Podcasting for training purposes

The topic I have chosen to research further is podcasting. Up until this class I was unfamiliar with all the possibilities that podcasting brings to the table and after the last session I realized this is a technology that I am letting pass by without looking to what it can do for me. After reading a few articles I decided to use the following, Just-in-Time Training by Elizabeth Agnvall and The Changing Face of Workplace Learning by Anders Gronstedt.

The piece by Agnvall speaks to the point of we have podcasting as a technology why not cash in on this idea and put it to good use within the organization. Oddly enough many companies have already started doing this in the form of training sessions. Agnvall goes on to state, “While experts agree that mobile training will never replace traditional face-to-face learning—just as e-learning has not replace classroom instruction—movile devices can be added to the toolkits of corporate training” (Agnvall 2006, p. 68). Agnvall believes the employees who benefit the most from this tool are mostly the sales force because they are always on the go and do not have the time to sit in front of a computer during the day or take time away from selling to go to an all day training session somewhere. Agnvall goes on to recognize the technology is evolving and video will be the next addition to the podcasts. Finally Agnvall states, “As the systems become more robust, people will be able to add more interactivity, the lessons will become longer, and [employees] will create courseware—These are going to be the standards for mobile learning” (Agnvall 2006, p. 71).

Gronstedt’s article speaks to a lot of the same aspects as Agnvall’s but adds how to determine what type of podcasting will work for different organizations and how to get your employees excited enough about it to welcome podcasting with open arms. Gronstedt believes the more entertaining the podcasts are the more employees will be attracted to them. Grondstedt goes through the steps of creating an effective podcast, entertainment, format, length and frequency, and turning over the control to the employees. Ben Edwards, IBM’s director of new media communications, says the following about entertainment in podcasts, “There’s definitely a premium on entertainment—we model programs on radio and TV formats, so our shows refect the reality of the media landscape outside of IBM” (Gronstedt 2007, p. 22). The length of a podcast is based on the type of message you are trying to send. Grondstedt suggests a sales training session should be no longer than 15 minutes and whiteboard “vod” (video podcast) be no longer than 5 minutes. The frequency also depends on the type of organization and where the organization houses the podcasts. For example a larger organization may have the capability of putting out more frequent podcasts were as a smaller company may not. Overall Gronstedt, like Agnvall, does not believe podcasts will take the place of training as we know it now but will be an extension and reinforcement.

After reading the two articles I decided the following for my thesis:

I am researching podcasting as a training technique within the work place because I would like to find out the success and adoption rate in order to understand how podcasting is evolving into an extension of training as it currently stands within the work place.

Podcasting, in this instance, is converging the typical style of training with the technology of video and radio to broadcast to many individuals either simultaneously or to archive for when an individual has the opportunity to listen to it or en some cases watch as well.

The two articles I briefly summarized earlier directly relates to my topic because they speak to how podcasting is currently being used within the organization and how it can be better used to effectively broadcast training for all employees to use. I believe this type of training would greatly improve an organizations training style but I need to research it further in order to understand it more thoroughly and find out the most effective way to do so.

Who makes who dumb?

Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics.

The answer to the question is hasn’t it already? The article talks to blogging revolutionizing progressive politics but I think blogging has lead to more individuals learning and speaking out about politics and the knowledge these individuals have. The examples given of the individuals who where hired as campaign consultants or are consulted with on strategy because of the how involved in the blogging world they are.


Three key ideas of bloggings effects on politics are it promises to be a populist revolution, creates more participation and overcomes financial and ideological muscle. The revolution is already being seen as stated earlier with the higher of campaign staff based on the knowledge of politics through the amount of blogging that occurs from one individual creating stature. The participation is seen through all the online poles that are taken during the campaign race and I myself was constantly going online not to blogs but to websites to see which candidate was leading in which state. This type of data could only be obtained through participation of online voting and participation. The financial aspect is seen through politicians getting on and blogging themselves. This not only to gain support but also to see what people’s concerns are and to address them in order to gain more votes.

The most difficult concept in this article was about the bloggers not being diversified enough. I understand in the aspect that not all individuals have access to the internet and are capable of blogging do to that lack of access but I still feel that the diversity achieved through blogging is more so than any other type of communication or action.

Relating this to my real life situation is like I said earlier that I believe blogging has already revolutionized politics. If any Joe Six Pack can go on and blog about how they feel on a certain subject throughout the campaign trail and the candidates have the capability to see what Joe Six Pack has written then those words have the ability to change how the candidate is campaigning in addition to showing the opponent how the people feel and maybe changing their campaign style as well. I believe blogging is a very powerful tool.

Questions: How diversified are blogs and bloggers?
Does this diversity lead to differences in campaigning?



Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Apparently according to the author of this article Google is making us dumb because a search engine like Google provides us with information in such a manner that it is making us sort of ADD. But I’m not really sold that the author truly believes this because at the end of the article the author writes “So, yes, you should be skeptical of my skepticism” which to me means this thought is really not a belief.

Three key ideas are the adaptation of Google is changing the way we learn and process things, Google is making us stupid, and even though the brain is a clear example that you can teach an old dog new tricks because of Google this is now not possible.

Because of Google the way humans learn has now been changed and can be seen in this statement, “We are how we read. Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else.” Advertising has changed according to this quote, “As people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets” again creating that sense of immediacy and what I like to call ADD. The author feels that this will get worse by this statement, “The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best method”—the perfect algorithm—to carry out every mental movement of what we’ve come to describe as “knowledge work.”

The most challenging concept for me is why is it not mentioned about people allowing this. Are people really that naïve to allow things like Google to change their way of thinking. Why is it that this can happen? A common phrase that I always say to people, and maybe this is because I consider myself a leader and not a follower, is if Johnny jumps off a bridge are you going to do the same thing. How can the author put all the blame on Google and not sit there an write about how people are making themselves dumb by not thinking for themselves and using a search engine like Google as a tool for knowledge instead of letting it overtake your life.

This is definitely an argument I would like to research further but put more emphasis on the user and not so much on the producer. Just because the tool is there and promoted does not mean that user should be totally left off the hook for not using the tool correctly. I believe each individual has a brain and if they choose to use it or not is their perogitive.

Questions:
Should the user be held responsible for letting themself become dumb?
Should Google be held responsible for making people dumb?


Podcasting

The podcasting piece was about how useful podcasting is. Podcasting gives a company, and individual or whoever else would like to use this technology the ability to reach a broader niche audience. Podcasting also gives the ability to archive and allow the publisher of the podcast to see who has downloaded or how many people have actually accessed the podcast. Lastly Podcasting allows for both audio and video together for a more effective message.
Key concepts are the archiving of the media so individuals can access whenever and may be very useful for something like a training session. Using the video and audio will allow for a more effective training session and the ability to go back and view as many times necessary in order to understand and use the training to it’s maximum capacity. Lastly the podcasting allows for all individuals to access and is not just limited to certain people.

The most difficult aspect for me was what if an individual does not own an ipod and does not want to, how then will they be able to participate in this type of technology. Why would a university want to keep such an interesting type of learning experience segmented from an individual who does not prescribe to the ipod type lifestyle.

Will podcasting lead to a different type of college experience?
How will podcasting change the student-teacher type of learning environment?

This was my first podcast to ever listen to and I have to say it was very interesting and I have never thought of podcasting in terms of training. I think for a company to invest money into training sessions placed in a podcast would be very cost effective and would enable all employees to received the same training from the same instructor every time. That way the employee cannot say that each individual received a different type of training. I am definitely going to look more into podcasting and how it can benefit me in my everyday life as well as bring it to my company to see if it can help with training employees.

To Spoil or Not

First off, I have to say after reading the chapter on Spoiling Survivor I was left knowing so much more about the art of spoiling and why it is so intriguing to the individuals in which participate. I was left dumb founded now knowing that the individuals who play this sport put so much effort into spoiling a show like Survivor.

Spoiling Survivor speaks to the idea of virtual communities of individuals who gather to use the knowledge they know about Survivor to try and figure out what each episode will bring before it airs. In addition to this cat and mouse game that is played on the show which determines who will get booted each week, the producers play this game with the spoilers in order to prevent the spoiling but usually it is only delayed. Spoiling Survivor goes on to get inside the communities of the spoilers and leads the reader down a path to understand what makes a group of spoilers tick and how an individual gets the status of a spoiler.

In order to understand the workings of the group three key ideas have been identified as collective intelligence, brain trusts and the expert paradigm.

First, Collective intelligence is the idea that what we cannot know on our own we may be able to learn and find out collectively. The author states, “Survivor spoiling is collective intelligence in practice”. Second, brain trusts are a group of people who search for bits and pieces of information to help the spoiling. These individuals do all of their searching on secure password protected sites and do not share the information they arrive upon or figure out but dump the spoiling if and when they feel like it. Thirdly, the expert paradigm is Peter Walsh’s take on collective intelligence but adds the idea that there is a bounded body of knowledge which an individual can master. One individual related spoiling directly to an undergraduate degree in history stating, “I like to dig. I like to look at primary source information. I like to dig to the bottom”.

The most difficult concept for me throughout this reading was how could the seasoned spoilers trust ChillOne. Throughout the reading ChillOne was not always correct in the spoilings that were provided but he or she was able to distract the seasoned spoilers from continuing their normal path of spoiling the show from week to week to just paying attention to what chill one would post.

A few discussion questions I thought about are how can this knowledge of spoiling be used for other types of work and what drives the individuals to participate in the act of spoiling.

In reality I am not a fan of spoiling because I do not want to know the end before I get there. Before reading this piece I was under the impression that people who spoiled for others were just bored but in actuality it is so much more than that. The people who participate in this are out for the hunt and enjoy that more so than actually spoiling it for others.

The Reinvention of the World Wide Web is about the convergence theory and how it applies to the internet. According to this article the World Wide Web is the ultimate convergence of all forms of media. Through the article there is discussion on if this is the ultimate form of convergence or a road block in further expansion of the internet.

Three key ideas from this piece are the idea of the ‘receiver’ as a barrier to accessing the media is just as significant an issue to the Web as it was to TV and radio, the idea that if you throw more money at it the thing in question will grow and get better and media travels through a cycle of invention, access limitations, and information overflow.

The receiver being the barrier is in reference to the internet not having enough space to hold all the information which is being dispersed as well as all the individuals who access it on a daily basis. If there was infinite space than the possibilities of what could be done on the internet would be endless. With the money being thrown at the development of the internet it may eventually become as big as everyone would like it to be but is this really what needs to happen or will we be opening Pandora’s Box? In order to achieve a medium which reaches the best of it’s ability the process needs to go through the stages of invention, access limitations and information overflow and currently the internet seems to be in the access limitation stage until the bandwith issue is resolved.

After reading this piece the most difficult issue for me to swallow was the debate on whether or not the internet follows the model of radio or television and actually has a model of it’s own.

What makes the internet different that it would be considered as having it’s own model and does the solution for the bandwith issue currently exist and is not being distributed for the fear of opening Pandora’s box?

Exploring the idea of convergence theory and how it applies to the internet would be a great question to explore for a research paper. Pushing it further and exploring if the model for tv and radio and how it differs to the internet would be more intriguing.

Convergence, not Divergence

Convergence Culture

Jenkins, Convergence Culture, speaks to the notion of media converging as technology advances.  Jenkins states, "history teaches us that old media never die...what dies are simply the tools we use to access the media content" (p. 13).  A problem with the media converging is the necessity for all individuals from different media types coming together and creating an outlet for all media to be dispersed from to ultimately make media converge.

Three key ideas from Convergence Culture are media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence. 

These three concepts can be seen firstly when Jenkins wrote about The New Orleans Media Experience.  Jenkins stated and the message set forth from the experience was: Convergence is coming and you had better be ready, convergence is harder than it sounds, and everyone will survive if everyone works together.  In that summary of what occurred at The New Orleans Media Experience is exactly what Jenkins stated earlier about how media convergence will occur and what will happen when it does.  Secondly the concepts are seen when  McLuhan wrote about media converging in, "A process of the 'convergence of modes'  is blurring the lines between media".  The concept of media convergence is not a new one but is recently coming to life.  Lastly the Black Box Fallacy believes all media will one day come from one black box which each individual will own and is the ultimate convergence.

The most difficult concept, which may also be the scariest for me is the idea of all media converging into a so called "black box".  I am unable to wrap my head around this concept because even though this may be extremely convenient it makes it easier to be censored and may become very monotonous.

Three discussion questions:

1.) Are the younger generations enablers of media convergence?

2.) How do the industry leaders entice the population to buy into the convergence of media?

3.) Who are the early adopters and why do you believe they are the early adopters.

The Cultural Paradox of the Global Village

In Federman's piece the idea of "digitizing" oneself in order to participate in the Global Village which is the Internet.  Our digiSelf is the manifestation of our identities which "exist on the web, in chat avatars, among weblogs, web page postings and other digital media" (p. 3).  Each digiSelf is projected into an avatar and these avatars are both intriguing by the individuals which create them and the others which interact with them.

Three key points are the creation of the digiSelf, popular culture gains currency on the internet,  and we cannot escape the effects of the Internet based on McLuhan's idea of "acoustic space".

One example of these key concepts is the weblog which enables and individual who has created a digiSelf to express anything and everything which they desire.  Another example is how intriguing the Internet is and how an individual an become so enthralled by it that death can occur as did to the 24 year-old man from South Korea because he did not eat or drink for 86 hours.  Lastly, the digitization of us  decides who will define 21st century culture.

Discussion Questions:

1.) What is so intriguing about the internet that it causes people to break with the reality of nourishing oneself in order to survive?

2.) What is the fascination with creating a digiSelf?

3.) How is one's digiSelf different from their actual self?

Discussion of Readings

Both readings speak to the idea that media is converging and this convergence needs adaptation from the population in order to be effective.  In order for the internet to become as popular as it has the population has adapted by creating digiSelves so they can participate fully in all the aspects of the internet which are available.  This creation of an alternate self is a great topic which could be used for a final presentation and taking it a step further to look at how close to the person's real self the digiSelf actually depicts.