IMPALA Informal Mobile Podcasting and Learning Adaptation

Podcasts and Other Project Outputs

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A guide how to use this table

The table contains 10 variables, and each variable offers multiple options, that practitioners need to consider before designing and developing their own podcast application.

Purpose
The design and develop podcast application usually begins with a purpose. IMPALA partners have been experimenting with different approaches of using podcast to address specific pedagogical purposes and challenges within specific discipline areas. Some of the purposes or challenges embedded within podcast are: integrate podcast with other online learning activities, develop students’ study skills through collaborative learning, as extensions to lectures (e.g. summary lectures, podcast lectures), as an extra learning resource to bring topic issues, support student field work (e.g. record field work, provide instructions and location-based information), provide guidance on student practical work (e.g. a visual guide on how to use a software program), transfer museum specimens into 3D video podcasts to depict and show structures and tissues of different systems, and student-developed podcast to promote active, independent and collaborative learning.

Convergence
A good practice of using podcasting is to integrate it within VLEs, offering student 24/7 access to learning materials. It is also beneficial to students if the content in podcasts supplement to other online activities.

Developer
Many podcast applications within IMPALA project was developed with the lecturer’s contributions only. Some IMPALA partners have explored ways of incorporating different voices into podcasting, especially student contributions. This has been done in a number of ways:

1. Interviews with students, colleagues, and experts,
2. Conversations, discussion, debate generated between students or other people
3. Student developed video documentary on fieldwork
4. Use student developed podcast as a means for assessment

Medium
The core medium in podcast is audio that offers advantages in terms of low-cost software and equipments, easy to master the technology, and small file size. However, video works better than audio for practical-based learning, e.g. providing instructions on how to use a software program, field-based learning, and for visual-based learning, e.g. demonstrating structures and tissues in the head system.

Reusability
Podcasts that provide conversations and discussion of the moment, and instance feedback to students’ work offer the benefit of immediacy, live and updated. Other podcasts that provide summary lectures, instructions on practical work and field work are superior in terms of reusability. This offers the benefit of making future updating work simple, and the potential of building a digital repository of reusable and sharable podcasts.

Structure
The structure of podcast is different from one application to another, depending on the purposes. Some developed podcast with multiple sessions and consisted with a variety of elements. Some prefer single session and focus on one particular topic at a time.

 Length
Our findings show that 10-minute is suitable for an audio-podcast, as students are likely to keep concentrated within 10 minutes. Making entire lectures available as podcast lectures is a different case. Although these podcast lectures are usually very long, they have been proved to have their specific values for student learning in IMPALA project.

Regarding the video-podcast, there are short ones about 4-5 minute long, and there are longer ones about 15-20 minute long. All these video-podcasts with different length worked well on students. For practical reasons, some of the long videos were split up on purpose into shorter clips in order to reduce the workload on the server and network, especially during the revision.

 Style
Both formal and informal styles have been used by IMPALA partners. Formal style is suitable for delivering lecture related content (e.g. extensions to lectures). Informal style of podcasts appealed to students. A friendly tone invites students to learn and helps to build intimacy with the speaker. Evidence from the project indicates the potential of using podcasting to record informal learning content such as people’s experiences, opinions, and perspectives that are incorporated in live conversations and discussion.

Capacity
Podcast has been used as a strategy to teach large student cohorts by IMPALA partners, e.g. providing summary lectures, guidance on practical work, and showing museum specimens through podcasting. Students can visit the podcasts at their own time and go through them at their own pace for independent learning instead of coming to the lecturer for one-to-one tuitions.

Frequency
The frequency of developing podcast is different from one case to another, depending on the purposes. Many developed podcasts on a weekly or a fortnightly basis.

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