A podcast is typically an audio, video, or even PDF file that is broadcast over the internet, and can be downloaded to computers or mobile devices for playback. In this case study we speak to Dr. Ray Randall from the University of Leicester in the U.K.. Ray was a part of the duckling research project, which incorporated audio podcasts into two full online masters programs. He explains how podcasts were used to introduce important concepts, provide support for assignments, and to offer students feedback. Ray also discusses the importance of planning podcasts before you begin, and gives an overview of how audio podcasts are made. >> The course that I run is called the MSc in occupation psychology and there's an offshoot course from that called the MSc in psychology of work. Across those two programs we have around about 55 part time, distance learning students every year. One of the reasons for setting up the podcasts, was to help students engage with material. And this material that's in the podcast is not really, particularly new, the content of it, but what is new is the fact that we're delivering it via voice. We didn't just want to play with the technology or wanted to do something that we felt that we could embed within the course going forward, particularly for our students who are relatively time poor, having an intervention that helps them to work in a much more efficient way seems to be quite a key benefit for, for them. Podcasts are embedded with Blackboard, so students have an option to download it if they wish, and the way these buttons are set up allows the podcast to load as it's being played, so it doesn't stop the page from downloading quickly. So some of these are monologues. >> Hello, it's Kelly here, and I'm going to talk now for a short while about qualitative versus quantitative approaches to gathering evidence. >> Some question and answer questions. >> This is Andrew here, and I'm here with Sue and Ray, to introduce you to a series of podcasts that we've developed to help you make best use of your dissertation time. >> The way we've decided to support the various modules that we run outside of the dissertation research methods is to use these kind of podcasts here. What we do is we give students general guidance about the assignment that has been set, the person who set, set the assignment for them will talk them through what's required and how they should go about tackling it. We're getting good feedback from the students. It's universally good. We've not really had anything, anything negative come back from the students about this. Having a conversation with somebody about some topics can help students feel less isolated. But also help them to understand the most important parts of the topic. From a teacher's perspective I think one of the main benefits, and this may sound a little selfish is that it's a very efficient technology. So once the basic skills are learned, I can, devel, develop and deliver a ten podcast about a topic that may take me A day to write about. So that's a very efficient way of teaching. I think initially getting to grips with the technology does take a little bit of time, but not a huge amount of time. Certainly less than myself and my colleagues thought it would take. In terms of making a podcast itself, it's very important to have a plan. Some of the, one of the things I didn't appreciate going into it. And the way that works is to break down even a five-minute podcast into smaller sections, so maybe four or five sections with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that being framed around some key objectives for the podcast itself. And then I think it's about just learning. Some of the, the, the sort of best practice issues, keeping podcasts short, making sure they've got a structure and a purpose, making sure that your voice is clear. Not mumbling, making it interesting, changing the format, those kind of things. So, that planning is really quite crucial. How do we go about making podcasts? Well it's, it's probably not as difficult as I initially imagined it to be. All you need really is a headset with a microphone. And a USB headset with a microphone to cut the crackles down a bit. A laptop or a decent computer, and a piece of software that we use called Audacity. Which is available freely to download. And what Audacity is, is a very straightforward piece of audio editing software. So, all the teacher simply does is speak into the headset, and the dialogue will appear as a waveform that can then be edited, chopped up, and played around with. Even if you make lots of mistakes, it's quite easy to take them out, so anybody with decent word processing skills can use Audacity, probably with about half a day's worth of experience. It allows us to, to, to add emphasis, to add feeling, to add, for want of a better word, emotion, to some of the material that we present. There are certain aspects of any program. Where hearing the human voice is going to be particularly impactful. And I think it's just about being able to identify and pick those out. [BLANK_AUDIO]