Following on from discussions in the EVO2006 ELT podcasting course, and from the example and guidance of postings by Graham, Ann, and Ruth, amongst others, I have realised that I have been a bit hasty in pushing my students into producing a series of podcasts, without first getting them up to speed as consumers of podcasts.
So today, I made time to:
- check how many have laptops (about two thirds)
- check how many have MP3 players (more than half)
- check how many have subscribed to other podcasts (none)
- how many have used Apple’s iTunes music player and podcast subcriber software (about half)
I showed them showing them how to go to the podcast section of the iTunes Music Store and we checked how you could browse by topic and so on, and we listened to some audio samples snippets and watched a bit of video content.
Then we went to our Podomatic podcast page, and reviewed how to subscribe to iTunes from there, and listened to a bit of the latest podcast. I thanked everyone, and we all applauded each other.
Then we went through the comments that had been left, and I tried to emphasise how I wanted them to be able to produce stuff that was fun to make, and interesting for the audience. I said it had been a bit hard for Jose last time, as he’d had to do it alone, and people had been a bit resistant when it came to recording.
I suggested that if we all planned it together and were able to agree about what we wanted to do, then hopefully everyone would be happier about doing it when it came time to record, and the next guest DJ, Melanie, wouldn’t have such a hard time.
I suggested maybe producing what would be essentially a reply to the comments we’d received, and asked for comments and other suggestions. We talked in circles for a bit.
Melanie’s birthday is in two days, so we agreed to go out to a nearby cafe for a small celebration, and some content was suggested related to that. (Melanie refused to record a solo song, karaoke-fashion!)
There was greater interest and less fear, I think, among the students, so hopefully there might be less resistance to making the next show.
Things are very much up in the air, but we have talked about maybe:
1. surveying people’s experiences of food in Britain (my suggestion)
2. recording us all singing happy birthday to Melanie (Suliman, a new member of the class)
3. recording secret birthday messages to Melanie, which she can only get by listening to the podcast – i.e. reducing the audience to a single person! Is that really the way we want to go?!! – (Jose’s suggestion, I think)
I talked to Melanie afterwards. She’s still rather anxious about it, but says she’ll have a go.
3 responses so far ↓
1
Marco Polo
// Jan 26, 2006 at 5:43 am
I think a key point in blogging/podcasting is that you ARE writing/speaking for an audience, but you don’t know who that audience is exactly, and if you post it on the Internet (as opposed to a closed forum behind a membership and password) you have no control whatsoever over who will read or listen to it. Yet this very vagueness can be a strong point. For instance, rather than seeing “podcasting secret birthday messages to Melanie” as “a podcast for just a single audience”, see it as potentially of great interest to a whole lot of curious humans out there who might be invited to be involved in one way or another – which message will Melanie like best? Which one do YOU like? What was the best birthday message/wish/present you ever got? I think Jose has a knack for this kind of privacy in public format (he came up with this idea, right?) and you should trust him and let him follow his instincts.
One of the best blog postings I ever saw was also ridiculously simple: “I’m just popping down to the shops. Want anything?” People from all over the world left their wishes in comments! They ranged from the whimsical to the hilarious to the practical. It was a fascinating exercise in cyber-space socialising.
2
geofftaylor
// Jan 26, 2006 at 10:11 pm
Dear Marco
Thanks for these comments. Yes, José is a pretty clued-in guy.
Tomorrow is the day for recording, editing and publishing the next episode, so we’ll see what happens. Fingers crossed.
3
Graham Stanley
// Feb 5, 2006 at 11:39 am
all very fascinating stuff, Geoff and Marco – I love the post about popping to the shops.
I too have found that in opening up the audience for student podcasts, you start to see a totally new dynamic, and students become more interested in producing work that is of a higher quality.