Interview with Ernie Perez

I sat down earlier this week on Zoom with Ernie Perez, Director of Instructional Technologies at California State University, Northridge. We discussed some of the experiences that he has had with various technologies and how they have been integrated into curriculum.

Audio/Video Podcasts: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

The last module we are working on for this course is focused on using audio/video podcasts in a learning environment. Originally podcasts were introduced as a way for people to listen to pre-recorded shows or lectures on varied topics using a mobile device such as an iPod or cell phone.

Delivery methods of this type of content have been used in classrooms and online for a long time and offer an easy way venue for consumption (Cox & King, 2011). Over the years, podcasts have become more commonly used by instructors as a means to deliver content to their students. Online audio/video repositories have also emerged as a resource for anyone who has a desire to learn more about a given subject that they are interested in. Some common sites I’ve listened to that publish regularly are NPR (http://www.npr.org/podcasts/), Ted Talks (http://www.ted.com/talks), Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/), and even various YouTube channels.

One particular concept that has shown promise in recent years that utilizes online posting of lectures is the idea of the “flipped classroom.” In this type of teaching style, the actual content and lecture portion of a class is posted online and meant to be watched outside of regular class hours. That way when students physically meet with their instructor and other students, they can use that time for collaboration and interactive application of the material that was given to them in the recordings.

One of the key concepts of this idea pointed out in an Educause Learning Initiative article on 7 Things You Need to Know about... Flipped Classrooms:

“The video lecture is often seen as the key ingredient in the flipped approach, such lectures being either created by the instructor and posted online or selected from an online repository. While a prerecorded lecture could certainly be a podcast or other audio format, the ease with which video can be accessed and viewed today has made it so ubiquitous that the flipped model has come to be identified with it.”

In the end, I feel that this evolution of the use of podcasts/videocasts in adult learning scenarios has definitely led to a more beneficial method of teaching.

Cox, T.D & King, K. P. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

7 things you need to know about… flipped classrooms. (2012). Retrieved from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7081.pdf