It was my last teaching session today at Srinakharinwirot University, and the last session looking at social media with the concert engineering students. Our focus today was podcasting. I’d been itching to create a podcast with them since I arrived three weeks ago, so this was a good opportunity to pull the different threads together and create a programme that was run and managed by the students themselves.
We also compared podcasting as a media form to that of its main predecessor, radio. The way that they share similar characteristics, such as primarily being audio-led content, and the way that we can do other things while we are listening, such as jogging, driving or doing the dishes. What marks podcasting out, however, is its relative freedom from set formats and timescales. A podcast can be episodic and can last for whatever time the producers deem to be relevant. Though listeners may struggle with content that goes beyond an hour, or is too free-form.
A podcast doesn’t need to use a proscriptive script, but we still felt that it would be better if it had a structure. So using the tried and tested method of designing a radio clock, we broke the hour down into segments, identified when music would be played, and what would be the speech content in each of the talk sections. Each would lead on a theme, and would contribute and ask questions to help develop their spoken English skills.
We had a practice before lunch, then afterwards my only instruction was to collect the kit from my bag, set it up and have a go at recording something. And with no questions asked, no double checking that is what they did. They set the equipment, checked the levels, used their scripts to follow their previously mapped pathway, and then record what they were going to chat about. The stipulation was that there would be no edits, and that any mistakes, pauses or fluffs would be left in.
It was really encouraging to see how the students responded to this exercise. They had only been introduced to the concept of a
I can’t believe that this was the last session of a three-week block, and that it’s time to move on to other things. We’ve covered a lot in these sessions. We’ve had to get to know one another from scratch, and we’ve had to learn to use concepts, techniques and equipment that was not quite familiar before we started. I’m hoping that the students continue to create and share content for their Music On Da Moon blog, and that they keep sharing their ideas about the media, music and stuff that they are interested in. It gives me a reference-point to follow when I come back to Bangkok, and something to remind me of my time here, and what I might be missing when I return to the UK.