The article, Voice over Distance: A Case Study of Podcasting for Learning in Online Teacher Education, by Dianne Forbes and Elaine Khoo in 2015 seeks and evaluates how student-generated podcasts become a form of assessment in an online pre-service teacher education course at a distance. This article is published in journal of Distance Education in August 2015. As the first author in this article, Forbes take a role as the lecturer who directly involved and piloted the study. Becoming a former primary school teacher and associate principal who is interested in inovative pedagogy and blended e-learning, Forbes colaborated with Elaine Khoo, a senior research fellow at the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, The University of Waikato, in conducting this study.
This article provides a picture and understanding to prepare future educators regarding to teaching-learning process in distance using technology, especially podcast. Since the study was conducted using qualitative method, the article is expected to give a deeper insight and detailed information related to the effect of podcasting in online learning. The study in this article is aimed to examine the potential of student-generated podcast in online learning context. It focuses on lecturer and tutor reflection, students discussion, and course evaluation in the case of implementation of podcasting. In tutor and lecturer reflection, the author, as a lecturer, and two tutors discussed about the value of podcasting tasks in suporting formative assessment in the course, including preparation before the course and the evaluation afterwards. Then, 80 second-year students in online teacher education course were assigned to create two podcast episodes, one is about reflection on the observation during their six weeks teaching practicum, and the other one is about teaching philosophy and their planning as future teachers. After creating two episodes of podcast, students were assigned to have online discussions regarding to podcasting task and filled open-ended questions for the data collection.
Using interpretivist methodology, which frames data collection and analysis process, several major findings were found in this study, such as, podcasting values students in making contribution to society in teaching-learning process, develops awareness of tools for learning, improves digital literacy and technical capability, gains motivation and widen the opportunity for teacher and students to work collaboratively. Thus, from thefindings, several strengths are found in this article. The article can providea reference for educators in implementing technology, specifically podcast, in onlineteaching-learning process. The implementation of podcast in educational fieldis still rare even though this technology has been used in some countries as amedia to get information (Darwis, 2016). Moreover, the findings from this article are in line toother studies even though they were conducted in different methodology.
Forinstance, in Podcast and Second LanguageLearning by McBride (2009), podcasting can be a media in promotingmeaningful interaction among students and teachers. Then, Podcasting in a Virtual English for Academic Purposes Course: LearnerMotivation by Asoodar (2016) also showed similar finding that podcastingmotivates students to learn in online environment. These similar findings fillthe gap of knowledge in term of methodology in the related study. Furthermore,the authors narrate the findings clearly in the article.
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The authors providethe interview and discussion results after stating the findings (p. 341-344).It helps readers gain more understanding regarding to the article. However, severalweaknesses are also found in this article. The findings of this qualitativestudy cannot be generalized to wider population.
The study was conducted onlyto one course in one university in New Zealand. The findings of the study arenot tested to reveal whether they are statistically significant or due to chance(Atieno, 2009). Thus, the results of the study may be different in otherpopulation and area. Besides, the research question of the study is notexplicitly written in the article. The readers need to read all of the contentto understand what authors intended in conducting this study.
In fact, writinga research question is part of a dynamic, reflective qualitative inquiryprocess (Agee, 2009). Agee stated that,in qualitative study, the process of questioning is an integral part ofunderstanding the unfolding perspective of others. Overall, Voice overDistance: A Case Study of Podcasting for Learning in Online Teacher Education is a well-writteninformative article. Using qualitative method, this article can be a referencefor furthure studies in related field.
Besides, the findings are naratedclearly and are in line to other studies in related field. In order to have abetter understanding for the readers, stating the research questions will bepreferable. Since colaborative learning and the use of ICT are integrated ineducation field nowadays, this article can be a reference for preparing futureeducators regarding to online teaching-learning process in distance using podcasts.
