Podcasts in Biology Laboratory Education

31st Annual ABLE Conference
June 10, 2009

Podcasts can be an effective tool to complement class sessions by delivering original multimedia content to computers and mobile devices. A well-designed podcast can improve understanding, retention, and lab preparedness. A podcast created as part of a student assignment can demonstrate individual learning, foster collaborative learning, and create a multimedia artifact for future classes.

Getting started

1. Although the term podcast has become part of the language (it was the Oxford Dictionary's "Word of the Year" in 2005, we'll need to share a precise definition as the basis for our discussion. The Wikipedia entry for podcast does a good job defining the term.
   
   
2. As a starting point, you should know how to subscribe to a podcast. If necessary, visit How to Subscribe in iTunes. As you become a podcast subscriber and a regular listener, you'll gain an appreciation for the differences between podcasts and fixed multimedia content.

Biology faculty experiences

This session will take a hands-on approach as you discuss the possibilities and create your own podcast. We will start by showcasing exemplary models of the three primary podcast formats (audio only, audio and images, and video) and reviewing the podcasting experiences of biology faculty, Patricia Walsh and David Smith.

Some podcast formats include video, although this session focuses on the creation of enhanced podcasts which are limited to audio and images.

• Lecturer drops lecture for podcasts.
  • From BBC News, May 26, 2006 and The Guardian, December 12, 2006:
    A lecturer in microbiology at Bradford University in the United Kingdom has said he will eliminate traditional lectures from his biochemistry course and replace them with podcasts. Students in Bill Ashraf's class will review the podcasts on their own time. They will submit questions to Ashraf through text messages, and he will respond to those inquiries on his blog. In addition, students needing to meet with Ashraf will be able to check his schedule online and make appointments with the professor through the Web. "Some lecture classes have 250 students," said Ashraf, "so I question the effectiveness of a didactic lecture for an hour." He said the new format will be especially beneficial for distance and part-time students and those with less flexible schedules.
    
    Flash forward to 2009 and you can find Bill Ashraf's latest work on his web site and in iTunes.
    
    
• University of Delaware official podcast directory, includes the recent example, "Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind," from the Year of Darwin Celebration series.
  
  
• Apple's iTunes U offers a directory of educational podcasts that work with iTunes software.
  
  
• An extensive list of educational podcasts is available from The Education Podcast Network.
  

Planning considerations

“Education happens in the classroom, by interacting with other students and with faculty, not by reading some web pages or downloading some materials, or even watching a video lecture.”

—MIT spokesperson Jon Paul Potts, quoted on cNet

General guidelines

• Consider your content first. Scripting is essential for most podcasts.
• Identify the proper duration. Podcasts with short, focused messages are most common, although some exceed 60 minutes.
• Identify the media elements you want to include, such as narration, images, titles, text highlights, and soundtrack.
• Create a high quality audio recording. The Student Multimedia Design Center provides studios and equipment kits. This session will use the Logitech 350 headset, pictured here.

• Use software that can assemble all of your media elements and package them in podcast format. This session will use Microsoft Photo Story 3 (available free from Microsoft) or GarageBand '09 (included with Apple iLife '09).
• Consider how you will transfer your podcast project files and where you will publish the finished podcast. Putting Podcasts Online is recommended for detailed information.
• Choose one platform (Windows or Mac) at the outset and stick with it for an entire podcast production.
• Read more about multimedia planning guidelines before getting started.

Advantages and disadvantages

• Advantages
  • Podcasts are low-threshold form of multimedia content creation and delivery.
  • Podcasts give the consumer a choice of when and where to listen.
  • Podcasts offer a method of "narrow-casting" to a selected subscriber base.
• Disadvantages
  • Creating a good podcast takes time: make sure the effort is appropriate for your project.
  • It will take extra work and patience to identify and capture an audience.
  • Unlike a web page that a reader can visually scan, lengthy podcasts need to take other approaches to efficiently serve users.
  • Podcasts can involve large files that lead to file storage and transfer issues.

Basic studio components

• Microphone, stand, and pop filter [sample]
• Software
  • for Mac only: GarageBand, iMovie, Podcast Producer, and Wirecast
  • for Windows only: PhotoStory, MovieMaker, Captivate, Camtasia
  • for both Mac and Windows: Audacity audio editor [tutorial], ProfCast [now in Windows beta form]
    
• Creative Commons licensing
• [Optional and advanced] audio mixer, photo camera, video camera, tripod, lights
  [annotated views of an advanced studio: version 4, version 5, and version 6]
• A web site host!

Assesment and integration with your course

• Ed-Cast Design & Functionality Scoring Rubric
• Sakai and many other learning management systems support podcast distribution

Make your own podcast

In "Presenting from a Distance: Webcasting Tips," Dave Paradi offers some simple, but useful, advice for anyone giving a presentation via teleconferencing technology:

1. The Internet will limit what you can do.
2. Your audience is multi-tasking.
3. Graphics need more explanation.

Using the University of Delaware’s Student Multimedia Design Center, you’ll take a podcast project from start to finish. Bring an idea for recording a script or take one of ours and we'll guide you through the steps involved to create an enhanced podcast package.

Script. Bring your own script or use a script prepared for this session.

Narration. We'll create an audio narration file during this session using Photo Story on Windows or GarageBand on Macintosh.

Soundtrack. A sample soundtrack file (Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance) is provided with your exercise files. You can also use the built-in music generators in Photo Story and GarageBand.

Images. For this session, we will use a set of images from the UD Desktop Wallpaper collection, available in your exercise folder.

Participants will be separated into Windows and Macintosh computer sites to work through the hands-on exercises. Video podcasts will be demonstrated, but today's exercises and project will focus on the enhanced podcast format that uses only audio and images.

Participants are encouraged to gather images and audio impressions of the conference for the creation of a “podcast post card” during a mini-workshop on Friday, the last day of the conference, from 1-3 p.m.

Resources

1. Seven Things You Should Know About Podcasting (PDF), a concise overview from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative covers how podcasting works, its significance, and its downsides. [session handout]
   
   
2. Podcasting & Vodcasting – Definitions, Discussions & Implications (PDF), from 2005 is dated in some respects but gives an excellent view of how inter-related technologies make podcasts possible. [session handout, page 12]
   
   
3. Microsoft's Photo Story 3 web site: free program download, tutorials, tips, and FAQs.
   
   
4. Lynda.com has five hours of tutorials in "Podcast + Videocast Essential Training." Log-in for free from any Student Multimedia Design Center computer.
   
   
5. Find out more about sounds, mics, sound control, and techniques from the video101 web site, available in the Student Multimedia Design Center.
   
   
6. Find sources for media elements: audio, images, and video.
   
   
7. The Complete Guide to Podcasting delivers what its title promises. Also see a compendium of audio production and podcasting resources by M. Schreiber.