That's Podutainment

Practicing IDOL

2005-06-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

Not that I claim to be informed about everything … that would be an impossible task … but, I am not sure how this article got by my radar. This article is a nice description of where ID is heading as a profession. Here is the abstract for your consideration.

Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) professionals practice their skills in a broad range of career environments and job roles. The resulting collection of competency lists and wide range of practice environments, coupled with the frequent changes that have always characterized the field, produce complexity that is difficult to communicate to IDT students. However, students need to understand these complex aspects of the field so that they can make informed decisions about their career goals and educational direction. This review of the current literature looks at the current issues impacting practice and preparation. It concludes that the path professional academic preparation programs choose will depend on their orientation to instructional design and performance improvement, and whether they see themselves as preparing students for specific career environments or are pursuing a generalist program

Reference:
Larson, Miriam B. & Lockee, Barbara B. (2004). Instructional Design Practice: Career Environments, Job Roles, and a Climate of Change. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 17(1), 22-40

David

Podcasting Ideas

2005-06-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

You can hear the podcast by downloading the mp3 file ...

On my way to work this morning I had a great idea! In my spare time, I came up with 50 ideas that people could use to create their own “podcast.” Some are funny. Some of them are serious. I offer them here for your podutainment.

David

Some songs ...

2005-06-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

I thought that I would record a couple of numbers (satires) to use as both the intro to my podcasts and to wrap up my podcasts. Here are the lyrics ...

That Was My Podcast
You can hear the podcas downloading the mp3 file ...

That was my podcast
I just loved to sit and podutate ...
Oh yeah ...

That was my podcast
you must admit that it was really great
Uh huh ...

Done online with some free software
downloaded from some site ...
some address that I can't recall ...
and I do not even care ... mmmm do not care ...
that's right

That was my podcast
short and sweet for lis-in-ing delight
Oh yeah ...

That was my podcast
No rebuttle so I must be right ...
Uh huh ...

a satire based on the melody from Eric Clapton's "I Shot The Sheriff"

That's What We Call Podutainment
You can hear the podcast by downloading the mp3 file ...

There's a bald guy recording in Kirksville (2x)
He uses a mic with 12 foot long cord ...
From the sound of his voice he must really be booooooored

It's what I call podutainment
Ramblings, and musings and such ....
It here for your entertainment
to download and replay a bunch.

He is witty, verbose and insightful (2x)
He likes to drone on about learning online ...
He sits in his chair and leans back one more time.

chorus

He writes out some words for a transcript (2x)
He reads them aloud, and stresses a pun ...
He records anyway all he wants is some fun.

chorus

A satire based on the melody from Rogers and Hamerstein "Oh What A Beautiful Morning" (Oklahoma)

No Significant Difference

2005-06-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

You can hear the podcast by downloading the mp3 file ...

OK, I know I have been gone for a while ... but I am back!
Demands in my Ph.D. program and helping faculty launch their summer courses ...
Whew ....

Calgon ... take me away!
Actually it could be "Harly! or Disney! or Chevy! or Honey! or ...
I think I will stop now.

My podcast on No Significant Difference is long overdue, so I will tell you what hopefully you have been waiting patiently to hear. When it comes to face-to-face learning being compared to online learning ... there is no significant difference.

You heard me right.
Would you like to know why that is?
I thought so ... good teaching is just good teaching.
Good pedagogy is just good pedagogy.

Well, hold your horses there cowboy!
Remember that for every Pro someone is likely to offer a Con? So, since this is my podcast, I will present my bias ... and let anyone who wants to comment on my posting. How's that for fair?

I want to cite two reliable studies, completed at Universities close to my own. The first study by Gary Wyatt was completed at an MIAA conference school (psssst, that's the same conference Truman State is in) and the other (1999) by a school in Iowa. I also offer a third study conducted way over in New England.

All three studies found that online courses were, according to participating students, more rigorous than the same face-to-face courses. The reasons could include a) opportunity for exploratory learning; b) more structured assignments; and c) more opportunity to cheat but more mechanisms in place to catch cheating.

The findings of Wyatt confirmed that more than 50% of online students reported that the course was more difficult than offline (face-to-face) course. While this is good news for most of us who have always believed that online courses could be as challenging as any other format, it should also be good for other non-adopters. How? Faculty now have reason, based upon sound research, to begin offering their courses in a blended or hybrid format.

Agree or disagree? Let me hear from you.
I hope I have given you something to think about.
That's podutainment!

References:
Ridley, D.R. & Husband, J.E. (1998). Online Education: A Study of Academic Rigor and Integrity. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 25(3), 184-188

Snell, J. & Mekies, S. (1999). Online Education and Academic Rigor: A Research Note. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 26(3), 194-195

Wyatt, G. (2005). Satisfaction, Academic Rigor and Interaction: Perceptions of Online Instruction. Education, 125(3), 460-468

Educational Podcasting

2005-04-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

You can hear the podcast by downloading the mp3 file ...

There are a variety of alternatives for educators who wish to podcast, but to a restricted audience. This means, using content exclusively for courses that are currently offered. Imagine being able to restrict, by date and time, the content that you create for your courses.

Imagine that you have to travel away from campus and yet you want to present your ideas on a current topic. So, in the convenience of your office you record your MP3 file and decide to make it available to the students in your class. However, you only want them to be able to listen to it on the day of the scheduled lecture. Is it possible? Of course!

There are four possible publishing options for faculty. Not all allow for easy restriction of access, although they can be restricted with some tweaking.

The first method would be to publish the file to your personal website. If you have password protected the page that the file is linked from, then you will created a minimum degree of security and control. If not, anyone with Internet access will be able to access the file.

The second method would be to publish the file to your blog. This may be more public than your personal page, since blogs are spidered regularly and it is likely that if you leave the link visible for more than 3 or 4 days, it will begin to show up in search engines like google.

The third method would be to have the file stored on the campus library server and listed in the electronic reserves. You could limit the time that it is visible by setting an expiration date. The downside is that anyone within your library consortium having a user account could “in theory” find and listen to the file. If you only have the file available for a week, it is unlikely there will be many unauthorised listeners, but it is possible. The advantage is that it provides your students with a single place to access electronic reserves in addition to your audio lectures (MP3).

The fourth method, and my recommended favourite, would be to have the file stored within your course shell on your campus course management system. It really doesn’t matter which CMS you are using. We use Blackboard and I have extensive experience using WebCT. You can publish your MP3 in the course documents section and turn on the date/time to show and the date/time to hide. This gives you optimal control, since users must enter a password and be enrolled in your course.

I suggest using educational podcasting because the files that you create are reusable. This means that when you have a recording on a particular topic, you can publish again and again … not that eliminates redundancy in work and saves times! What is the goal of all great instructional technology? SAVE TIME, you got it!

Podcasts, Newsfeeds and Blogs ... oh my!

2005-04-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

You can hear the podcast by downloading the mp3 file ...

Podcasts, newsfeeds and blogs oh my!
I thought you might like the obvious reference to the unforseen threats encountered on the "Yellow Brick Road" in the Wizard of Oz.

This can only mean that what we once think of as daunting and scary, will actually turn out to be quite tame - while at the same time - requiring a watchful eye.

Hi my name is David Penrose

Im the Instructional Designer here at Truman State University and this is my weekly podcast for April 13, 2005.

As I was thinking about this weeks pre-service, technology tidbit, and what I am hoping will become a regular monthly symposia ... I wanted to share some relatively recent developments to integrate what I have been hawking as the technology of 2005!

What I discovered is that Blogger has now integrated with other services to provide a virtual communication suite which includes text (blogs), feeds of updated information (RSS), audio recordings (podcasts), and images (flickr.com). ALL of these are FREE and available in both MAC and PC flavors.

In reflecting on this cornicopia of eye and ear candy, I wondered exactly how this could directly impact educators in higher education. Could this become the instructional technology of the equivalent of "bread and water"? Hmmmmmm .... that is yet to be determined.

What I do know is that this integration is bringing the accessibility to emerging technology back to a simple level, so that there are NO excuses for anyone NOT to use them. How so? The learning curve is infinitesimal. If you can use a telephone and send an email message, you have the skills NOW! Nothing else is required to populate by publishing.

So how does all of this work?
Create a BLOG, post via email, call in a podcast, promote the feed!
That is it!

Distance Learning - Some Interesting Thoughts

2005-03-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

You can hear the podcast by downloading the mp3 file ...

In future podcasts I will talk about systematic instructional design, but for right now, I restrict my comments to just Distance Learning. There are a few presuppositions that must be considered before making a final decision. First, are ALL learners created equal? If the answer is yes, then a prewritten course might be the solution. If the answer then NO, then you have to consider the benefits of “proximity” to the source. Second, are ALL learners self-motivated and disciplined enough to manage a schedule of learning which is entirely asynchronous? If the answer is yes, then you are teaching a fairly atypical group of students. If the answer is NO, then you better consider having frequent deadlines for smaller assignments. Finally, is it possible to determine when a student isn’t quite grasping the material without being able to see that glazed look in their eyes? If the answer is yes then you are likely having frequent threaded discussions. If the answer is NO, then you should consider a few “close encounters.”

I can tell you from experience, online learning fails for three main reasons. Students don’t learn because they weren’t prepared adequately for the material, or they weren’t motivated to get the work done on time, or they didn’t grasp the new material. Interestingly? These are also problems in the traditional method of teaching. So, what does this mean?

Well, for me, the question of Distance Learning is one of quantity. How much distance is acceptable between the source and the learner. How frequently should that distance be minimized (decreased, shortened, lessened)?

We already know that traditional learning includes a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning activity. Staunch traditionalists argue MINIMUM distance learning is best. Amazing that they assign homework (which is by imposition asynchronous) as a “learning activity.” Can hardly say that any of them are purists. Hardcore distance educators argue MAXIMUM distance learning – anytime and anywhere learning is best. Amazing that they still set deadlines for work to be completed, so we can’t say that any of them are truly purist? Can we.

So if there is no such thing as a purist … what choice do we have? To be honest with you, it’s the same choice we have always had … good pedagogy is just good pedagogy!

Each professor must find the right balance between both synchronous and asynchronous activity over the time given to teach and learn the material. There are strategies that are suited for each. I like to think of these as instructional technologies/strategies.

Before you go deciding that there is no place in this world for Distance Learning, you would be wise to re-examine the terms. Well, that is what I wanted to say about that.

Weekly Update

2005-03-21T07:42:00.000-08:00

Welcome, I have decided to post the topics for my upcoming podcasts. I have selected these topics based on a plan to introduce listeners to the area of Instructional Design, from my perspective.

03/20/2005 Podutainment - Welcome
03/27/2005 Future of Distance Learning
04/13/2005 Podcasts, Newsfeeds and Blogs ... oh my!
04/27/2005 Educational Podcasting
05/05/2005 No Significant Difference

Let me know if you hear a podcast by dropping me a line, my email address is david@dpenrose.com or david@podutainment.com ... either way, I hope you find these broadcasts "podutaining."

Podutainment - My First Podcast

2005-03-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

You can hear the podcast by downloading the mp3 file ...

Welcome to the premiere podcast of "That's Podutainment."
My name is David Penrose, I am the founder and host of "That's Podutainment.

I am podcasting from Kirksville, Missouri. Just in case you don't know where that is ... Kirksville is located in Northeast Missouri, approximately 120 miles due north of Jefferson City (the state capital). Kirksville is a town of 17,000 people and home to Truman State University and the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, 1 Super Wal-Mart and soon a Home Depot. Actually that census number is from August through May - the summer head count is much closer to 9,000.

I wish I could say that Kirksville were your typical University town, but ... well I can't say that with a clear conscience. I bet you couldn't tell that I'm not from around here, could ya?

I'm actually a native of St.Louis - and come here via North Dakota - which is a long story which I will save for later.

I digress. You hear that big word? That means I was startin to get off the subject.

OK, well this is, what I am hoping will be the first of many podcasts. I thought I would start by tellin you a little bit about myself, what I do for a livin, why I've started this program, tell ya a few jokes, and give you an idea about what you can look forward to in future podcasts.

First, you may be sittin there scratchin your head and wonderin to yourself ... "hmmm, what the heck is podutainment?" Well, "podutainment" is actually what educated folk would refer to as a "port-man-toe knee-ol-uh-jism" ... now before you go gettin your shorts in a bunch thinking I have insulted ya, let me tell you what that means. A portmanteau is a word that is made up by combining two or more other words. Neologism means a new use for a word. So, PODUTAINMENT is a brand NEW word made up of Portable/Educational/Entertainment ... and means according to me - "the act of delivering material (text/audio) using portable devices that is both educational and entertaining."

See, you're learning new stuff already and I just barely got started.

That's Podutainment

2005-03-20T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have just launched a site, devoted to promoting "podutainers." You might be asking yourself "what is a podutainer?" Well, in short, it is someone devoted to delivering material (text/audio) for portable devices that is both educational and entertaining.

This site is being created to provide direct access to a target of 150 podutainers who broadcast one show each week. Our aim is to eventually create a satellite show which will broadcast continually - repeating broadcasts only twice from Monday through Saturday, and then the best 12 shows of the week, broadcast repeatedly on Sunday.

You can check out our site at www.podutainment.com