|
New technologies just arriving on the scene this year offer some different ways to communicate via digital audio and offer interesting tools for teaching and learning. The popularity of the ubiquitous Apple iPod has expanded the familiarity and reach for audio content. Institutions such as Duke University boldly stepped out by offering all incoming students iPods (with some mixed reviews).
In this article, you will find an overview of tools available now for two-way audio conversations via the internet as well as the audio publishing phenomena known as "podcasting." To better understand how people are using these technologies and where they think the fit is for teaching and learning, I conducted mini digital audio interviews with more than 20 people, within Maricopa and quite far outside, asking people to share what digital audio devices they owned, what content they listen to, and what ideas they had for using digital audio in education. You can find the entire collection at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/podcast.html.
In this article I also introduce the range of tools used in the interviews and some of the ideas that emerged from the viewpoints shared.
Are you ready to hear and talk on the 'net? Good.
Tools of the Audio Trade
I recorded many of the interviews using an iRiver portable MP3 player/recorder. About the size of two packs of gum, the 256MB model I used can record up to four hours of audio .wav files, transferred to my computer via a USB cable. I recorded during travel to New York City for the League for Innovation conference and a trip to Boston, as well as interviewing Maricopa colleagues in my office. The interview with Dr. Diana Oblinger (EDUCAUSE) was recorded during a phone call, so the sound quality is poor. The iRiver was used next to a laptop to record a conversation with Dr. Roger Yohe (Estrella Mountain) as we used HorizonWimba, an audio conference board Roger's college is exploring. Audio software allowed me to remove my voice as interviewer.
A few other interviews were conducted using software for audio internet chat, including iChatAV for Mac OS X and Skype a free service and software for Windows and Mac OS X that allows you to "call" any other Skype user on the internet, and have a clear, two way conversation. Both of these tools work like instant messaging software where you create "buddy lists" of your contacts. A USB headset is very helpful for computer conferencing - I use one sold by Plantronics. For these sessions I used a Mac OS X program called WireTapPro that captured the audio directly to MP3 file format.
It made it easier when a few individuals including David Weaver (Chandler-Gilbert), Cheryl Colan (Phoenix College), and Sue Lister (Ontario, Canada) got my questions via email, and simply recorded their own responses and sent me their audio files. David got clever and inserted a clip of Brad Pitt from the movie Snatch to represent my asking questions!
"Audacity" is a free audio editing software that comes in versions for all operating systems. This software allows you to edit audio much like a word processing program, cutting and pasting clips, deleting segments, as well as adding audio effects and mixing sources. And most importantly, you can convert audio formats from the large files created by your computer to those web friendly MP3 files. Once loaded on a web server, an MP3 file will stream its content when requested.
That's the techie nuts and bolts - what did people have to say about digital audio?
The Podcasting Craze
It has long been possible to post audio content on a web site and allow visitors to hear the content via their computer. "Podcasting," a term that did not exist before August 2004, has become one of the hottest technology innovations. Using free software, "podcasting" allows you to automatically download audio content from a site and have it transferred to your personal digital audio device or saved on your computer for later listening. It may be misnamed, as it is not limited to Apple's iPods.
What this means is that you are able to shift the time and place you listen to audio content. Not chained to a computer, you can listen offline as you drive to work, commute on the subway, while exercising, or relaxing on a hammock in the forest. Some are calling this the "TiVo of audio."
Podcasting web sites load the MP3 files on their servers and publish a regular update in RSS (Really Simple Syndication) format - more or less a brief summary of the audio content and a link to the source.
If you find a podcasting site that regularly publishes audio content that is of interest, you locate the RSS feed, and add it to a list of subscriptions in any number of podcast software programs. These are free desktop programs that monitor the RSS feeds, and when it detects new audio content, automatically downloads the MP3 files to your computer. Any new audio is automatically moved to your MP3 player the next time you attach it to your computer.
Personal Use of Digital Audio
Almost every person interviewed owned at least one portable MP3 player or an iPod, and most were familiar with listening to content on their computers. D'Arcy Norman from Calgary claimed "iPod is surgically attached to my hip." They use the portable devices to listen to mostly music while commuting, traveling long distance, walking, or exercising. Shelley Rodrigo wears her iPod while in her office at Mesa Community College so she can keep the door open but indicate she is busy. "It becomes a sound wall that will allow me to stay focused on my work."
The types of content accessed (I put some people on the spot to name the last digital audio content they heard) include The Chemical Brothers, Great Big Sea (Newfoundland sea chanties), the "I have a Dream" speech, comedy skits, Lawrence Lessig speaking on "Free Culture," classic rock music, Rob Reynolds XPlanazine podcasts, relaxation music, "These Dreams" by Heart (Bert Kimura won via a Pepsi bottle cap), Japanese pop music, Tibetan mediation bells, Sting, the BBC "In Our Time" broadcast on angels, and chapters from the Bible.
More and more, the people I talked to are taking advantage of other types of audio content, audio books, and the radio type broadcasts now made available from the BBC, National Public Radio (NPR), and the CBC. The first "podcasts" by early adopters were on content related to technology (e.g. ITConversations) but they are already broadening to things such as the BBC's "In Our Time" show. To be better informed, Tom Foster (Chandler-Gilbert) downloaded the campaign speeches from the 2004 elections. Amy Gahran, blog publisher of "Contentious," noted the recent foray into podcasting by last year's Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards.
Diana Oblinger shared how audio recording and podcasting have been used extensively at two EDUCAUSE conferences this year. Students from University of Missouri Journalism School interviewed attendees and put their own wrapper around the event: "We are getting a student filter on our many activities' We have limited space at our events, so people who cannot come are able to follow via podcasts and blogs in as close to real time as possible. It also helps people who attended as they have a digest to share with other colleagues."
Most of the interviews cited the value of being able to access content while engaged in other activities away from a computer or reading. As Maureen Zimmerman (MCLI and Mesa Community College) noted, "I have considerable time in my day for learning - time when I cannot read but I can listen. I listen to my iPod when I'm driving, exercising, and doing things around the house."
Digital Audio In Teaching and Learning
When asked about the use of digital technology in an educational context, most leaped first to the idea of recording lectures or classroom discussions for later review and playback. While a number then lamented the idea of lectures online, Philip Long (MIT) cited an example from a Chemistry class where the lectures were optionally made available as digital audio. "The faculty member thought there were six people in class who were cheating - they had scored significantly higher on test scores. They were not cheating, and the only thing in common was that they had all accessed the audio content."
Several people discussed the value of audio as an effective reinforcement for learning. According to Diana Oblinger, "One of the things we know about how people learn is if you stop and reflect on it orally or teach it to someone else, you process the information differently, you are more likely to remember it, more likely to understand, and we think that there may be something there - by articulating your own reflection or summary of a session, that people will internalize it more deeply." In addition, this technology fills the need for students with preferences for audio learning styles. For the large region his district serves in British Columbia, Gerry Paille sees digital audio as a means for remote rural students to interact with those in more populated centers.
Some subject areas where digital audio can obviously be used include foreign languages, ESL, and communication. After noting that many Japanese students learn English from modern music, Bert Kimura incorporated his iPod in his English Conversation class. "I got a lot of 'wows'; Apple's iPod has become a brand name product here in Japan." Sue Lister (online educator in Ontario) thinks via a system of audio pen pals, students could create audio books. David Weaver (Chandler-Gilbert) has already leaped into his own podcasting experiments with content he is loading into his electronic portfolio.
Susan Smith Nash (Excelsior College) sees applications in first year composition, as PDAs and MP3 players allow the content to come into the context of where people live and work. English faculty Shelley Rodrigo (Mesa) can see using digital audio to provide comments on student papers, "There are times I would like to talk about a massive amount of revision... I can talk through it in a way that does not work as well by writing/typing it out." Consultant Amy Gahran (Boulder) sees audio content as a way to provide in the field training for people who work in industry or "places where people need to have their eyes focused on a something else."
Many of the interviewees see recording of digital audio as a tool for creating digital stories. According to Dembo, digital audio "is just one more method of multimedia not usually used. Most people jump from written text to movie making; audio would save a lot of time and effort and still give students a digital experience."
At the University of Texas-Pan American, David Sturges teaches Digital Media for Management and Marketing for the College of Business Administration. The topics of his course change so rapidly that no traditional textbook adequately fills the need. In 2004 Sturges posted for his class a textbook of all audio podcast content, a collection of MP3 files of panel discussions from conferences sponsored by ITConversations and other sources.
At Penn State University, CIS faculty Cole Camplese deployed a system that converted his students' required discussion board posts in their course management system (Angel) to MP3 audio files which he loaded onto his iPod. Using the built-in iPod 5-star rating system, Camplese created a rubric that allowed him to achieve what he called "on click assessments" recorded in his iPod, that could be later transferred back to his course gradebook.
So What Does All This Noise Mean?
First, this technology is brand new and constantly evolving. Its appeal is that it connects with the technology our students are using in their everyday lives, and as noted by Roger Yohe (Estrella Mountain) and others, the time/space shifting of audio content is beneficial to working/busy commuter students.
In addition, the technology is available for no/low cost. You do not need an iPod, as the basic capability for accessing and listening to digital audio content comes with modern computers. And the range of content becoming available is increasing and will grow more diverse in the next months.
With the examples discussed here and elsewhere, there are many levels you can easily dive into digital audio whether it is just accessing audio content or moving into creating your own. The excitement and rapid evolution of podcasting speaks loudly to what it offers. As Diana Oblinger stated, "By allowing people to multitask while commuting and exercising, it removes the limitations of space and time that we have seen before - it also allows us to be able to reach out to people who may not be as text based as we are."
Can you hear that? Good.
| 
