The blog post below is a reflective account of a podcast task that was part of my Massy University Digital Education and Design for Learning course.
What?
Task 2.2: Create podcast
Task Create an audio or video response to a forum posting and post it to the forum
Outcomes
Familiarity with simple audio and/or video production including the use of hardware and software, file conversion, compression/file size and audio quality.
Having used podcasts before with students and teachers for a variety of different tasks, I was pretty comfortable with the outcomes listed above. Therefore, I decided to explore Podcasts in another way so I connected with friend, Andy Vasily to take him up on his offer about featuring on his #RunYourLife podcast.
About two years ago, friend and colleague, Andy Vasily spoke with me about coming on his podcast to talk about sport, education and leadership. Well, for a number of reasons, we just never managed to sit down and get it done. On a recent Japan winter holiday trip in Hiroshima where Andy and his family showed us around their former home city, we even carved out time, but alas, it never happened.
So, rewind to a couple of weeks ago and in thinking about the above task, I saw the podcast with Andy as a perfect opportunity to explore how he was is using this tool to connect with others around the world to learn about, and share their stories.
The Process
After Andy and I locked in a time, he asked me if I wanted some prep questions which I warmly welcomed. Having listened to a number of his podcasts and after talking to him, I had an idea about what he was going to ask and possible areas that he could explore depending upon where the conversation went. After receiving the questions, I put time aside to reflect on these by jotting my thoughts out. I also revisited some of Andy's recent podcasts to get a feel for them and his interview style. All of this helped me mentally prep for the conversation so that I felt confident about what I had to say, and that for me, it had value.
So What?
Firstly, it was fantastic to finally record this conversation with Andy, and I am very grateful for the opportunity as it provided me with the time to reflect on my past experiences, values and beliefs as a person, and as an educator. Sitting down to go through my thoughts which I mapped out either via note taking and journaling is not something that I do very often. However, it is something that when I do go through this process, I see great benefits. This reflective process allows me to check myself, re-run events and challenge myself on whether my theory and practice are aligned or not.
So why don't I reflect more often? Time for one! A lack of time is the excuse that I use to justify why this does not happen with greater frequency. In an ontological coaching session that I had with my coach, Ron Lalonde, we spoke about the importance of scheduling in personal professional time to reflect on events and actions. Following on from this discussion with Ron, I set about doing this by:
adding 10-15 minutes after meetings to explore how it went and if any follow up (action) is needed
adding an hour weekly self-check-in to reflect on goals and adjust planning.
So that above two action items were going well until the global pandemic hit. Like most people around the world, my working day was an amalgamation of home-schooling, working from home, with a touch of lock-down for good measure. During this time what I failed to do was factor in the above two reflective practices into my new schedule and therefore, these practices fell off my radar until now.
The Podcast
In looking at the above objectives for this Massey University task, I feel that I had already met this through the experiences already stated. For me, this task surpassed the outcomes by providing me with a chance to reflect, and in doing so, realizing that this is something that I need to do with greater regularity. A well-known quote that instantly springs to mind is Dewey's (1933), "We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience" (p. 33). Smyth (1991) takes it a step further when he mentions that reflectional, critical awareness or enlightenment must be accompanied by action.
Now What?
Implementing the above two action items that resulted in my discussion with Ron is something that I need to do. More importantly, as things will inevitably become disruptive in the uncertain future, having this reflective practice as routine will provide with a foundation to identify areas of success and aspects that could be improved.
References
Dewey J. 1933. How We Think. Boston, MA: D. C. Heath and Co.
Smyth, J. (1991). Developing and sustaining the critical. In Teachers as collaborative learners: Challenging dominant forms of supervision. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, pp. 106-118.
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