Podcasting for Learning

Podcasts has primarily been used as a source of entertainment for me and my family's consumption.  Only in recent months have I started to think of the dynamic role that audio or video recording could play when trying to entice adult learners to engage with educational content. 


The context that I'm exploring in today's blog is the use of podcasting with a customer base regarding learning objective that help make them more profitable and agile farmers and ranchers.  We currently offer an annual meeting with great speakers.  Approximately 1% of our customers attend said meeting.  As you can imagine, the need for learning to be more accessible and attractive to the remaining 99% of customers is my primary focus.  In my first iteration of a solution, I'm looking to create a live broadcast using an interview style conversation utilizing audio and video components.  The goals is to avoid the image of delivering a message and instead start a conversation with farmers/ranchers.  By utilizing subject matter experts (SMEs) in the field of agricultural economics, the learners can direct the conversations by submitting or calling in with questions they feel warrant further conversation.  One of the benefits of using audio/video recording for these interviews is that the SME can conveniently interview from their own home or farm (King & Cox, 2011).


King & Cox (2011) challenge us as educators to open ourselves to multiple delivery modes to reach the learner.  The opportunity to turn the live broadcast into a smaller bite-sized podcasts, eLearning modules, and marketing clips opens the door to maximize the investment in the SME while creating a variety of options available to the learners.  The use of podcasting for learning in educational settings has been a challenging area.  There are the challenges in building an audience.  The perceived usefulness (PU) of the podcasting for learning is a critical factors to address (Wei & Ram, 2016).  Knowing that PU impacts the learners desire to engage with the podcast, when attempting to build an audience, the learning benefits may need to be marketed directly to the desired audience. 


So the question remains... if I create a podcast, will the learners come?  When analyzing the behaviors and motivations of adult learners, my answer would be 'it depends'.  Research indicates that motivation to learn through podcasts depends on many factors including gender, class, and prior online learning (Bollinger, Supanakorn, & Boggs, 2010).  The key to success, in my opinion, is to diversify the educational opportunities, sell the objectives to your learners, and be adaptable.  If they aren't engaged, iterate and move on! 




Bolliger, Supanakorn, & Boggs. (2010). Impact of podcasting on student motivation in the online learning environment. Computers & Education, 55(2), 714-722.


King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.


Wei, & Ram. (2016). Perceived usefulness of podcasting in organizational learning: The role of information characteristics. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 859-870.