“An alternative take on traditional data collection?” Podcasting in Pitlochry
Catherine White Department of Geography and Environmental Management University of Northumbria [email protected]
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