Audio

Context:
According to this selection, audio is a powerful medium for instruction, yet is often overlooked by education planners. The selection describes both strengths and weaknesses of audio in distance education.

Source:
Scottish Council for Educational Technology. 1994. "Audio." In Technologies in Learning, pp. 24-25.

Copyright:
Reproduced with permission.

Audio is an extremely powerful medium for conveying feelings, attitudes and atmosphere. It is less good at conveying detail and facts. In other words, you will not remember very many facts and figures after listening to a 30-minute audiotape. You will, however, be able to remember general opinions, and arguments.

These days many people overlook audio as a training medium. An advantage of audio in comparison with other technologies is its cost-effectiveness. As the old maxim goes, 'radio has the best scenery'. The imagination can fill in the parts which video-based technologies have to actually portray. This makes for a very much cheaper media than television. Sound effects, accents, etc can effectively convey a place and time in the viewer's imagination, and can give rise to vivid and powerful learning scenarios, particularly when used in association with other media, such as print.

Also, there has been a growth in the use of audiotapes for business and language courses as well as the 'audio briefing' tape. It is a 'portable' and accessible technology: for example, nearly every car has a radio cassette player. If you travel to work 30 miles per day you are spending approximately 330 hours per year behind the wheel of your car. This could be spent listening to the radio (and obviously watching where you're going) but the audio cassette can be a very handy and cost-effective reinforcement for learning.

Some potential use of audio cassette is to provide a promotional or inspirational message, eg to tell your workforce about various new developments, to keep them informed of changes within the company. Also by using a powerful and motivating speaker your workforce's enthusiasm can be fired up in order to achieve their goals.

Summary

Audiotape can form part of a cost effective 'multimedia' package, as exemplified by the Open University and other training institutions for many years. It is useful where investment decisions on CD technologies are being deferred until standards emerge-at least with audio everybody has an available ghettoblaster or cassette recorder! New developments in technology, will eventually lead to the replacement of analogue audio by digital compact cassette, digital minidisc or recordable CD. However, the present analogue audiotape has several years of shelf life left.

STRENGTHS

• The equipment is cheap and robust. It is also widespread and familiar.
• Audiotapes are easy, quick and cheap to produce and update. As a result there is a high degree of author control. Tapes are also cheap to distribute and store.
• They are interesting, personal and intimate. They can be used to provide human contact and advice.
• They can be used to incorporate sounds and music and can be a powerful stimulus to the imagination.
• They can be used more effectively than print to talk learners through a passage and to document discussions, case studies and language pronunciation at work.
• They are convenient to use. There is a large degree of learner control.
• They can be recorded on by the learner and returned to the tutor to provide feedback.

WEAKNESSES

• Access to a player is necessary, restricting portability.
• Complex branching and routing is difficult.
• The information conveyed is intangible and, as a result, learners require concentration to absorb facts.
• It is difficult to absorb complex information, eg a logical argument may be hard to follow and will need confirmation from print or another visual medium for maximum effect.
• It can be difficult to find the relevant point of a tape. They cannot necessarily be used everywhere without headphones, eg in a library.

HINTS AND TIPS

• Provide headphones when using audio inaflexible group setting.Splitter plugs are a convenient way of letting two or more people hear the same source.
• Check your leads and connections - are they jack plugs or the smaller phono ones?
• If you are editing material onto cassette, try and dub the material so that when side one finishes, you simply stop the tape and turn it over. Side two should start at that point.
• Mark all cassettes and library boxes clearly with titles, originator/producer and date. This ensures ownership of copyright as well as avoiding confusion.
• Record information on the tape, stating what is on it. Leave sufficient gaps for people to follow instructions or stop the tape etc.
• Keep your masters separate and safe!
• If you are producing your own audiotape, and you wish to use commercial material, remember to write to the Performing Rights Society with details of the track you want to use. They can put you in touch with the publishers, who may give you authority to use the material for a fee. If you want to use library music, write to the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society for names of suppliers of programme material.