Podcasting for knowledge

Reflecting on the role and potential of podcasting for knowledge work - will it deliver JIT knowledge?

Listen to Tom Davenport's thoughts on KM. Will this genre really promote our sense-making, awareness, understanding and learning?

Currently podcasting is very much one-way broadcasting, true it lowers the barriers and access to radio sound bites, but there is limited feedback opportunity and almost no interaction. Affordances for annotation, commentary, refutation and analysis are missing or serial at best.

Improved indexing, increased attention by major search engines, personal search engines, a multitude of podcast directories and podcatchers, are making it easier to locate, subscribe and download targeted audio files. Here is a good resource list. A combination of blogs or webpages and podcasts offers increased feedback potential and may help with notification (via RSS feeds).

Podcasting and audio files IMO offer value in these areas:

• Audio FAQs 
• Conference reports
• Audio bite solutions to common problems for resolving issues 'on the go'
• Awareness and industry news when multi-tasking or on the commute
• Self-learning and serial programs on specialized topics

Here are some flows around podcasting in graphical form.

Thoughts

Comments

[Adam]

I have been researching podcasts on the net for a project report. That is a great diagram you have there to explain the process.

[Mark Ranford]

Truffl, Yes thats right, but thats why Denham stresses the importance of dialogs rather than 1 way listening as a mode of learning, what is missing in this discussion is the fact that podcasts dont have to be 1 way at all, they can be just as multi-directional as blogs or telephones, its just that the process of creation as of 2005 is still not as easy as it needs to be. My own view is that podcasting as a term introduces barriers in the mind. If we think of mixing telephone (easy creation of spoken communications) with email(easy asynchronous transmission of communications) and RSS (easy global distribution and search of communications), then we might better be able to appreciate the real value of the medium. Or think of voice messaging, only to a global potential audience instead of a specific & predetermined group of recievers.

You are right that simply listening to content doesnt necessarily mean knowledge will flow. Thats why multidirectional dialog amongst a group of podcasters represents a better form of knowledge flow and creation than simply 1-way listening. The larger dialog between members podcasting provides a context and social mediation for knowledge creation to occur in a way that 1-way communicatiuons cannot support.

[Jim Manis]

I love interactive design. I teach it, I think about it a lot, and I make stuff with it. But "interactive" and "feedback" have been raised to the level of fetishes in the discourse on KM and networked learning. I've learned much of what I know from listening to really good lectures, and reading books by authors I never sent an email to, nor interacted with at all.

When I listen to a podcast, I have every opportunity to annotate, or comment--in my notebook, just like I did as a student. And if I'm in doubt about some point made, I can replay it. That alone is a technological boon. And if I need some attention, I can post my "opinions" about the podcast on my blog, or *your* blog. There's nothing wrong with one-way communication from a sage on the stage, if he or she has something interesting to say.

Hi Jim,

Your point is well-taken, but it not a learning route that that has worked for me. I find dialog, conversation, questions, and explorations in community to be a far more effective way to understanding and new meaning.

[Nick Noakes]

Indexed podcasts - have you tried podscope?

http://www.podscope.com/

This has converted the audio to text and you can then search and play the results. If you click on the inline player, it will play from the point where your search words occur. It also tells you the time in the file where it appers and links to the original file, the rss feed and the website/blog.

[tyelmene]

David, I believe that you could go on to listen indefinitely and not aquire knowledge. And, I feel podcasting is even less reflective than blogging, but like blogs, the knowledge resides in the massive interaction of the many voices.

Its in the many voices that clarity comes form the noise!

[Ton Zijlstra]

Hi Denham,

Indeed podcasts are broadcasting in principle. I listen to them to add depth to the blog I'm already reading of someone. It is information-consumption when reading is not an option (in the car, walking, or while multitasking on answering e-mail in the train), and in that sense useful. I pick up ideas and pointers from it, and it helps to actually hear where someone is passionate, unsure etc.

As to really learning from podcasts, I see more potential in screencasts. Where in audio someone exlains what she's doing on the computer screen. That sort of instruction is very useful I find. When done well of course :)

[Truffl]

Err... undoubtedly, broadcasting is one-way.

cast (v.)
c.1230, from O.N. kasta "to throw." The noun sense of "a throw" (c.1300) carried an idea of the form the thing takes after it has been thrown

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=cast

Maybe we could think about broadcatching, broadcacheing or even broadchatting...........

T

[David Locke]

Here again we are confusing content with knowledge. I could listen to podcasts all day and never hear any knowledge.

This is desktop radio with a different kind of dial.

This content needs a content management system. Indexing needs to be able to pinpoint where a particular topic starts. This being simular to indexing film. After indexing the search engines will kick in. And, at that point, you end up with the same problems that we have with text in regards to search engines. The presence of keywords doesn't necessarily mean that you can access the content or that the content is appropriate.