Corporate Podcasting Expressway

It is a rare moment when you tune into a radio show and as you have parked your car you sit and are stunned by a song or even some narrative.
That moment or reflection point, as I call it happened to me last night, whilst listening to the closing minutes of BBC Radio 4’s Last Word.  The programme is hosted by John Wilson and it tells the life stories of people who have died recently.During the last 10 minutes of the programme the poet Fred D’Aguiar who teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech read his poem ‘Elegy’ reflecting on the massacre of 32 students and staff. You can hear it for the next 7 days from this link.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Just found the following that showed a very small increase in 2007 of actual podcast downloads.

CBC Consumer News

The suggestion is that only a rise of 2% was experienced.
To me this implies two diverse findings:

1. Podcast potential exists
2. Podcasts are too complicated / technical or have not penetrated into everyday behaviours.

I call the latter a sense of the technology not being semantic.

The report also says:

The stats come from 1,855 telephone interviews in January 2007. A study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project last November put the U.S. podcast audience at 12 per cent and found one per cent of internet users are downloading a podcast on a typical day.

Popularity: 44% [?]

Originally recorded as a videopodcast, hence a slight sound variation, the following show outlines the potential business applications offered by the convergence of traditional mobile data and media traditionally available on desktop devices. For example, rich video and audio content. We also consider how sms alerts can be incorporated into a number of applications and how e-Induction could deliver immediate efficiency savings for new organisation or project entrants.

To listen to the show, please click on the play button below or subscribe from i-tunes.

Popularity: 23% [?]

I mentioned recently that I would come back to why last week I had such hassle - Here is a copy of the letter I wrote to the Managing Director of my ISP, re: my nightmare, week-commencing 10th April for 5 consecutive days. NB The name of the ISP is not listed and I believe when you work through the detail you will understand why I am motivated to finish one of my books on how organisations have forgotten about the customer!

I decided approx 6-8 weeks ago to move from a shared service to a managed business server.

However, this is what happened on Tuesday 11th April.

1. All of my MySQL configurations had been cleared out!?
2. The result - NO databases!
3. Disruption to my business
4. Stress galore.

My issues

1. No information about why this happened
2. Very poor change control on “isp’s name!”’s basis
3. No warning or communication about what was happening
4. Poor response from support
5. After 3 days I managed to get back my databases by exporting from SQL5 to SQL4 4. Amazingly, you don’t offer MySQL 5 on a dedicated box - again no one told me to prepare for this.
6. On the 3rd day all the server settings were turned off!!!?
7. The latter resulted in NO information on what settings I needed to enter to get all my services restarted.

My expectations

I need compensation for all the hassle, your lack of change control procedures (I’m happy to write some for you - I’m not being funny here just helpful), my loss of some data and disruption to my company business.

I love “isp’s name!”’s competitiveness but fail to understand how change control was missed on this occasion.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Leesa Barnes excellent article highlights how social media humanizes the recent tragedy at Virgina Tech (VT).

With those that took part in using social media, we see the footprints left behind by the poor victims of the VT tragedy.  Therefore, the impact or ripple effect of a lost life is also there and further felt across the world.

We also see that waste of such lives. Their potential to become something in the case of students is now lost. The years of research and teaching that the now departed lecturers will never be able to offer and give cannot be recovered. They were the innocent ones.

What makes us even more distraught about this loss is that the place where the tragedy took place. A place of education is where we all come together as equals to learn from each other.

I believe that the underlying tide of virtual emotion created, has the potential to drive people to change. My fear is that in a world where ‘ranking’ algorithmns are now a game, how can this tide of emotion become a positive force that people can unite around? I guess what I’m also asking here is: Is the Blogosphere not evolving naturally or are some voices being ’sounded out’?

There is hope on the horizon - The more of us that communicate the need for peace or sensible strategies, the greater the chance that some positive ideas will come through into the mainstream of life.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Originally recorded as a videopodcast, hence a slight sound variation, the following show outlines the features, benefits and practical examples (includes a demonstration with National Geographic News Podcast).

I’m thankful to my guest Jon Vanags - Managing director of Phoncasting UK.

To listen to the show, please click on the play button below or subscribe from i-tunes.

The show also communicates adsense type adcasting, a very interesting innovation.

More information on phonecasting can be sought from:

http://www.phonecasting.com
http://www.phonecasting.co.uk

To listen to one of the many working phonecast’s please dial the following number’s:

From the UK: 0 845 685 6077 (charged at UK local rates) or
From the USA: 011 44 845 685 6077 (charged at USA rates)

Feedback is as always, valued.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Wikipedia defines Pedagogy as the art or science of being a teacher, generally refering to strategies of instruction. In addition, instructional design is defined as the practice of arranging media to help learners and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively.

I’m currently working on an e-Learning development and I found some nice pointers on eLearning design. The whole arena of instructional design is big!

I have summarised some of the e-Learning Instructional Design pointers below:

• The learning objectives stated clearly for the benefit of tutor(s) and for independent learners within both the material and the tutor documentation.
• The content should take the learner from the known to the new learning in appropriately sized / structured stages.
• The content should follow a clear strategy to achieve learning but need not be linear in design; a didactic approach to learning and the development of electronic page turning should be avoided.
• With regard to the latter, bite-sized chunks helps but in terms of breaking down the content into several leaves, requires good navigation techniques. For example, my company are working on a large eLearning development programme for one of the largest colleges in the UK and the first thing we have done is to ensure an agreed standard for layout and subject structuring. We’ve chosen learning objects rather than clumping all the learning content into one place.
• The content should help the learner to reflect on, review and digest new learning and not just regurgitate facts.  I’ve introduced the concept of ’show, try and summarise’
• The content should test performance to see if learning objectives have been met. This should not be limited to multiple choice questions and similar devices but should comprise a range of techniques. One could also introduce tests or content for reflection and self analysis.
• With regard to the latter, recently, I’ve added a cross-reference back to a syllabus to check to see if learning content does actually match what was just attempted to have been taught.
• The material should motivate the learner.
• The design should stimulate responses from the learner.
• The content should demonstrate how new knowledge and skills can be applied to real problems and situations.
• The materials should include activities for the learner and keep the learner involved – they should generate a desire in the user to learn and to continue to completion.
• The materials should provide a variety of strategies to accommodate different preferences in learning style.
• The language should be appropriate for the target audience.
• The materials should provide useful and supportive feedback based on the learners responses.
• Media (eg. video clips, sound files, animations) should be appropriate to the learning objectives and not be used gratuitously.
• The materials should provide appropriate help facilities for the learner.
• The content should be accurate, valid, up-to-date and without errors.

All-in-all a range of advice but the element of creativity is also essential. This also needs to be combined with understanding the audience. Cartoon’s do not always work but from experience I believe that story telling does.

One final point, accessibility is key for ensuring for example equality. For example, with deaf learners I remember meeting with Deafax. There are some great techniques, for example, when displaying text, following it with additional text in brackets can help to exert the word.

Extending / Formalising Off-line discussion
This is another area of learning that I believe is under utilised.
To a client I once introduced the concept of the ‘Course Home page’. Interestingly, this concept does actually exist inside products such as Blackboard, i.e: establishing related learning resources combined with a discussion forum.  Can student Blogs help?

Imagine what happens in a class-room, both pre and post the teaching session. In their own way students ask questions of each other, relating to homework/coursework or challenges. A forum is a good way to continue these discussions but on-line.

Podcasting and e-Learning
I noticed on a release of Blackboard that we’re working with that Podcasting can be incorporated. I assume this to be a summary of the lecture, say a recording of what took place. Way back (2-3 years ago - a long time in technology innovation terms!) I remember articles being circulated about Universities giving away IPODs to students to encourage them to listen / revise lectures. In terms of instructional design I wonder how much effort goes into the structuring and scheduling of each episode. For example, do they:

Use a standard format ?
Assume that all listener have portable units?
Use some of the instructional design pointers I listed above?
Serve as more than being just a gimmick?
Introduce an element of accessibility (sign-lanuage for video podcasts)?

Popularity: 28% [?]