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1. What are the two key attributes that differentiate a general podcast from an educational podcast?

Answer:

Educational podcasts are not inherently or necessarily different from non-educational podcasts but they do have at least two key differentiating attributes: (1) Purpose: The primary goal of an educational podcast, as with almost everything else we do, is to facilitate learning (rather than merely entertain or inform) and (2) Target audience: The primary audience of any educational podcast are learners/students who rely on these podcasts to bolster their learning.

2. Which three elements are considered to be particularly important in educational podcasting?

Answer:

Educational podcasts must generally comply with many of the key principles of effective instructional design and teaching (e.g. making sure to start by capturing learners’ attention, tying new information to previously learned content, chunking etc.). However, since podcasts are exclusively audio-based, three instructional design principles are especially critical, and must be implemented within every educational podcast: Clear Objectives, Systematic Organization, and a Call for Action (a sort of practice opportunity).

3. What is an instructionally effective (useful) manner to brand your educational podcasts?

Answer:

Educational podcasts, especially when regularly used, should generally follow a predictable and systematic structure and style. Furthermore, your overall structure, and even style, needs to be clearly communicated to the learners: Give them a brief outline of your entire podcast at the very beginning. Similarly, if, for example, you are going to use a certain sound effect when moving from one topic to another, let them know that you are going to use that particular sound effect for that particular purpose. Think of these systematic structure and style as a form of ‘educational branding,’ which is meant to make your final product feel more comfortable and familiar (i.e. clear).

4. Every educational podcast must start with:

Answer:

An educational podcast cannot generally serve as a complete, standalone, instructional module and is better seen as a supporting element within a larger module. While this overarching module will naturally include the overall learning objectives of the module, also each educational podcast (like other key instructional elements), must start by clearly communicating to the listeners, your learners, the podcast’s focus and aim/s.

'''5. The ‘call for action’ is educational podcasts way of confirming listening and understanding by the learners. As such its ideal place in every educational podcasts is'''

Answer:

This is best accomplished via a specific/clear call for action - at some point - of each and every educational podcast you produce (e.g. ‘now pose and complete the following task’). This will not only afford your learners a much needed reflection time and practice opportunity but also demonstrate to you, the teacher, whether or not your learners are actually listening and understanding your message. For this reason, you should also consider changing the location of your call for action, and place it at different points of each podcast, as a way to ensure that your learners do listen to each podcast in its entirety.

6. Which of the following options best captures all the possible benefits of a well-written audio script?

Answer:

A well-written script will not only save you time and trouble in recording and editing your podcast but will also enable you to produce podcasts that sound more focused, clear and polished. In simple instructional design terms, authoring a well-written script will both increase your production efficiency, and increase the probability of producing a more effective and appealing educational podcast.

'''7. You try reading your audio script out loud and notice that you need to stop for air midway through many of your sentences. What could be the problem?'''

Answer:

Try reading your script out loud - Do you need to stop for air midway through one of your sentences? If the answer is yes, that sentence might be good for the eyes but not for the ears; it is too long or complex. As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn’t need more than one breath of air to utter any one single sentence.

8. Which of the following scenarios is most suitable for assessing and enhancing the ‘spontaneity and friendliness’ of your audio scripts?

Answer:

When you read out loud your script, imagine that you are talking with another person sitting next to you. If you don’t speak like this in real-life, your script might lead to a distant and artificial-sounding podcast.

'''9. Below are two versions of the same sentence. Which principle of effective script writing was violated by the first sentence?'''

Sentence 1: In light of the fact that we have doubts about this answer, it is obvious that at this point in time we must give consideration to other alternatives.

Sentence 2: Since we doubt this answer, obviously, we must now consider other alternatives.

Answer:

The first step in writing for the ear is to use the right structure: To use simple short sentences and words, and to make each sentence, paragraph and even the overall podcast as short as possible. Skip any unnecessary flair and get to your point.

10. Which of the following script experts may trip you when you try reading it out loud?

Answer:

Numbers are a known “tripping hazard” in audio narrations but you can avoid most of these number related pitfalls by sticking to the following simple guidelines:
 * 1) Write out the numbers one through nine.
 * 2) Use numerals for 10 through 999.
 * 3) Write out words like thousands and millions.
 * 4) Whenever possible, round long numbers: It’s easier to say “about 15-thousand” than “14, 978.5,” and it will be easier for your listeners to follow and understand you.
 * 5) If rounding is not an option, spell out long numbers, and dates.

Similarly, with symbols, be sure to spell out what you want to say because when looking at a script, it’s always easier to read a symbol’s name (e.g. percent, dollars, centimeters etc.) than its sign or abbreviation (e.g. %, $, cm. etc.).

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