IMPALA Informal Mobile Podcasting and Learning Adaptation
Potcasts-Anatomical Podcasts
Royal Veterinary College
Summary
This podcast application was developed in Royal Veterinary College. The purpose was to transform museum specimens into 3D video-podcasts to demonstrate structures and tissues of different systems, so that students from all levels can visit these podcasts at their own time and review knowledge. Over 80 video podcasts were developed and delivered via Blackboard VLE. Each video podcast was about 4-5 minutes long.
Context
The 'Potcasts' were developed for the "Head" module and were to be used by over 200 a second year students in Royal Veterinary College. The purpose was to transform museum specimens into 3D video-podcasts to depict and show different structures and tissues in the Head system.
The Head module was taught in a 4 week block, through lectures, practical sessions, integrated structure and function (ISF) sessions and "Directed Learning" sessions. ISF sessions allowed students to see whether they can apply what they have learnt from the lectures and practical sessions on live animal, and directed learning sessions used a problem-based approach in which students need to work through problems and find out what could have gone wrong by synthesising and incorporating what they have learnt in the rest of the module.
The module was assessed by a written exam and an ISF exam. The written exam consisted of three parts: a MCQ, a practical MCQ where students were asked a problem-based question, and an essay type of question. The ISF exam is the practical exam where students were asked to identify a certain structure and its functions.
Rationale
The Head system has a very complex structure including the central nervous system, the muscles of mastication, the respiratory system, the digestive system, and the sound production system. For this reason, students normally have difficulties in learning the Head system. The module was traditionally taught by PowerPoint slides and textbooks with static pictures showing the head structures. The challenge was that it was hard to develop a 3D thinking from a 2D image. This was why the 'Potcasts' were developed to demonstrate a 3D structure and help students to learn easily. Students can also consult the 'Potcasts' when they do dissection in practical sessions. They can look at the structure shown in the 'Potcasts' and compare what they see with what they do.
Another challenge inherent with the study is that students (especially the first-year and second-year), need to be able to retain and reproduce a lot of anatomical information. For this reason, students always want to go over museum specimen again and again and have a member of staff going through the structures with them. With the 'Potcasts', students can go back to the specimen and retrain knowledge anytime they want. Senior students can also benefit from the 'Potcasts'. They can go back and look at certain structures again and again if they want to specialise on a certain aspect.
'Potcasts' were also developed for the purpose of promoting independent and flexible learning, so students can go through the 'Potcasts' at their own time and at their own pace. It will also free time for staff members. For studying the Head module, students have only 4 weeks to go through the head and the central nervous system. They normally feel there is not enough time for them to assimilate the materials. With the 'Potcasts', students can benefit from going back to reinforce the materials at their own time, especially during the revision period.
Application
Over 80 video-podcasts (‘Potcasts’) have been developed. Most of the ‘Potcasts’ were about 4-5 minutes long.
Technology
The colleagues in RVC provided a complete procedures and steps on how to create a ‘Potcast’:
- Set the perspex museum pot in good light with a video camera pointing at the relevant surface. Ensure the perspex is free from finger prints and other dirt.
- Run the video camera while the lecturer is talking and pointing to structures within the pot using a laser pointer.
- Import the video into Adobe Premiere
- Edit the audio in Adobe Premiere
- Capture the first frame from the video - the 'clean' frame (i.e. no laser pointer) - and open in Photoshop
- Watch the video and create a new layer on top of the clean frame in Photoshop for each area highlighted - use the paint tool at 50% opacity to draw the shape of the structures being discussed. We use red for this highlight, although it might be interesting to test out various colours for different organ systems or other classifications.
- Save the file in Photoshop's PSD format.
- Import the PSD file from Photoshop as a sequence with all the layers (each layer becomes an image in Premiere)
- Stretch the background frame of the PSD to cover the full length of the audio (then turn that layer off)
- Watch the video and position each overlay track in the correct time position and apply fade-in, fade-out to each overlay track
- Turn off the live video layer and turn on the still (PSD) layer of the pot
- Export a full quality version of the video for archive purposes (avi 720 x 576)
- Convert into windows media format (wmv) for website using cleanerXL
- Convert into mv4 for iPod (320 x 240, 384kb/sec, lowest quality audio) using free mediaCoder or other similar tool
- Enhanced podcast file could be created, but is only slightly smaller than this and looses fades using garage band (Mac OS X only)
Evaluation
The impact of podcasting on students’ learning was being captured through a focus group with six students during the middle of semester. Student interviews, lasted about 40 minutes, were conducted using a semi-structured interview schedule developed to explore how student learning is supported by podcasts.
Staff experience of developing podcasts was gathered through a personal interview with the lecturer who developed the podcasts. Information gathered included pedagogical rationale of using podcasts, the development process, and issues encountered.
All interviews with both students and staff were recorded on a digital recorder and transcribed verbatim for analysis to identify key themes and issues. The qualitative data was analyzed using a grounded theory approach and offered by Strauss and Corbin (1990). The analysis of qualitative data was facilitated by using software QSR N6.
Benefits
Help to learn easily
Many students commented that the podcasts helped them to learn easily.
“It’s a shame we didn’t have it in the first year really.
Yeah it would have been really helpful.”
Visual & photographic helps to demonstrate things clearly
The visuals helped students to see the specimen clearly. Many students said that it’s much better to see these things on a video than in a textbook. The visuals help students to remember things better as well.
“It’s just a lot more photographic because I’ve got quite a photographic memory I think so it just sticks in your head a lot better.”
“It’s more visual.”
“I watched some of that and they were, you know showing all the organs in the dog and exploring the abdomen which is, really good, better than looking at it in a book.”
“In the dissections when you are watching someone, it’s quite hard to see what’s going on but the camera work is really good, it’s really focused, really light and you can see right up close really clearly. That’s another thing, in class he points to things with a pointer which is the only thing they can do but on the screen they actually highlight it with a like, I don’t know a marker.”
“It’s clearer.”
“So you can see exactly what they are talking about, it’s really good.”
“It sticks in your head a lot quicker I think.”
“Same, for revision, I think that will be our main difference with revision this year because last year we didn’t have them. It was really hard to revise anatomy because to see it 2D in a book is one thing but to see it when it’s been filmed is a lot more helpful.”
“It’s so much quicker as well, to read through a few pages takes a long time, but to actually see it and here it at the same time is just a lot quicker.”
Informal style helps to learn easily
Another feature that many students like is the informal style of the podcasts. Students felt that they take things in more easily by having someone speaking everyday language and talking things through. Some students described their experiences as having a one-to-one tuition with the lecturer.
“And it’s also a bit simpler I think, hearing someone speak everyday language rather than textbook language. It’s a lot more friendly and you remember it better.”
“Better than a text book drawing.”
“Somebody’s talking you through and you’ve got like a specimen and they’re just talking through.”
“Well up until now, like in the dissections we haven’t had much tuition, like we’ve been given a list of things to do and then we just have to get on with it ourselves, whereas now we actually have someone talking us through.”
“That’s why it’s so useful because in the dissection we never got any tuition in it.” “Yeah we had a few lecturers.”
“This year it was better.”
“Yeah it was better, there’s a lot less lecturers than there are groups so they can’t spend the whole time with one group, so with the podcasts, it’s like spending that one to one time with the lecturer rather than them just coming over for five minutes.”
Help to take notes easily
Some students highlighted the feature that they can pause and rewind the podcast, and that helps them to take notes easily.
“I sometime take notes of stuff that I didn’t know before, and then they talk about. Normally I pause it, write a bit down, play again, pause, write a bit down.”
An easy way to have the key points
Some students commented that the podcasts are normally quite short and they helped them to have the key points in an efficient way.
“I was going to say they tend to cover the sort of key points but compacted as opposed to spending two three hours in dissection, you’d get the main bits of what you need to know in ten minutes or something.”
Revisit material
Many students like the feature that they can go back to the podcasts and watch them again after lectures to catch up the bits they missed during the class. Students also go back to podcasts for revision purposes.
“Yeah that’s the good thing is that you can watch it as many times as you like, we have like ISF and things and they are really helpful at the time but I find that afterwards I come away and forget the whole thing. If you can just go back and play it again, you can look at it whenever really and write things down.”
“It’s like being in dissection again, because obviously you’re in dissection and there’s so much to look at and you forget some stuff, so if then you’re watching a podcast, they’re doing it all over again and you’re like ‘oh yes of course that’s where it was.’ But if you didn’t have that you might just forget.”
“And I watched them after we’d done the dissection because they went back over it and I could say oh that was that bit. Because sometimes you can look at something for ages, not know what it is and then you’ve got the lecturers helping you like. So you can go and find it afterwards, its quite useful in that respect.”
Flexible
Some students commented that watching podcasts brings flexibility into learning. Many students highlighted that they were in more control when learning from podcasts. For instance, they can watch podcasts at anytime that suits them, e.g. before or after class, they can watch podcasts at home, in a more relaxed environment, and they can watch podcasts at their own pace.
“I always tend to look at things at home anyway because I’d be much more relaxed in my own environment and I feel you’re not under any pressure to look at it in a particular time you just look at it at your leisure.”
“(I watched podcasts) At home in the evening.”
“(I watched podcasts) The day before our dissection.”
A good supplement to lectures and textbooks
Many students agreed that podcasts are not likely to replace the lectures and textbooks as much more information will be covered in them. However, the podcasts served as a good supplementary tool to lectures and textbooks. They provided students with an additional way to access resources and helped students to learn easily and efficiently.
“The podcasts are only a tiny proportion of what we have to learn, because there’s so few of them and what we have to learn, there’s so much of it, but obviously for the small amount that it is its good but if they had loads more of them it would be even better.”
“We’d love some more.”
“There’s so many resources that you can use, I mean you have lectures which have what you need to know in them so you’ve got your lecture notes. And you’ve got the dissection which you then have to go to look at it in the flesh kind of thing and then you know you’ve got the internet, you’ve got books, you’ve got pictures and then you’ve got podcasts. It’s a supplement rather than an alternative, you have to use that as well as normal learning, you can’t use that instead of.”
“The thing is with podcasts is that you can pass and do all of your exams quite happily without them, but the thing about them is they’re good as an additional source of learning.”
“For revision and everything, and this is just a supplement.”
“Yeah.”
“It just makes our life a bit easier.”
“I’d say we do use podcasts instead of textbooks to an extent.”
“Yeah, I mean you could if they were more extensive. But there’s much more information in a textbook. So you’re going to need to use that anyway.”
“You’re never going to be able to do a whole module without textbooks.”
“Pretty much the same, if you were to say choose between podcasts and using the textbooks and lectures, then I would choose textbooks and lecture like we’ve said, that’s because you can’t not have that. But then I wouldn’t say no to podcasts because they are useful.”
“As an additional.”
“But not by themselves.”
Positive feeling towards the lecturer
Students build on a positive feeling towards the lecturer who developed the podcasts.
“Yeah it’s nice the ones that do podcasts, you feel they sort of care a bit more because they’re helping us with the podcasts.”
“Yeah.”
“You feel like they actually want you to learn.”
Lessons Learned
Identify common problems
Before developing the podcasts, the colleagues ran a focus group interview with a group of students and tried to identify the areas that students normally have problems with.
Time-consuming
It takes a lot of time to photography, video and annotate the podcasts. Lots of time has been spent on working with the technician and editing.
“…how difficult it is sometimes if you want to have a live specimen, and every now and then you have to have 3 people: you have the technician with a camera trying to focus on the specimen, you have somebody pointing and somebody talking. So there are 3 people already working and then you have to turn round the specimen and you are trying to project it on the screen…I'm not underestimating, it's quite a lot of work to make these pods, you know the hours you put in editing, but the end product is so good…”
However, it was rewarding as the benefit to student learning is obvious, as the lecturer noted,
“So in other words, it becomes a teaching tool as well, a kind of interactive tool you are using it to teach at the same time as asking the students a certain question that might provoke their thinking into more critical thinking. So, going back to your question, how does that compare from what you've been doing and I would say, I look at it in terms of the future, what we are doing because we are still trying to complete the work on the podcasts is I feel our teaching will be much better, it will be more creative for the students, it will be more interactive and I think that you know, the investment in terms of time, is valid. In other words, the students will be able to interact with the material, they'll be able to learn more and will be able to think even more critically and not only that, you have kind of an integration, they'll be able to bring that structure they're looking at and link it with some other materials that they'll be doing in later years, or their clinical years, yeah.”
Future Work
In the future, the college is planning to catalogue a full range of specimens and integrate ‘Potcast’ into new curriculum. The colleague is also planning to provide audio and video devices to students and get them to record their own ‘Potcasts’.
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