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Perception
Is All: Using Audio Files To Reach Across the Divide
Jack
Wilson
Associate
Professor
English Department
University of Maine
Orono, ME 04469
wilsonj@umit.maine.edu
http://www.umit.maine.edu/~Jack.Wilson
All
Teaching is Distance Education
In a response to a query about the potential danger of allowing the thin
edge of technology and distance education under the foundation of dear
old ivy-walled academe, Judith Boettcher, Executive Director of the Corporation
for Research and Educational Networking, argues that in reality all of
traditional education involves distance education. (See Chronicle of
Higher Education, 1/14/2000 or http://chronicle.com/.)
Out of a total week, a student typically spends but twelve to eighteen
hours actually in a classroom, and the student probably directly engages
with a teacher for only a small portion of that time. Some few classes
have seminar enrollments, but many more have twenty to thirty students,
and some have hundreds. Hence the actual direct involvement of teacher
and student, except for fifteen minutes or so in occasional office conferences,
falls short of what the traditionalists may have considered ideal. Most
students spend their academic time outside the classroom and faculty office,
and thus qualify as distance education students. In the past we tended
to think of the distance education student as so far separated from us
because the links were by mail and sometimes phone that we saw them as
an entirely separate species, but now the technology has so exponentially
evolved to the point that we communicate with students both on and off
campus with equal ease through email or similar connections. Hence virtual
reality by far becomes the actual reality for most students. Indeed, if
we look at the history of our emails or if we query our students, the
large majority access their email, electronic course discussions, chat
room--whether through WebCt or Blackboard, the two chief electronic teaching
assistants--at hours few of us would be willing to teach: In the evening,
more frequently, in fact, late at night or even early in the morning.
More faculty are more roosters than owls, but if I tell my students that
my alarm goes off at 4:30 am, they assume I’m joking. Many students
don’t go to bed until then. We are, then, I think, living under a
vast illusory tent if we assume we are not conducting our teaching as
distance education.
Yet, the cry might
go, “at least we see our students occasionally.” Yes, we do,
but the arrival of two-way video forces that cry to the sideline, and
I suspect that in the near future most of our students will have personal
two-way video capacity, for here at UMaine we teach a number of courses
using two-way video, enabling us to reach students in the far reaches
of a very large state as well as students throughout the Internet. In
the meantime, I would like to suggest a simple and available means by
which we can reach our students in a quite user-friendly way—both
those in the traditional distance education mode but especially those
at a psychological and physical distance outside the walls of ivy academe—audio
files.
Paradigm
Shift
In a survey of the literature, I have found very little dealing with this
pedagogy. I have found a great deal of literature about the hardware,
about the technology relating to streaming video and audio, about what
this or that manufacturer is trumpeting as the next piece of artillery
in this revolution, and I have found an occasional reference to the desirability
of actually using this technology more fully in the classroom. Probably
the most useful text I found can be accessed from http://www.league.org,
in a monograph by Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad, in their "Faculty
Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web" where they point
out what most of the outside world knows but which faculty are sometimes
reluctant to admit: That we are experiencing a massive paradigm shift
to Web-based instruction. We need more of this dialogue in our profession,
and we especially need pedagogical specifics. We have the hardware and
students and have the knowledge of RealPlayerOne (http://www.real.com)
and QuickTime (http://www.apple.com/QuickTime).
These are tools nearly every student uses for accessing, if for nothing
else, audio and video clips of pop culture. Free they are for the students
(though both of course encourage upgrades that cost a mere whatever a
month: RealPlayer, for instance, has an upgrade for $99.40 a year, and
QuickTime sells its upgrade to QuickTime 6 Pro for $29.99), and if faculty
want to send audio files using either RealPlayer or QuickTime, the cost
for the software right now amounts to between $100.00 and $200.00, depending
on what update you want (RealProducer Plus has recently been released
in version 9 by RealNetworks as Helix for $200.00). This represents a
certain substantial investment, but many schools will have grant money
for such “technological” hardware. Neither the expense nor the
technology should stand in our way.
Yet the pedagogy still
lags behind. I use RealProducer Plus to make my audio files, and the software
in its simplicity allows me to initiate a file about as quickly as addressing
an email message. And I can certainly talk much more rapidly than I can
type, so that I am able to package into a 400 to 700 to 1500k file about
four to six minutes of commentary considerably more than I could write
in that time. I initially started making these files for my distance education
students in a writing course, finding that I could first mark up a paper
on screen quickly for issues such as grammar and spelling, or problems
with syntax and organization using the “Reply with Quote” feature
under the message reply icon, placing my comments in red within the student’s
text. I use my own textbook for this, which I have keyed to numbers and
shorthand. (In this textbook the students will find explanations of the
rhetorical issue under question, with a lot of examples of “before
and after” prose taken from both student and faculty writing. Hence
they get to learn largely from their peers’ prose with me as the
guide.) I initially would then write a narrative at the end, along with
a grade. Additionally, the home page for the course has about fifteen
icons focusing on the kinds of things we would do or talk about in the
traditional classroom, one of which allowed students to edit each other’s
papers before they would be sent in to me. I also had a weekly discussion
requirement. Still, I felt a gap.
Bridging
the Divide
Audio files bridge this gap. I make a file for each student paper by talking
through the paper’s strengths and weaknesses as I look at the paper--after
I have already made the initial interlinear comments about grammar, punctuation,
paragraphing and the like--asking the students to listen to my audio
comments as they scroll through the essay on their screens. In these responses
I comment on the argument, the rhetoric, the organization—anything
needed to produce a better paper. Nothing different than we would do in
a conference, except of course that the oral “conference” comments
are now permanently available to both student and myself because I’ve
recorded them on the computer. I occasionally go back to them before I
evaluate a student’s next paper, especially if I’ve asked a
student to rewrite a paper. I use Excel as a spreadsheet to record my
grades, the spread capacity allowing me to put in comments easily by each
student’s name or grade, and there I may tell myself to listen to
the tape again. So I get verbal cues from the audio files as well.
Example
Responses
Three sample audio files (Erica, Heather,
and Kevin) are include with this essay (audio files
used with the permission of the student). The samples pretty much typify
the kinds of things I say to students about their papers, trying to criticize
without censoring, and to praise without glorifying.
The following is a
typical student response after they have listened to the audio file.
Hi :) I've just
listened to your comments on my paper - quite helpful. I would have
to agree with you on the part about the infections in the larger piercings....
if I had taken the time to consider it, I probably would have thought
better of it. In any case, thank you for the compliments, and I will
read the chapters that you gave me as quickly as possible.
The
Power of Voice
Beyond the practicality of these files, we have more importantly the psychological
effect: The students like to hear a voice, one that can relate a specific
essay to an earlier one, though we can do this in writing as well. But
we cannot as easily convey tone in writing. In the audio clips we can
become personal, referring to something we know about the student from
his or her contributions to the discussion folder. Most of all, the students
like this type of connection because it yokes them to a breathing reality,
not just to an abstraction that hands out a grade. As one student states:
I really enjoy
the use of audio files. We get feedback verbally, so we are able to
hear and understand where the Prof. is coming from. I actually mentioned
audio feedback to another Prof. I wish other classes would use the audio
technology. There is no miscommunication this way either, as the Prof.
states exactly what needs to be done. As when you receive just documentation
back, there is usually still questions that need to be answered, because
you didn't understand what the Prof. was trying to tell you. Then you
play e-mail tag, which can get frustrating. So I am all for having audio,
and as I mentioned before, I wish other classes would also use it.
It would be nice to
think that no miscommunication occurs via these audio files—but of
course we’ll always have some; however, I do think that today’s
students respond more readily to verbal communication than written, and
that at the least students’ perceptions of comments have changed
and that, of course, generates a positive response as to how students
perceive our response and thus how they use our comments to improve their
writing.
Another student actually
celebrates the technology:
I enjoy receiving
your responses regarding my essays via the audio. Your responses and
recommendations are personally tailored to our individual essays, which
makes it great because we all have different styles or writing. By actually
listening to you, it's actually easier to process the recommendations
for improvement of future essays. Modern technology is amazing.
Howard
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences
These reflect but two of a great many responses I had to the question
on the evaluation forms about the value of such clips, and it would seem
to mesh with Howard Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences, for
as most of us know as past students and present teachers, no one size
fits all. Sure, most of us in this field would probably place ourselves
in the “linguistic” category of intelligence, but certainly
not all of our students do, nor would we wish them to, for surely a world
filled with teachers of English would be a boring world indeed. Probably
Gardner’s category “interpersonal intelligence” best fits
the motivation behind my use of audio clips, for this category relates
to person-to-person interaction, thus bridging the gap between the abstract
and the personal inevitable when the linguistic and the interpersonal
confront one another. In an ideal academic world we would be sitting with
our students all of the time as they draft their essays, suggesting, modeling,
and encouraging, but too many of today’s students—at least here
at UMaine, with so many working single moms and dads —don’t
even have the time to come in during office hours for help, so the “interpersonal”
becomes limited to the few classroom sessions. At least these audio files
bring some of the face-to-face to the students through the voice to voice.
And for the truly distance ed. students, it becomes the only human connection,
though I am now in the process of making video files as introductions
to all of my courses that will be placed onto our server and accessed
by all of my students through Quicktime. These will be streaming files,
so they won’t clog up their Internet connections or fill up their
hard drives.
Sense
of Community
From a larger academic perspective, the use of such files generates not
only a personal connection and illusion of presence, but a community of
students that feel an attachment to a university that they might not typically
have, certainly in a state as large as Maine. But except perhaps for some
small relatively self-contained colleges, most contemporary teaching environments--not
just here at the University of Maine--generate some degree of anonymity
and separation of a lot of students from the old fixed eighteen to twenty-two
year old environment. So not only the large, sparsely-populated areas
such as Maine but city schools as well can produce the alienated student,
whether because of a large commuting student body or because of more older
students than typical in the past. Our student bodies have changed over
the years, with distance education students accounting for a lot of this
change. The human voice, though, can help maintain a virtual connection
that need not be curbed by space and distance. Audio files break down
many of the boundaries created by contemporary education, and hence the
use of audio files becomes an ethical necessity. They make sure that student
single mother up in the puckerbrush of northern Maine connected only by
the Web or that the student single father in the city surrounded by a
faceless web and cacophony of people refusing to make eye contact can,
at the very least, hear a human voice commenting on something central
to their future, their academic progress.
We
Learn Differently
Pedagogically, as well, the use of these files makes sense. We all learn
in different ways--as Gardner’s theories suggest--and most
of us have had the experience with students of having tried to make a
point in a lecture or in written comments on an essay—thinking that
surely we have been clear and effective—only to have the student
later come to our offices unsure about what exactly we were saying or
criticizing. Audio files won’t eliminate the inevitable failures
of human communication but they can help minimize them, for, in conjunction
with written comments, they allow students to learn from two different
perspectives. Usually my students have gone back and replayed the files
as they are working on a subsequent paper. Yes, they can do this with
the written comments, but they perceive the kinds of reminders I give
them about rhetorical issues more telling in verbal rather than written
form. The need for constant repetition in a writing course finds relatively
easy satisfaction with audio files, especially since student development
in such a course usually depends on building not only on previous mistakes
but successes as well.
Used in conjunction
with other on-line tools, these audio files create a pedagogical atmosphere
that establishes a virtual community, for I have found that in the required
weekly discussion sub-conference in my on-line writing courses the students
repeatedly talk more positively about the verbal comments I make about
their writing—even when relatively critical—than they do about
similar comments in writing. The human voice soothes the savage beast
in us perhaps, but, whatever the reason, these files take some of the
bite out of what for most of us sometimes stings the most: Being honest
about a student’s writing. Unlike the typical literature course,
writing courses assume a deficiency in the student coming into one, for
otherwise the student could probably test out of the “required”
course. Thus the students expect to receive a lot of red marks on their
papers at the beginning of such a course; but however much we may point
out that in a writing course we expect them to grow as writers, and that
the quality of the work at the end of the semester will count for more
than they were doing at the beginning, they still are covered with anxiety.
The audio files take some of the red out of the grade or comment at the
end of a paper. A successful audio tone, I think, better serves our need
to cajole and criticize. As one of my students says,
I find that the
audio files are good for responding to our essays. You can get more
detailed if necessary. I also believe that if you put an audio file
in for everything that you want, (for example weekly check ins, comments
about what you expect, etc.) it would make a quiet class seem like some
one else is there with you. I have found that if it seems that someone
else is there (in some form) than someone is watching over you and you
don't feel neglected. E-mail alone is too impersonal.
Hard
Drives and Streaming
The audio files I make I send not as streamed files but as emails, and
they can keep them on their hard drives as long as they want for the semester.
I have virtually unlimited space on our First Class server, so over a
semester’s time for a class of twenty-five or so, I’ll use about
ten megabytes of space for each student, but of course I delete this at
the end of the semester, though I then burn the files onto a CD and keep
them for my records. For my other courses I use WebCt, and there my commentary
is streamed onto our server—becoming compressed and then of course
streamed out in small bits and thus needing little band space; and here
the student’s work and my commentary is password protected as well
as being available at any time. Yes, streaming lacks the quality of non-compressed
audio and video, but at least streaming audio sounds better than streaming
video looks—for right now—but I suspect the streaming technology
will improve rather quickly. Right now, for instance, I am teaching a
course in romantic love asynchronously to about seventy students, and
they can access at any time fifteen video lectures I have streamed onto
our server without burdening their hard drives. We still get some of the
jerkiness common to the streaming world, but I have learned to stay somewhat
still while making these lectures—contrary to my usual teaching style.
All of our students have access to our servers, and we have a very capable
Help Center for those challenged by technology (which is the case for
me much of the time), so even the disadvantaged students can participate—and
can afford to. WebCt allows students to hyperlink to my audio. Indeed,
I am putting a lot of material onto the WebCt server that in the past
students would have had to pay for.
Unintended
Consequences
One of the unintended consequences of my use of audio files for my on-line
writing courses relates to all of my courses—on-line and off-line,
graduate as well as undergraduate--for I am now sending their essays for
literature courses back with audio commentary, using the same format as
for the writing courses. I ask my students to send in their essays on
WebCt, and I mark them up as with a regular paper, but instead of a lengthy
final comment I now verbalize my final assessment. The same psychology
operates here: They like the effect of the human voice. Additionally,
for the on-line literature courses I teach, I make streaming audio files
of anywhere from ten minutes to an hour about the reading they are doing,
and I also occasionally respond this way to questions that come up in
the discussion section of the courses. Indeed, I like this technology
so much that I am going to make a series of streaming audio and video
files for my literary specialty, so that students can access up-to-date
information about bibliographies and Web-links, the kind of material traditionally
found in introductions to our anthologies, but, of course, always out
of date. We can now do this on Web-pages, but—again—I think
the vocal dimension enhances the receptions of this by most students.
The
Ethics of it All
From a practical and ethical perspective, one might argue that asking
the Distance Education students to have the technology to access these
audio clips disadvantages them, especially in a state with as many rural
poor as Maine; yet our experience here suggests that even the very poor
students who want an education via Distance Education either have an Internet
connection or can go to the local high school or satellite college and
access the material. All of these sites have the requisite technology,
and allow students to listen to audio with attached headphones. My experience
teaching this way over the past ten years suggests that almost all of
the students have fairly easy access to the technology here in Maine,
and that the major problems arise out of figuring out how to use it. I
spend a lot of time emailing instructions. Further, UMaine does not have
a heavy throttle on bandwidth that would restrict attachments—allowing
students 60 megabytes of space, so the students can and do sent reasonably
lengthy papers on our First Class system, and we can even make files private--both
email and streamed--by adjusting permissions in the course conference.
All in all, then,
if the likes of Newsweek in the popular press and the Smithsonian
in our government with its “Sounds of History” use of audio
files, why not academics, for our students have become increasingly comfortable
with them. As Ruth Weiss argues in a 2000 article in Training &
Development: “Gardner . . . advises us to regard technology as
a tool, neither positive nor negative” (Sep 2002, Vol. 54 Issue 9,
p52), and she goes on to state that Gardner finds the possibilities of
using this new technology for sound educational goals quite promising,
as long at its done intelligently and with balance. Surely we academics
can cross whatever divide this technology sets up for the benefit of our
students, and I suggest that the use of audio clips helps build such bridges.
At the very least, in this increasingly intense world of higher education—becoming
compressed by so many directives from above--it may help convince our
students that we still care about them.
Perceptions do matter.
Works
Cited
Boettcher, Judith, Rita-May Conrad. "Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching
and Learning To the Web." Available URL: http://www.league.org.
Weiss, Ruth. “Howard Gardner Talks About Technology.” Training
&Development. 54 (2000): 52.
Young, Jeffrey R. “Monograph Reassures Scholars Wary Of Online Teaching.”
Chronicle of Higher Education 46 (2000): A51.
All student audio
clips used with permission of the students.
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