Learning from a podcast

I've been listening to the Napoleon 101 podcasts, from Napoleon's family background up through young Buonaparte's role in the siege of Toulon (1793).  The show consists of conversations between J. David Markham and Cameron Reilly.

It's an interesting example of the teaching and learning possibilities of podcasting.  The learning object/profcast aspect is present, whereby one can absorb a lot of information in a linear fashion.  It's available for timeshifting (I listened to this over the course of two days, between several drives and an early morning spell in the office).  Each podcast file can be scrubbed, fast-forwarded, and so on.

How is this different from reading a text file transcript?  As Gardner Campbell notes,  podcasts offer the theater of the mind, done well enough, and Nap 101 is a good example.  There aren't any sound effects, and no music beyond the (ironic) 1812 Overture.  But you pick up on the excitement shown by Markham and Reilly, their differences and passions.  The elder disagrees with the younger several times, and the live-ness of it evidences the intensity of scholarly debate more strongly than most written exchanges.   Their discourses and tones differ, which is pleasant, and affords the listener many positions to inhabit (the questioner, the master of a point, the summarizer).

Gardner also argues that audio is good at showing a sense of common humanity - that's certainly clear here, as an Australian and a Yank discuss a Corsican refugee who drove France to rule much of Europe.

I found myself pushing back at the pocast at several points, especially as I disagreed with their coverage of the Revolution.  For one, they skipped Valmy (1792), and presented the (Red) Terror as solely domestic, which makes little sense without the context of invasion and foreign wars.  Perhaps they will return to this topic, backing and filling...

...but in the meantime I found myself as a listener both engaged and frustrated.  Engaged, as this (arguable) error drove me to respond, rethink, and argue, which is exactly the sort of thing learning loves.  But frustrated, as, thanks to timeshifting, I lacked a mechanism to push back.  Had I been reading this as a blog post, for example, the comment space would rapidly fill up with my reply.  As a wiki page, the edit button would be clicked quickly.  But I had no immediate response mechanism.  Nor did the podcast afford a necessary response space - podcasts are essentially readable, not writeable.  Driving or walking, I could not immediately record my critique.  I had to re-timeshift the podcast, carrying it back to other mechanisms (multiple browser tabs, text editor).  In this sense there's a gap between social media and social software, or between rich media and social software.  Not an unfillable one, but a speed bump that needs navigation, which is both a pedagogical and a technological point.

On a related note, this is the first podcast I've imbibed from the Podcast Network.  They have a very broad-ranging set of offerings.  Nap 101 is the only one listed under their education header so far, and is a personal project for Reilly, who's one of the powers behind TPN, I gather.  Which does make their slogan especially delightful:

"real power can't be given - it must be taken"

Comments

[Cameron Reilly]

Bryan, thanks for the review of the show! I understand your criticism and frustration. We have skipped quite quickly over the Revolution and will continue to do so, purely because we are trying to stick to Napoleon's role. And although it's better to think of Napoleon in context with the Revolution as a background (isn't all history that way?), we decided to make this show a "quick" intro to the subject.

Re the frustration... I often find myself listening to podcasts in my car wanting to say something to the hosts of the a show! Not unlike talkback radio when you can't through on their phone line. And yet here we are! Talking! I heard your criticisms, albeit in a timeshifted sense.

Finally, I appreciate your thoughts on using podcasting for education. That's part of my ambition for TPN's education division - to find people willing to produce shows that can be packaged up in discreet sets that provide a solid introduction to a wide range of subjects, from history to science, from the arts to politics.

Hope you keep enjoying the show!

cheers
Cameron Reilly

[David]

Bryan,

Thank you for your nice comments on our show. I'm glad you like it and find it useful. Of course, we cannot cover everything in the depth that we might prefer, and that includes the French Revolution. That watershed event will be seen primarily in terms of how it influenced Napoleon and his career. Obviously it did far more than that, but no matter what we added it would not do it justice. Perhaps we, or someone, will do a show dedicated to the Revolution.

One area that I will certainly stress (and think I may have mentioned) is that it is the wars of the French Revolution that sets France against Europe (really the other way around), not the mythical belief that the "Napoleonic Wars" were the result of Napoleon's egotistic war mongering.

Keep on listening and please let me know if there is anything that you would especially like to see us discuss.

J. David Markham

PS The link to my information is to a very out of date site. I suggest you link to what Cameron has on his site, which is 4 years more current. Thanks!

[Christian]

I think this is why the medium works so well. I listened to the first two Napoleon podcasts and really got into it. For me though, what I think puts credability & value is other people's feedback (ie you Bryan)

If I was in school / uni etc. I would be hearing one persons view. This way, I get to hear and read Cameron, David and Bryan's! Gold!

[Jim Parker]

Bryan,

Great food for thought here. I'm in the process of filling out the iTunes University application and this helps me clarify my thinking.

-jim

[Matt Pasiewicz]

I definately share the frustrations you mentioned, but I'm not sure what the solution is. I most often listen to podcasts on a PocketPC phone, so if I'm really motivated to jot down some thoughts or record some comments, I can do that, but still, I find that most of the time I'm in the car and I'm writing some notes down in pen on my wrist that I'll either add to a wiki, a blog comment or just loose in the shower ;)

Seriously tho' ... I suspect that a mix of transcripts, better integrated browsers/players/annotation tools (the flock of mp3 players?), ubiquitous internet, better voice recogntion technology and some magical doi/persistent identifier solution might remedy some of these problems in the future. It is going to take a while tho ...