Pros and Cons of Podcasting in Adult Education

Before writing a post (for here or canvas), I usually create an outline to highlight the key points I want to convey before I start typing.  I especially struggled with this assignment because I had a hard time coming up with a definitive list of pros and cons for my outline.  Every time I put a topic in the “pros” column I would think of a way for it to become a “con” in a different setting.   Podcasts are inherently versatile as they only describe a delivery method and have great leeway in terms of production, settings, sounds, methods, etc.   The introduction of podcasts into adult learning curriculum is heavily dependent upon how it is introduced and used within the class.  The instructor plays the most pivotal role in making podcasting a success or failure within the classroom.  King & Cross (2011) highlight many examples of how both instructor and student created podcasts can be used within a class (p. 36-43).   These examples all create the opportunity for enhanced learning but could be detrimental with poor implementation.  

One example of this dichotomy is the use of podcasts as a lecture webcasts in a synchronous class.  The teacher can choose to either create a new podcast for the class or choose one that is already available that flows with the current lesson.  It can be used to allow students who miss a class to catch up or as a way for the instructor to provide additional information outside of class to provide more in-class time for delving deeper into the assigned topic.  These benefits all provide a phenomenal opportunity for better learning but the same lecture webcasts can also be detrimental in certain formats.  The quality of the podcast’s production plays a major factor in the “hear-ability” of the podcast.  Distractions such as poor audio, poor/no editing can cause the student to steer away from listening to the podcasts.  Podcasts have exploded over the last decade and the technology to create them is becoming easier so that almost anyone can make a podcast.  In print media, its easy to verify sources but in podcasts the quality of material covered can be obscured by the presentation.  Many great speakers have proposed terrifying ideas that garner buy-in from their listeners due the way they presented the idea.  Quality control is more difficult to do when choosing a podcast as opposed to a journal article. Another con for using podcasts is the use of an audio only format of instruction.  Students who are primarily visual learners can suffer in this situation due to the lack of visual aids/stimulation (Kelly & Klein, 2016).  One way to combat this is to include a video of whatever the podcast covers but may be difficult to do if the only source is only an audio file.  Kelly & Klein (2016) studied how podcasts increased the post-test scores of undergraduate students studying to learn Chinese.  One of their findings was the importance of what was in the podcast.  Simply implementing the use of podcasts isn’t enough, they need to be targeted for a certain learning objective.  In the study, the podcasts covered how to use Chinese in real life rather than focus on grammar/conjugation.  The supplemented the learning that occurred in class and gave the students additional opportunities to practice the language.  The deliberate use of podcasts are pertinent to whether their introduction into the classroom will be successful.

One thing I noticed about the King & Cross (2011) text was that the primary uses for podcasts in chapter 3 and AACs in chapter 4 were for individuals to convey information by themselves.  Most of the podcasts presented as examples for the class (and all of the student podcasts) were in a discussion or interview format.  Listening to a single individual talk for a long time can become less interesting than a podcast with multiple individuals.  Another pro for introducing podcasts in the classroom would be the ability to bring in expert opinions or other individuals who would not normally be able to attend a set class time at a certain location.  One way to implement this could be by recording a phone call, where the instructor (or student) interviews a leader in their field.  This would be extremely interesting as well as a major additional learning tool for the class.  By recording a phone call, the institution doesn’t need to pay for transportation/lodging for a guest lecturer, doesn’t have to deconflict multiple schedules, and can be scheduled on a shorter notice with less interference for all involved.

Resources:

King, K. P., & Cross T. D. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. [Kindle PC Version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Kelly, Wei Qiang, & Klein, James D. (2016). The Effect of Type of Podcasts and Learning Styles on Language Proficiency and Confidence. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 44(4), 421-429.

Adult Learning Interview Podcast

 I chose to interview the Pastor at the church my family and I recently started to attend.  The demographics trend very young (18-25) for adult learners but Pastor John has done a great job attempting to bridge the technological gap between himself (38 years old) and those he teaches.  He also produces a phenomenal podcast with his daughter.  He showed me his set up as well as a few tricks he's learned along the way.  One of those tricks, editing, he mentioned a few times and I quickly realized how important of a skill it is in a podcast.  This is my first attempt at a podcast or any audio editing and while I had a ton of fun, I wasn't able to make every edit perfectly.  Moving a 15 minute conversation down to 10 minutes was both challenging and rewarding.  I hope you enjoy our conversation.

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/dz0gbr2pjj593s7/Interview%20audio%20only.mp3?dl=0

Using Wikis to Enhance Squadron Emergency Procedure General Knowledge

Target Audience:

1. Aircraft Commander and Instructor Pilot Upgrade candidates for design and initial input

2. All squadron members for follow on use

Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of the wiki project, each upgrade candidate will be able to:

1.  Successfully edit a Google Doc in accordance with the provided format with less than 3 errors.
2.  Compose a concise and detailed summary of all applicable references to the assigned emergency procedure in the Google Doc wiki format
3.  Brief the prepared wiki information to squadron personnel in a manner that copilots understand

Using Bloom’s revised taxonomy as a framework (Anderson, Krathwohl, et al, 2001; Krathwohl, 2002), these learning objectives build towards a higher level of difficulty and complexity with each objective.  This provides a form of scaffolding to build the candidates learning throughout the program.

Rationale for the use of wiki:

Using wikis in formal education is becoming well established but less so in a non-formal education setting.  Many of the advantages of a wiki already reside inside formal institutions Learning Management Systems (LMS) but non-formal settings do not always have an LMS.  This lack of an integrated online tool allowing multiple people to work on the same system at the same time leaves an ideal gap that wikis can fill.   The squadron is consistently min-manned with personnel scattered all over the world.  Using a wiki will allow candidates to connect with others in the upgrade program as well as when not on a government network.  The wiki will be used to create a “Class Encyclopedia” (West & West, 2009, loc. 1363) for the entire squadron to reference.  Emergency procedures are supposed to be written in a particular location within the flight manual and each procedure’s checklist should cover everything about the emergency.  The problem arises when the checklist is incomplete or missing critical items that could be need to know or at least nice to know.  The squadron’s flight manuals contain a lot of such emergency checklists and an encyclopedic wiki would be extremely beneficial.

Details on how to use the wiki:

As stated in the rational, the wiki will be set up as a Class Encyclopedia as described by West and West (2009).  The wiki format will be contained within Google Docs to allow for world-wide read/write capabilities.    The first page will be an index of all the emergency procedures already covered with a link to the corresponding location within the wiki.  The following pages will be the candidate write ups of each emergency procedure with one page dedicated to each emergency.  The candidate will create the wiki throughout their training program to ensure completion before briefing to the squadron.  During the squadron brief the candidate will receive feedback from more senior squadron members for improvement or changes to the wiki.  The candidate will then have until the completion of their training folder to finalize their emergency procedure wiki.  As each candidate finishes their upgrade, the list of emergency procedures that were meticulously researched and vetted at the squadron level will grow on the wiki, creating an encyclopedia of knowledge available to the whole squadron.

 Suggested wiki-related learning activities:

In order to ensure conformity throughout the wiki, the squadron’s training section will develop a sample emergency procedure within the wiki.  This sample will be used as a template for the candidates to follow.  At the beginning of each candidate’s upgrade, the training shop will provide an instructional brief on how to use the wiki and the expectations of when and how it will be completed.  For those familiar with Google Docs no further training will be required due to the relatively simple formatting.  Following the initial briefing, those who have not used Google Docs or are not comfortable using it will be given time to rearrange the sample emergency procedure to build their skill level and comfortability with the wiki. The candidate will then have 90-120 days to complete the project before their training folder closes.  As stated above, the initial input to the wiki needs to be completed prior to the brief and will normally be scheduled no later than 30 days prior to folder closeout.  This allows time for the candidate to make final edits to the wiki before finalizing the wiki section and closing out the training folder.

 Wiki Evaluations:

The wiki will be graded in accordance to the learning objectives stated above.  The majority of ground training complete in the squadron is based on a pass/fail grading system and the wiki project will mirror that as well.

Overall project grade

              P: Passed all three lesson objective rubrics

              F: Failed at least one lesson objective rubric

Lesson Objective	Pass	Fail
Google Doc Formatting	Less than 3 errors	3 or more errors
Wiki Summary	The wiki was concise and didn’t miss any applicable references to the emergency procedure	The wiki was too long and missed references to the emergency procedure
Squadron Briefing	The brief was given to squadron personnel and the copilots present were able to understand the content	No brief was given to the squadron or the content was too complicated for copilots to understand

Resources:

Anderson, L. Krathwohl, D. et al (Eds.) (2001) A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of bloom’s educational objectives. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Krathwohl, D. (2002). A revision of bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(4), pp 212-218

St. Clair, R. (2015) Creating Courses for Adults: Design for Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass

West, J. A. and West, M. L. (2009) Using Wikis for Online Collaboration. [Kindle PC Version].                      Retrieved from Amazon.com

Wikis: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

    The rise in internet usage since the early 1990’s has produced a wide range of tools to process a continuously expanding amount of information.  One of these tools, Wiki, developed in 1994 by Cunningham provides” collaborative web space where anyone can add content and anyone can edit content that has already been published” (Richardson, 2006, as cited by West & West, 2009, Loc. 214).  The growth of the ability to not only read the internet but also “write”/create data revolutionized internet usage and acted as a springboard for today’s constantly evolving internet.  In adult education, Wikis allow individuals to collaborate within a group on the same project/assignment which produce mixed results which I will explained below.

PROS

    I believe the benefits of Wiki’s outweigh the disadvantages when used in an environment with adult learners.  One of Knowles (1984, as cited by King & Cox, pg. 122) tenants of andragogy, state that adults perform better when they are presented with self-directed learning.  Wikis help create the opportunity for self-directed learning as the instructor generally only provides an initial prompt and the group creates the knowledge contained within the Wiki.  In this group learning environment, adult learners are able to participate in a community of practice.  The instructor can help facilitate this by grouping students together with varying levels of expertise.  Initially the more experienced members will instruct the less experienced members on how to use a Wiki or how to gather/develop/create knowledge for the Wiki.  As time progresses the previously less experienced members can join the group as fully functioning members.  This process also mirrors Pratt’s (1998) Apprenticeship Perspective when teaching adult learners.  The teacher or other group members can help facilitate learning by providing a scaffolding for newer/younger members.  This scaffolding builds on previous knowledge in order to create the knowledge required for the current class/project/wiki.  Communities of practice and the Apprenticeship Perspective both provide opportunities for learning outside of the traditional teacher lead discussions.  Wikis provide an excellent opportunity for adult learners to shift to student directed learning rather than a teacher directed learning environment (Hazari et al, 2009).  As the opportunities for adult learning to participate in formal education continue to grow in the online space, the student-directed learning becomes even more important.  For online or asynchronous education options, the teacher is often not available for a traditional “chalk-and-talk” (King & Cox, 2011, pg. 5) lesson.  Warlick (2007, as cited by King & Cox, 2001, pg. 125) also highlighted 3 areas where Wikis offer a huge advantage for adult learners.  In terms of facilitating learning they are, practical, political, and timely.  Wikis provide the ability to generate a lot information in a short time using a format that allows for everyone to contribute.

CONS

The disadvantage of using Wikis are few but should not be ignored.  The most glaring example I noticed was the study Raman et al. (2005, as cited by King & Cox, 2011, pg 128) completed, stating that Wikis were mostly “used for managing and updating information rather than collaboratively creating new knowledge.”  The results from this study goes against Knowles tenants of andragogy, especially the one stating that adult learners are self-directed.  I believe further study may be needed in this area but the study was done at an undergraduate level and the students were given the opportunity to use it as they saw fit.  This study also highlights the importance of how the Wiki is implemented within the adult learning structure.  The teacher needs to ensure it is set up to provide collaboration between group members while creating new knowledge rather than only being an area to store additional information.  Mader (2007, as cited by King & Cox, 2011, pg. 128) concluded that while there is no correct way to use a Wiki, patterns are particularly important when building them.  In a graduate level program with classes only a few weeks long, creating a pattern can be difficult to do.  I have created a Wiki in three prior classes and every time the process for creating Wikis have been different.  This continual change disrupts the pattern that Mader discusses and hinders the learning within the communities of practice as each member tries to figure out the new process

Resources:

Hazari, S., North, A., & Moreland, D. (2009). Investigating pedagogical value of Wiki technology. Journal of information systems education. 20(2). 187-198

King, K. P., & Cox, T. D. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. [Kindle PC Version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Pratt, D. (1998). Five Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education. Malabar, FL: Krieger.

West, J. A. and West, M. L. (2009) Using Wikis for Online Collaboration. [Kindle PC Version].  Retrieved from Amazon.com

Is blogging the same as discussion board activity?

Yes, in the context of this course, it is exactly the same as the weekly discussion board activity.  The class is broken up into a few small groups, given a discussion prompt based on the assigned reading, instructed to make an initial post and comment on other posts before the end of the week.  The only difference between the discussion board and the blog (in this instance) is the location that the conversation occurs.  Blogs offer the opportunity to customize the background upon which the material is presented but the discussion board has the same capabilities to link, insert or copy material from elsewhere.  Within seventeen years of Oravec (2002) publishing her article expounding the virtues of blogging, the benefits are mostly benign as comparable technology has caught up to or surpassed this decades old invention.  I have highlighted the key components of her article with a quick explanation of how, I believe, they are outdated below.

In the absence of a well-developed discussion board, blogging can be a very useful tool for encouraging participation across a wide swath or education.  For formal learning institutions without a well-developed discussion board, blogging offers the benefits of allowing students to find their own voice as well as critically assess online material (Oravec, 2002).  Using blogging in a non-formal education setting, such as workplace training, can be even more beneficial because it is rarely used in these environments. 

Levin and Arafeh’s (2002, as cited by King and Cox, 2011, pg. 95) “digital divide” was interesting because as new technology appears faster and faster, blogging is quickly becoming an obsolete technology.  Training, or re-training, people to use a blog takes precious time and resources away from learning (unless it is a course learning objective/outcome).   Social media today takes many tenants of blogging and makes them easily accessible to the masses.  Facebook, for example, offers all the benefits of a blog along with the option of who gets to see the post through the use of privacy options.  Facebook provides free advertising for your post (through the use of its Newsfeed) and ensures people you know will see what you had to say.  The problem is, Facebook is already becoming an “old technology”.  New (primarily younger) users are flocking to new forms of social media (and blogging) such as Snapchat and Instagram.  The “blog” posts may be shorter and less academic but are being used at a far higher frequency.  The revolving door of social media platforms proves difficult to educators because as one form technology is implemented it already starts to become obsolete.  I think blogging is a good step in the right direction for many forms of education.  I am sure when projectors were first introduced there were plenty of teachers who said that blackboards were far superior.  Taking any step to introduce technology into the classroom is better than no step at all.

Oravec’s (2002) implementation of weblogs in education:

1. Weblog in the classroom – All of the benefits of a blog are currently contained in Canvas’ discussion board
2. Developing student voices – Can be done as effectively on a discussion board
3. Preventing information overload – Google (and related search engines) have improved significantly since 2002. This isn’t the same time frame as conducting a search on Web Crawler using dial up internet.  There is exponentially more information on the internet today than in 2002 but it is categorized far better today. When is the last time you’ve had to go past the first page in your search results?
4. Influence on Journalism – Blogs have significantly changed journalism.  Online articles mirror early blog posts (making them obsolete) and print versions of journalism are going under. These articles mirror a blog post but are still under an umbrella of reputable journalism which is especially important in today’s news climate.  News blogs, unaffiliated with a reputable news source, have been relegated to the realm of radicals, read with extreme caution.
5. Making sense of internet resources – Google (and related search engines) has an entire team of analytical scientists ensuring the best and most updated results appear with each search.  This team will undoubtedly produce better and more up to date results than a single blogger for most general searches.

Resources:

King, K. P., & Cox, T. D. (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. [Kindle PC Version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Oravec, J.A. (2002). Bookmarking the world: Weblog applications in education. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(7), 616-621.