| As I took part in more
and more webcasts it occurred to me that what teachers do in the webcasting
environment is very similar to what radio presenters do. In both cases you
are addressing an unseen audience. Radio in educational contexts has been
used mostly as a broadcast model of disseminating information. Though
good radio presenters may well have skills that synchronous online teachers
could benefit from (voice modulation, frequent change of focus, avoiding
the tendency to monologue), it is the increasingly popular medium of talkback
radio that approximates what must do as an online presenter. Effective webcasting
involves allowing room and time for interaction from your audience - allowing
them some of the allotted airspace - and hence giving them some say in the
content and direction of the session. This affords listeners some semblance
of a co-designer role in the instructional design process as described by
Jonassen in his article, Learners as Designers. (http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper1/paper1.html) |
