Podcasting newbie notes
My first official episode of my new podcast, Always Learning with Lexi Keeton was actually Episode 2!
It contained a brief analysis of the CloudDeakin eLearning portal using Yu-Kai Chou’s Gamification framework – Octalysis. I offered three of the 8 Core Drives which I feel motivate me: Accomplishment, Empowerment and Social Influence and reviewed CloudDeakin’s strategies that address these motivators. My argument was that their gamified strategies are somewhat present however if not executed well, may have adverse effects on the very students they’re trying to help.
Podcasting Strategies
I approached the podcast as though I already had an audience who was familiar with the format and interested in learning theories with the “fake it til you make it” philosophy. (A familiar strategy for a pre-service teacher!) And is one of my quick tips in the tweet below.
My research process looked a bit like this
YouTube’d ‘Gamification’ until I found a specific interest and scholarly lead
Searched Deakin’s library for sources related to the topic eLearning and Higher Education
Realised that to get specific I’d need to examine a familiar eLearning portal through the lens of Octalysis
Chose DeakinSync as it would be familiar and relevant to much of my audience
I was then able to build a story balancing research which formalised the concept of gamification and then contextualised my specific example for analysis. While narrating the podcast, I referred to the researchers as I would talk about them to a friend. I had to be very careful pronouncing the names though, so at times probably read a bit stiff!
Content creation
I initially assumed that I would record audio files, import them into Audition, and edit after, but when I opened Audition for the first time, their tutorial set me up to record directly into the program! This was convenient because I was able to instantly re-record sections of text if the inflection was incongruous with the content. Again…at times I think this was noticeable in the final product, but we have to start somewhere! FITYMI!!
Finding music took way longer to find that expected because I got caught up on the No Derivatives clause on some Creative Commons licenses which makes it hard to incorporate into a podcast. Despite this, Freesound and FMA, were amazing resources.
I enjoyed creating the brand headers and thumbnails for ‘Always Learning’ with Canva. I subscribed to the 30-day free trial so that I could access the magic resizing function. This allows you to resize the design you’re working on to the aspect-ratio of various social media platform needs. Super useful, but exxy for a personal user if you are to pay $15/mo and you aren’t using it regularly.
Challenges
My Bluetooth headphones kept distorting so I had to suss out that the problem was the Bluetooth itself, not the microphone or the program. A simple solution once I realised – turn it off and on again!
Adobe Audition was new to me, but as I’ve committed myself this year to learning the Adobe Suite, I stuck with it. I watched tutorials and googled specific actions I needed help with and found it all to be helpful and straightforward, yet time consuming. Working late at night was helpful to getting into the narration and editing flow with less distractions, and the world was quieter, so the recordings sounded better. Win win win!
Podcast Show Notes:
This episode of Always Learning looks at Gamification within the context of eLearning in Higher Education.
Link to Yu-Kai Chou’s TedX Talk:
Gamification to improve our world: Yu-kai Chou at TEDxLausanne
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Qjuegtiyc
INTRO MUSIC:
Positive Fat Bass Intro Loop by WinnieTheMoog
Link: filmmusic.io/song/6093-positive…at-bass-intro-loop
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
SOUND EFFECTS:
Intro For A Nonexisting Video Game by Captive Portal
Link:freemusicarchive.org/music/Captive_…ing_Video_Game
License: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
REFERENCES:
Chou, Y-k 2015, ‘Actionable gamification’, Beyond points, badges, and leaderboards.
Deterding, S, Sicart, M, Nacke, L, O’Hara, K & Dixon, D 2011, ‘Gamification. using game-design elements in non-gaming contexts’, in CHI’11 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems, pp. 2425-8.
Urh, M, Vukovic, G, Jereb, E & Pintar, R 2015, ‘The model for introduction of gamification into e-learning in higher education’, Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 197, no. 25, pp. 388-97.