My group consisted of Ankita, Sam, Maddie and myself and we looked at the topic of podcasting and vodcasting. Sam and Maddie were allocated to research podcasting and Ankita and I were allocated to research vodcasting.

Below is a link to our wiki:

http://elearningdesign.wikispaces.com/podcasting_vodcasting

For my case study I looked at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) use of vodcasts.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a part of the US Department of Heath and Human Sciences and is mainly concerned with health research. Among many of its functions, the NIH conducts programs and directs initiatives aimed at educating various communities about the developments in research at the institute. As such, the NIH seeks effective ways of communicating this and so have incorporated into its repertoire of media outlets, a monthly vodcast by the name of ‘i on NIH’. This case study explores ‘i on NIH’ and looks at the benefits and disadvantages/challenges of vodcasting in this particular organisational example.

My case study can be found at:

http://elearningdesign.wikispaces.com/Theresa+Dinh

My group wanted to create a podcast or vodcast to enhance our presentation however time restraints got the better of us and we weren’t able to. However, as an example of these technologies I created a mock podcast (because I haven’t syndicated and streamed it online or made it downloadable to a portable device hence it is a mock) of my case study. I would have created a vodcast except I really didn’t know where to start with that.

Vodcasting at the NIH Podcast

Anyway, I think we went pretty well as we were able to get some discussion going about the issue of podcasting and vodcasting in replacing traditional modes of delivery such as lectures. The response that we gave was that these technologies could never replace traditional delivery modes but should be used as a support. The benefits of face to face interaction is vital in the educational context hence the reason why they cannot replace it.