Marcelo Mendonça Teixeira, Walter Felipe dos Santos, Hugo V. L. Souza, Fábio Lopes Bione, Josival dos Santos Silva, Hugo Pazolline B. dos Santos, Demétrio A. de Santana,
Gilberto Cysneiros, Ivonaldo Torres, José Eduardo de Lima Cruz
& Joel A. de Lima Júnior
Department of Statistics and Informatics, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (Brazil)
Abstract
The information society has become a natural stage in the evolutionary and social development of people, from a world increasingly interconnected by new technologies. This process belongs to a cycle that is based on the assumption that new technologies applied to education would solve all time, distance and transport issues, although never dissociated from traditional teaching methods. Today, more than ever, educational institutions are making intensive use of technological resources in virtual learning environments, favoring a collective intelligence on the educational domain and cooperative learning, and producing a cyberculture on the network society. Thus, the main activity to be developed by educommunicators is to advise these institutions on the use of technology in education as a didactic support. This process belongs to a cycle that is based on the assumption that new technologies applied to education would solve all time, distance and transport issues, although never dissociated from traditional teaching methods. Besides that, due to the similarity of its basic characteristics, it is common for the academic community to confuse the Podcast with the Web Radio. The present paper features a conceptual approach concerning the foundations of the Web Radio and the Podcast, showing the main theoretical and technical differences between the concepts. Beyond this literature review on the concepts described, this investigation considered it important to analyze the educational potentialities of the Podcast and Web Radio for the academic universe.
Keywords: Information and communication technology, online education, web radio, podcast.
1. Introduction
The educommunicative paradigm online requires a new way of thought about the pedagogic models and new intervention strategies in society, which are able to respond to contemporary education.
Web Radio and Podcast are vehicles of mass communication has undergone many changes over the years through the development of informatics and cybernetics. In turn, the education has been used in the new technological resources to produce educational programs that are multidisciplinary in several areas of knowledge and in different parts of the world, with a proposal of rupturing from the traditional educational model based on a linear transmission of knowledge (Teixeira, 2013). Social communication has always performed a significant pedagogical role, something that has already been thoroughly investigated and it is known to have roughly two separate moments: A moment of open pedagogy, entertainment and leisure fulfillment as its main activity; and another when the media decide to broadcast a specific form of knowledge organization (Moran, 1994). Hence, the main activity yet to be developed by educators is to advise educational institutions on the use of new technologies as a didactic support, promoting and spreading their educational applications inside and outside classrooms.
These new interfaces brought facility of access to communication by the increase of storage capacity of news and by the processing speed of information in real time, promoting their educational applications inside and outside classrooms, with the possibility of sharing and storing contents in audio, video, image or text. When it comes to net media that develops “sociocultural activities” for informal and non-formal education, they almost always include formal programs when oriented directly to the school’s curriculum (Teixeira, 2013). That is the case of Podcast representing a valuable space for the popularization of information, education and the socialization of culture, and that can be accessed at anytime and anywhere in the world. The Podcast no more is seen simply as an informative interface, but as a pedagogical and methodological component to be used in teaching and learning. The relatively recent
development of the digital era has spawned interest in what has come to be called “virtual reality” and in delineating what this means for learning and creation of virtual learning environments. Therefore, communication gains a major role in knowledge building, turning the educational act into something more dynamic and appealing. After this brief introduction, we´ll see the concept of Web Radio and Podcast.
2. Objectives
The present paper features a conceptual approach concerning the foundations of Web Radio and Podcast, showing the main theoretical and technical differences between the concepts. Beyond this literature review on the concepts described, this investigation considered it important to analyze the educational potentialities of the Podcast and Web Radio for the academic universe.
3. Methods
The present paper features a conceptual approach concerning the foundations of the Web Radio and the Podcast, showing the main theoretical and technical differences between the concepts. Beyond this literature review on the concepts described, this investigation considered it important to analyze the educational potentialities of the Podcast and Web Radio for the academic universe.
4. Discussion
4.1. The Concept of Web Radio
The Web Radio or e-Radio can be defined as the radiophonic emission on the Internet in real time, usually in audio formats (MP3 or MP4, OGG Vorbis, WebPlayer, Real Audio, Windows Media Audio and HE-ACC). Different from traditional radio, your transmission could be followed by images, videos, texts, pictures and links. This advance allows the listener to do much more than just listen, making communication much more dynamic. Currently, it is possible to conduct online education, offering didactic material in PDF files or Word documents, video, podcast, and have access to up-to-date information through the RSS feed, clear up doubts with the instructor / educator through messenger, e-mail, chat, twitter, forums, as well as the interactivity in real time, through audio-conference or video-conference. It is about the combination of various elements: Ubiquity; flexibility; low cost;
emission in real time; synchronous and asynchronous communication; multi-directed connectivity;
multimedia sharing; streaming; collaboration and the interactivity integrated with e-learning. Often, the online reproduction of hertz signal through codification in the personal computer, through streaming, reproduces the emission on the Internet. The data is sent from PC packages for audio, video, text, images for Internet, which are stored on the platform online and made available to the public, which has access to a range of interactive resources. Says Nair Prata (2008) in Teixeira (2013), that the Web Radio is nothing more than digital radio with support of the Internet, which allows the presence of audio, video, text, and promoting the emergence of new genres and new forms of interaction. Thus, the main differences between traditional radio and Internet radio are the ways of accessing radio: By the computer; the flexibility of synchronous and asynchronous programming; geographical coverage (from local to global);
the quality of emissions (without interference or noise), and active participation of the public. The user not only listens, but reads, writes and assists the programs of radio, having at their disposal a set of integrated interfaces. Finally, the interactive multimedia together with the audio in virtual environment is the essence of what has been called “Web Radio”, which has the potential advantage of network, enriching its programming with multimedia content and additional resources, allowing a constant interaction transmitter-receptor.
In some countries, the web radio is being used as an educational interface in virtual learning environments responsible for the divulging of various cultural activities on schools or universities, with programs dedicated to music, theater, cinema, education, science, technology, politic, poetry, literature, economy, news and transmission of popular festivals. At the present time, the web radio university, develops its activities based on the following categories: The formative, the informative, the academic and the cultural-educational. The formative category is established through periodic courses of formation and recycling for speakers, editors/speakers and technicians, besides the realization of didactic programs in collaboration with public and private institutions; the informative category is a space focused on debate and news of university; the academic category dedicates an ample space in its program grid to academic life, transmitting the main occurrences of the learning institution; at last, the cultural-educational category is responsible for the divulging of various cultural activities in the university (ibidem). It is this way, university web radios, functioning as a social communication vehicle of local communities and as a
valuable space for the divulgation, socialization and popularization of science and technology, produced by different departments at the teaching institutions. This way, the educomunicative potentialities of the web radio started to be found by lecturers, school managers, educational institutions and university radios, based on successful experiences with the use of the interface, producing cultural practices. In Spain or Portugal, for example, the university broadcasters have been converted into real alternatives to the big generalist radio stations programming, extremely motivated by a huge expertise and homogeneity which prevails in relation to the contents to which they refer. The spanish academic radios clearly have a heterogeneous offer, in which programs of educational and instructive character are mixed with others exploring different genres and formats. Consequently, emerges a range of options, in which topics are dealt under different approaches that are dominant in the conventional model, favouring the development of a critical and solidary perspective. Taking advantage of the Internet interactive potentials, university radio stations seem to demonstrate a certain sensitivity in ensuring the rights of access and participation, something that has been increasingly neglected in other communicative fields, says Teixeira (2013).
Hence, the main activity yet to be developed by educators is to advise educational institutions on the use of New Technologies of Information and Communication as a didactic support, promoting and spreading their educative applications inside and outside classrooms.
4.2. The Concept of Podcast
A new sociability behaviours promoted new ways of technological development, changing, shifting and creating unusual relations between Man and information and communication technologies.
This was exactly what happened at the turn of the 20th century to 21st century when many revolutionary network communication electronic devices were developed. As a consequence of globalization and technological growth, the subsequent multiculturalism established a new social structure, consisting of different kinds of people and corporations, guided by interactions, collaborations and knowledge exchange in the newly adult virtual universe. On this matter, Paul Virilio calls attention to the temporal dispersion and the loss of sense of reality in cyberspace, some kind of an atopy to the digital natives, deeply absorbed by a great amount of endless information. The Podcast being used as an educational interface in virtual learning environments responsible for the divulging of various cultural activities on schools or universities, with programs dedicated education, culture and entertainment.
The term "Podcast" results from the junction between the IPod (equipment developed by Apple and that plays MP3) and Broadcast (radio). When the multimedia content has a large volume of information, the files of Podcast are generally compressed for both storage and streaming of audio and video on the web, to be accessed using any computer, operating in different systems (Microsoft, Linux or Macintosh). Anyone can create a Podcast. All over the world, people are creating Podcasts on subjects ranging from movies, to technology, music, politics and whatever else you can think of. This is new original content made by passionate people who want to share their creativity with the world. The cost to start podcasting is so low that anyone can do it. Most podcasters are everyday people like you and me.
They could be talking to you driving in their car, sitting in their living room or speaking at a conference.
You get to glimpse into their life and into their interests. Podcasters are creating very raw and real content and listeners are responding. Free from corporate radio and broadcast regulations, you can create whatever kind of show you can imagine (Brown & Green, 2011).
To Sheila Scutter, Ieva Stupans, Tim Sawyer and Sharron King (2010), podcasting is used commonly recreationally and is now increasingly used in education. The technology for podcasting is readily available, easy to use and inexpensive, making it an attractive option for providing additional flexible learning resources for students. However, little is known about how Podcasts are used by students and the implications for learning. This paper describes how Podcasts were used by students in a medical radiation program. In common with many other health science programs, the medical radiation program has a large content load, particularly n first year where courses such as anatomy and physiology are introduced. Students generally used Podcasts to review lecture content, especially when they had difficulty with understanding lectures or new terminology. Students generally listened to the recordings whilst viewing the lecture powerpoint presentations on a home computer, affirm the authors. There are three perspectives in educational podcasting, say Harris and Park (2008) in Ana Amélia Carvalho (2009):
(i) the perspective of lecturers—they facilitate to emphasize the information which lecturers feel to be critical for their students. It enables direct communication and interaction with students which goes beyond temporal and spatial limitations of conventional face-to-face education (ibidem). (ii) The perspective of students—it enables repeated learning and offers an opportunity for the effective use of time. (iii) The University’s perspective—podcasting is a communication enabler, reaching out to a wider community. Podcasts may be used to deliver course materials or provide additional resources for students, providing the potential to allow lecturers to focus on interaction. Functionalities such as pause, forward or skip mean that the user is in control of the pace. Students may be attracted to the new formatm (ibidem).
In general, we believe that the radio web use as an educational interface has being significantly expanded throughout the world, though there is still a lack of a solid theoretical and methodological basis. In this sense, it becomes evident the need to more fully investigate the teaching and learning process through the Web Radio in educational institutions. In the Portuguese case, more specifically, it is crucial to deepen studies on the academic radio educational and training potentials and their contributions to the country. In the contemporary context, exploring Web Radio educational potentials seems to be a new challenge for educators (Teixeira, 2013). The use of ICTs in education is related to the revolution on the communication. Old education methods are being remodeled to absorb the benefits of the Web 2.0 tools. This new resource allows interaction and information exchange, and consolidates the teaching/learning process. The use of these tools on education opens a variety of possibilities for the teachers and students. However, this study showed that many teachers still don’t know the term Web 2.0, and the ones who know, don’t use because of lack of knowledge about how to use them correctly. In the end of the research, became evident that, once the teachers are presented, directed and trained to use correctly the Web 2.0 tools, they will be inclined to use these new teaching methods on their educational practice. So, the main result of this study was the conception of good practices to the use of the web 2.0 tools on education. In light of this context, is necessary to improve the initial formation of the teachers with knowledge about these tools, encourage them to retrain and motivate them to use these tools on their classes. This will result on new pedagogical practices that allows a smarter teaching.
5. The Difference between the Concepts
The interactive multimedia together with the audio in virtual environment is the essence of what has been called “Web Radio”, which has the potential advantage of “network”, enriching its programming with multimedia content and additional resources, allowing a constant transmitter-receptor interaction that cancels the linearity auditive or visual. Like electronic games, the entertainment is only part of the history of Web Radio and Podcast, becomes an attractive technology in different areas of knowledge, including the Education. Thereby, the educational institutions can through Web Radio and Podcast offer educational materials with different themes in video, audio or image, which will be provided in the virtual environment and can be accessed remotely at anytime and anywhere in the world. Finally, the interactive multimedia together with the audio in virtual environment is the essence of what has been called “Web Radio”, which has the potential advantage of network, enriching its programming with multimedia content and additional resources, allowing a constant interaction transmitter-receptor, says Perona Páez (2009) in Teixeira (2013). Observe the difference between the concepts in Table 1:
Table 1. Features of Podcast and Web Radio
Features Podcast Web Radio
Interactivity in Real Time No Yes
Feed RSS Yes Yes
Streaming Optional Optional
Interactivity Resources No Yes
Asynchronous and Synchronous Interface
No Yes
Contents in Audio, Video, Image and Text
No Yes
Video/Audio On Demand Yes Yes
Integrated in the Learning Platforms
Yes Yes
Open Source Yes Yes
Educational / Commercial Technology
Yes Yes
But the main difference between the two interfaces is the support of other media interfaces in its operating structure. For example, other media can be integrated within the platform of web radio, unlike the podcast. And this is directly related to the possibility of interaction between the transmitter and receiver at the time of use. Moreover, few characteristics are consistent between the interfaces. To Teixeira (2013), the process of digitization suffered by conventional broadcasters and the availability of its content on the Internet, produced the latest step in the recent history of media - the Web Radio In turn, the education has been used in the new technological resources to produce educational programs multidisciplinary in several areas of knowledge and in different parts of the world. Due to its
characteristics, the podcast plays a key role in asynchronous access to information, introducing a total flexi-time access to content and collaborative sharing in cyberspace. The new technological supports brought the facility of access to information, namely by the increase of storage capacity, by the processing speed and by the compatibility between the systems, creating a culture of flexibility. “Podcasts offer obvious opportunities for distance learning” (Copley, 2007, p.388). This was the main reason mentioned by respondents of survey, when asked why they did choose the podcast: “flexibility to access the contents in any time or any place in real time”. Although similar, but with distinct features, the web radio and the podcast are complementary, for the sake of interactivity, ubiquity and flexibility, representing to the user the ease of access to information, culture and entertainment.
6. Conclusions
The virtual environments can be considered as one of the factors driving the transformation of mass media, associating new forms in network communication and becoming the information more accessible to any person that has access to the worldwide network of computers, promoting the production and dissemination of information in science and technology for teaching and research in all areas of knowledge and different sectors of society. This is it the communicability and sociability of people with the virtual world. The universities and schools through a Web Radio can provide educational programs in Podcast with different themes for different courses or areas of knowledge, which will be available online and can be accessed at anytime and anywhere in the world. Through this technological resource, there is no possibility of losing the program if the person is busy, the programs are available online and can be accessed when necessary or possible. Podcast integrated in the Web Radio brought the ease of access to fast information and collaboration between people around the world. It is shown in this paper, we find that the Web Radio and podcast media are distinct, each with its own characteristics and peculiarities, which are complementary towards interactivity, flexibility, collaboration and ubiquity.
Working together or separately, they produce information, entertainment and knowledge in the virtual environment. For online education, the interaction between both interfaces represents a valuable space for the dissemination, popularization and social knowledge, allowing the student access to educational content at anytime and anywhere in the world, establishing a new channel for communication in the virtual universe. Communicating is not just say what you want to convey, how to convey things is crucial, and differs from one person to another. Communicating is much more than sharing information (in written, oral or electronic form), it is understanding each other, a creative act based on the invention of new knowledge. To understand the communication results in the perception of human relations in a process involving the personalities, stories, feelings, values and ways of seeing the world, which causes changes the way individuals in society feel, think and act. In theoretical terms, it is possible to assert that interfaces of “Web Radio” and “Podcast” share similar objectives, with different structures of action, dedicated to the promotion and divulgation of culture, education, science in the educational institutions, representing, at the same time, a strong cultural intervention in the local communities, as well as a alternative for people’s formation.
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