we all have a role to play in the new pedagogical world. And our students just might learn something from us in that world.Salmon, G. & Edirisingha, P. (2008). Podcasting for Learning in Universities. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Figure 1: The 6Ps Model of Podcasting. Rose Clark and John Wrigglesworth, University of Portsmouth 2009		

W2: Workshop 2 - creating a podcast

http://languagebox.ac.uk/1855/4/CC_Workshop_pack_HandoutW2_2.doc

W2: Workshop 2 - creating a podcast

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