“An alternative take on traditional data collection?” Podcasting in Pitlochry

Catherine White Department of Geography and Environmental Management University of Northumbria catherine.white@northumbria.ac.uk

Martin Kent et al. (1997) the traditional objectives of fieldwork include : the ability to make critical judgements and… enhancing observational, critical and interpretative skills…

Facilitating ‘deep’ rather than ‘surface’ learning and enabling students to develop a better understanding of abstract concepts by making connections between these concepts and their own observations and experiences…

Raising a student’s confidence in their own intellectual ability…

Underpinning ideas

This paper outlines a fieldwork approach in which podcasting is

used to facilitate experiential learning on place.

The approach was used on a first year fieldtrip to the Scottish

Highlands on a day visit to the town of Pitlochry.

Students brought together themes from the academic literature

on place, Gilbert’s (2006) 8way thinking framework and interviews

with the people of Pitlochry to produce a podcast which examined

place in Pitlochry.

Podcasting in Pitlochry

PlaceStudents were asked to draw on questions of

definition and representation of place, cultural identity and

place and questions about local and global relations

(Castells 1989, Massey 1991, 1995, Allan and Hammett

1995).

They also needed to draw on the work of Jess and Massey (1995) and definitions of place in Castree (2003) were used together with his discussion of rethinking place as location and the concept of

porous places.

Bringing together place,8way thinking and podcasting

8way thinkingIn 2006 Ian Gilbert devised a thinking skills project called 8way thinking. He drew on Multiple

Intelligence Theory (Gardner 1993, 1999, 2004) and the

Philosophy for Children approach to produce a

‘multidimensional polycognitive enquiry tool’ (Gilbert 2006 p. 17)

In the context of this fieldtrip the 8way thinking had a

twofold purpose

Bringing together place,8way thinking and podcasting

Bringing together place,8way thinking and podcasting

Podcasting Downward et al (2008) show how podcasting can

build bridges between different learning spaces and

suggest that it can both provide students with a

communication tool for aiding the describing, evaluation and dissemination of field phenomena as well as being

a potentially valuable transferable skill (see also Fletcher et al. 2007 and Jarvis and Dickie 2010).

The podcasting also had other stimuli. It would be a methodology to capture the interest

ofthe students. In this it echoes Fletcher et al 2007 Students are familiar with the use of technology

and this use of the familiar in their academic work

booststheir confidence.

The work in the field would synthesise academic

information and relate it to the real world.

Bringing together place,8way thinking and podcasting

Podcasting can be seen as a resource, a way of keeping a record of the fieldtrip so that it could be used to prepare the next cohort of students.

Finally podcasting was deliberately chosen to appeal to

students with different learning styles. This linked to

the use of 8way thinking which was used as a framework for the podcasts,

Bringing together place,8way thinking and podcasting

Problems of Podcast EditingThere were problems experienced with the

Audacity package as every track recorded was kept in play. Students tended to record large numbers of

tracks. If they had made a mistake on one track, instead

of deleting the track they would record another track instead.

This led to an overloading of tracks which crashed the

laptops in 2009, the first time that the podcasting day

was run.

The students presented their podcasts in turn to the

staff and to their peers, the staff recording their marks and their peers compiling formative

feedback sheets.

Presentations were marked according to the extent to

which the groups had engaged with the academic literature in particular the three themes, the8way thinking and the way in which the material was presented.

Presenting Place

Comment from voluntary reflexive diaries:“The podcasting was 100% genius idea in ensuring student input and interaction. I enjoyed the

freedom of being able to work off my own accord and

interpret observations with my peers. ..The best

presentation I saw actually came from that of a group of BSc students - which I believe found the task very enjoyable because it was different... The peer to

peer feedback was very useful in not seeing only how

you performed but in keeping interaction constant over

the time period we were viewing the podcasts,”

Reflecting on podcasting

Positive comments“It went really well and afforded me the

opportunity to look into what I wanted allowing me to look into

what I wanted and arrange a podcast allowing me to

make my feelings and experiences tangible.”“Gained better understanding of place.”“Interviewing people for the podcast.”

Reflecting on podcasting 2009

Negative comments“Needed longer time to edit the podcast.”“I don’t feel that it allowed me to show what

I am capable of doing (by that I mean what I know about the subject,”

“Stressful work editing the podcast.”

Reflecting on podcasting 2009

Podcasting has been shown to build bridges between

the lecture theatre and the real world.

It was pleasing that the podcasting enabled the BSc

physical geographers to engage with the context of

place and to enjoy the experience.

Most of the students who completed their reflexive diaries were BSc geographers and they showed in

them that they had enjoyed the podcasting experience

Outcomes

The podcasting itself captured the interest of many students with many noting in the questionnaires

how much they had enjoyed the interviews they had conducted. Gardner and Urwin’s (1986) suggestion

that computers introduced an immediacy and realism

to projects was born out in these fieldtrips.

The podcasts produced a richness of detail about the

town of Pitlochry.

Outcomes

The inclusion of 8way thinking structured the podcasts

and helped to organise their content. Its use brought

out other facets of place which might have been missed by a more traditional approach.

Students with different learning styles were able to focus on the visual or aural aspects of Pitlochry

and this added to the picture of the town that was produced

Outcomes

One of the aims of the day was to improve the students’ cognitive skills by requiring them to synthesise information from a number of different learning spaces.

The day was based on a different way of collecting data and a different way of editing it. This also

taxed the students’ cognitive skills.

Outcomes

This work can only echo the words of Jarvis and Dickie (2010) p. 184 “Overall the podcast approach to field techniques appears to be a valuable contribution to geographical teaching and learning for students and staff alike.”

 

In Conclusion