"Audio/Video Podcast: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners."

Podcasting might be thought of as a form of academic gift.

--Les Back

What is a podcast?

Before diving into a discertation, let’s look at the word “podcast” itself. First mentioned by Ben Hammersley in a 2004 Guardian newspaper article in which he rattled off possible names for this booming new medium, the “pod” of podcast is borrowed from Apple’s “iPod” digital media player; and the “cast” portion of podcast is taken from Radio’s “broadcast” term.  As you may know, just because it’s named after Apple’s iPod, does not necessarily mean that you have to own or use an iPod — or any portable digital media player for that matter — to enjoy a podcast (internationalpodcastday.com).

iPod+Broadcast=Podcast

As I learned in our reading this week, podcasts are digital audio files posted on the internet and pushed to listeners through XML/RSS feeds and are made available via Web sites and podcast directories (King and Cox, p.34).  I have a confession...I am not a podcast listener.  However, the more I research and read about this medium, the more I shake my head that I have not taken advantage of podcast listening!   Did you know that six years ago Apple announced that it had one billion podcast subscribers?  Amazing!  There is even a National Podcast Day that just celebrated its sixth year this past September 30 (internationalpodcastday.com). J

How do podcasts fit in with adult learning?  

Just like blogging, wikis, discussion boards, etc…podcasts have a place in learning.  The use of recorded audio in education has a long history of effectively impacting student learning (King and Cox, p.37).  Let’s take a look at the benefits of podcasts, and touch on a couple of pitfalls:

Pros:

·       The success of podcasting is due, in part, to the convenience and pervasiveness of the modern smartphone.  Think about it, people today are constantly on the go—but almost never without their cell phones. And thanks to music and radio streaming services, people have easy access to a wide range of podcasts to listen to during their commutes, car rides, gym sessions, and even during work. (Zoominfo.com)  Some might say that podcasts act like an audio Netflix.

·        Reach!  Anyone on the internet has access to podcasts, whether one is looking for a class lecture, or perusing iTunes University for a particular subject.  Podcasts are easy to get to and are useful for all ages.

·        Podcast assignments require students to think critically, plan and organize content, and demonstrate their mastery of an area of study or subject.

·        Completed student podcast assignments provide instruction and real-life examples for future classes and learners.

·        One of the most significant advantages to an adult distance education program from the use of podcasting is the ability to use interviews and discussions with external or internal experts in order to teach and inform the adult learners who might not find time for face-to-face education (Roy and Roy, 2007).

Cons:

·         A major drawback to podcasts in higher education arise when podcasting are made synonymous with lecture webcasting (King and Cox, p.37).   This becomes useful for students when content is edited for consumption (condensed).

·         One area that needs to be highlighted are the rules surrounding copyright, patent, and intellectual property laws covering podcast components to include songs, sound effects, etc.  It will be important for instructors to set clear guidelines for the do’s and don’ts of podcast assignments.  Without good guidance, a podcast assignment may lead to legal troubles for student/school/podcaster.

One thing is clear to me from this blog assignment…I will be investigating podcasts for both my work/school enrichment and for areas of interest!  Please feel free to give me feedback and share your favorite podcasts! :-)

References:

https://blog.zoominfo.com/podcasting-quotes-business/ referenced on October 9, 2019.

https://internationalpodcastday.com/what-is-podcast/ referenced on October 9, 2019.

King, K.P. and Cox T.D., (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. Charlotte, NC: INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Roy, A.K. and Roy, P.A. Intersection of training and podcasting in adult education. Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 47, Number 3, November 2007.

Image reference:

Snibbe, Kurt. Orange County Register. How podcasts compare to other forms of media. August 24, 2017.

Multi Media Interview Assignment (RPA Interview)

Robots are taking over the world! J

Well…not really.  But it is safe to say that RPA (robotic process automation) is sweeping the business world! 

RPA is a revolution in business!  With RPA, businesses can automate mundane rules-based business processes with a “bot”, enabling business users to devote more time to serving customers or other higher-value work. Others see RPA as a stopgap en route to intelligent automation (IA) via machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) tools, which can be trained to make judgments about future outputs. (Cio.com)

Let me try to explain what a “bot” can do… 

Pretend that you were just hired at ABC Incorporated and it is your first day.  You will be asked to fill out information for citizenship, benefits, payroll, an employment application with emergency contacts, etc…  Your new company will take all of the information and the payroll person will enter it in the payroll and 401(k) system, the benefit person will enter you in the medical benefit system, the HR person will enter your application into the “employee” database, etc…  With RPA, “bot” software can take employment data and put it in all the systems, timely and error free.  See the power?

This week I had the pleasure to interview Morgan.   Morgan has spent the last six months helping implement “bots” in my organization in the areas of payroll, accounts payable, and expense account processing.  In the interview, I try to focus on her learning opportunities with this new technology, and the experiences for the existing employees in these areas of business.   Please click here for the link to the 7 minute interview: 

Morgan RPA Interview

I am interested in your questions and feedback…”bots” are a new technology that are changing the business landscape!

References

https://www.cio.com/article/3236451/what-is-rpa-robotic-process-automation-explained.html referenced on October 1, 2019.

"Wikis for collaborative learning, knowledge construction, critical thinking, and contextual application."

Anyone who knows me...knows that I am passionate about employee development and training, employee connectedness to the organization, and employee retention.  I have been in the same global company for 30 years and it is a part of me.  When I first started researching and learning about wikis (last week J), I immediately connected the usefulness of the media platform to company initiatives for global companies.  Although this week’s grad homework is to build a lesson plan using a wiki, I am going to add a twist and make it a company project…one that I would love to facilitate one day.  The target audience for this post and associated plan/project would be any HR professional or manager interested in improving recruitment, engagement, and retention of employees.

With this blog posting, I am going to highlight my ideas for integrating a wiki tool into a company initiative to help aid the collaboration, critical thinking, and eventual presentation for a new “onboarding” program.  The overall purpose of a wiki is to support the team’s needs for building a shared understanding of a topic, goal, or objective; to support team processes such as planning, research, and problem solving; and to create team outcomes through a shared document or set of documents. (West and West, p. 5)

What is onboarding?  “Onboarding” is more that an employee’s first day on the job.  It is also more than a one- week orientation in a new organization.  Onboarding is a means of increasing employee productivity and engagement levels, reducing turnover, and elevating a company’s employment brand in the eyes of prospective hires (Stein and Christiansen, 2010).

Similar to a lesson plan, the initiative would look like this:

Title: Creating a Strategic “Onboarding” Program for ARX Company.

Project Participants: Sampling of the Organization’s HR Professionals – all of whom have some technology skill, experience.

·         Project Lead/Facilitator – Kansas City (Shelly)

·         Chicago, IL (Diane)

·         Hammond, IN (Mary)

·         Petersburg, VA (Phyllis)

·         Sahagun, Mexico (Jose)

·         St. Louis, MO (Matt)

Learning Objective: Research, review, and share content and ideas to create a strategic “onboarding” program to be used by the company to:

                                          i.    Create a competitive advantage.

                                        ii.    Increase employee productivity and engagement.

                                       iii.    Reduce turnover.

                                       iv.    Strengthen brand recognition, elevate the company’s employment brand.

                                         v.   Measure program effectiveness.

Lesson Plan/Project Structure: 8 weeks for all participants

·         Week 1 –

                                          i.    Read Chapter 1-2, Successful Onboarding by Mark A. Stein and Lilith Christiansen, 2010. 

                                        ii.    Post to project discussion board the following by Friday EOD:

1.     Your business units turnover rate

2.    Any initial questions/concerns regarding the project

3.    Three ideas from the text the group should consider

·         Week 2 –

                                          i.    Review and respond to discussion board postings from week 1.

                                        ii.    Read Chapter 3-5, Successful Onboarding

                                       iii.    Watch video “wiki in plain English” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

                                       iv.    Read the article: What are wikis and why should you use them?

 https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/what-are-wikis-and-why-should-you-use-them--cms-19540

                                         v.    Go to the project wiki sandbox and post one onboarding idea and one relevant picture (practice) by Friday EOD.

·         Week 3 –

                                          i.    Review the wiki sandbox for group posts.  Provide feedback on the project discussion board with experiences – struggles, questions, tools, recommendations to share with the group.

                                        ii.    Read Chapter 6-7, Successful Onboarding

                                       iii.    Go to the project wiki sight and post at least two ideas or past experiences related to “an employee’s first week” requirements by Friday EOD.

·         Week 4 –

                                          i.    Read Chapter 6-7, Successful Onboarding

                                        ii.    Post to the project discussion board the three most relevant insights you learned regarding what hired employees need in the first week, month, and year by EOD Friday.

                                       iii. The project facilitator will create a home page introducing the initiative.  Also, the Project wiki site will have five tabs: (one) First week – HR; (two) First week – Mgr.; (three) Training; (four) Connectedness; and (five) Diagnostic.  Post a relevant idea into tab one, two, or both, from what you learned through reading or experience.

·         Week 5 -

                                          i.    Read Chapter 8-9, Successful Onboarding

                                        ii.    Post a relevant idea on a new programs requirements for tabs three and four in the project wiki. 

                                       iii.    Review the postings in tab one and two and make necessary edits and add relevant requirements from your experiences.

·         Week 6 –

                                          i.    Review tabs one through four and continue to refine.

                                        ii.    Post at least one requirement on tab five for a program diagnostic and your suggested method – survey, journal, etc…by EOD Friday.

·         Week 7 –

                                          i.    Review all wiki tabs and refine.  Make sure the content meets the minimum project requirements presented in the table. Provide/post individual ideas on when, how often, and by whom a diagnostic should be performed in tab five by EOD Friday.

·         Week 8 –

                                          i.    Conference call with group and management to present the strategic plan.                                       

                                          ii.    Group participants complete survey for facilitator on strengths and weaknesses of the project structure, wiki experience, facilitator, and the end-product.

Project Requirements:  The new program must consider/address the following areas, at a minimum.

First Week – HR	First Week – Manager	Training	Connectedness	Diagnostic
Welcome/ swag	Welcome	Company 101	Mentor/ Buddy	When
Forms	Expectations-first 180 days	Products or Service	Relevant Network	How
Benefits	Tool Kit - checklists	Responsibilities	Social/ Community Service	By Whom

Rationale for the use of wiki – as mentioned, above, the use of a wiki for a project that requires collaboration just makes sense.  In this case, with participants scattered around the US and in Mexico, the wiki platform would be very useful.  In addition to research on the topic of onboarding, I tried to provide background, training, and tools (sandbox) for the use of wikis, along with videos about the platform in the project.  As the facilitator, I would also be responsible for responding to any discussion board feedback (struggles/suggestions) from the participants.

I would love to hear what you have to say about my blog…please let me know your thoughts.

References:

LeBar, Z. What are wikis and why should you use them? April, 2017 references on September 25, 2019.   https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/what-are-wikis-and-why-should-you-use-them--cms-19540

Stein, M. and Christiansen, L. (2010).  Successful Onboarding: A Strategy to Unlock Hidden Value Within Your Organization.  McGraw-Hill books.

West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for online collaboration: The power of the Read-Write Web. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons. 

Wikis: Pros and Cons for the Adult Learner

Ever hear of Wikipedia? We all have...right?  If you are under the age of 25, I am willing to bet you also knew that Wikipedia is the most popular "wiki"page.  If you are over the age of 50, like me, you may not have heard the term "wiki" before and you might guess that it is the name of a cocktail?

As a new grad student, I am quickly learning that a wiki is a very popular and useful tool for collaborative learning.  A wiki is a software platform designed specifically for multiple authors—project team and stakeholders, business partners, customers, and students working jointly on a project—to be able to quickly and collaboratively post and edit materials without the need for expert Web development skills. Wikis allow collaborators to easily “riff” on ideas and elaborate or refine them (SKMurphy.com).  Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham is the American computer programmer who developed the first wiki in 1994 in order to make the exchange of ideas between programmers easier in his company (King and Cox, p 122).

It would seem logical that a wiki can and should be used as a tool for teaching and learning.  Wikis are a component of Web 2.0 technology tools that provide collaborative features and active learning opportunities in a web-based environment (Hazari, North, Moreland).  The technology makes it easy to work on a collaborative document, track work in progress, and participant contributions.  Research in this area has concluded that no single technology by itself (wikis) can impact learning outcomes, but when used correctly the technology provides for many benefits (Hazari, North, Morland).  Let's explore some of the benefits and also review potential pitfalls or limitations for the technology.

Pros:

• When adults are presented with self-directed learning opportunities, there is a greater chance for them to learn and retain the information. (King and Cox, p122)
• Students are able to focus on content because wikis do not require advanced technical skills.
• Wiki technology provides for ease of collaboration and sense of community, or social interaction.  Constructionist theorists believe that learning is a social process and that learning occurs through interactions (King and Cox, p 124). 
• Just like blogging, wikis give peers a platform for sharing ideas and experiences, all without geographical barriers.
• Wikis provide for real-time updates, where once content is saved it is accessible and available for review by all interested parties.
• Wiki technology is affordable.

Cons:

• Older students like myself are not familiar with the technology, and may be hesitant to try it and/or post thoughts to a public site (privacy).  Just like with blogs, ideas and opinions change over time with new knowledge/experience.  
• If the wiki access is not controlled, unauthorized and/or unwanted changes to content could occur and there is a possibility of sabotage to the site.
• The most common concern new wiki contributors express is the fear that they will "mess up" someone else's work.  It is not unusual for students to insert edits into the wrong place on a wiki page or accidentally delete material that they wanted to keep (West and West, p.19).  Is there a wiki etiquette guide for users?

For an additional resource on wiki pros and cons, check this out:

http://meblog.pbworks.com/w/page/11074188/Wiki%20Pros%20and%20Cons

To conclude, the use of wikis in adult education is a "win" for teachers and students, alike.  Wikis seem to be the ultimate tool for constructive learning, providing a problem manipulation space, cognitive tools, learner-centeredness, and social presence through communities of learners, interactivity, and support, all in one place (Seitzinger, 2006).

References

Hazari, Sunil; North, Alexa; Moreland, Deborah.  Journal of Information Systems Education; Investigating Pedagogical Value of Wiki Technology, West Lafayette Vol. 20, Iss. 2,  (Summer 2009): 187-198.

King, K.P. and Cox T.D., (2011). The Professor’s Guide to Taming Technology. Charlotte, NC: INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Seitzinger, Joyce, (2006).  Learning Solutions e-Magazine; Be Constructive: Blogs, Podcasts, and Wikis as Constructivist Learning Tools. 

https://www.skmurphy.com/how-does-blogs-and-wikis-help-me-collaborate-with-my-customers/ referenced on September 17, 2019.

West, J. and West, M. (2009). Using Wikis for online collaboration: The power of the read-write Web . San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.