Louisa: Hello everyone, thank you so much for joining our podcast today. I'm very pleased to be joined today by my good friend Francis Shiobara, who is both a mentor and almost like family. 

 

Frances: Well, I’m really happy to be here. It's lovely.

 

Louisa: So, Frances I'm a student at UBC and I'm actually completing my last two courses at the moment and this podcast for ETEC 540: the Changing Spaces of Writing and Text, and I am really pleased to have you listen to my project today. 

​

Frances: Well I am really interested in this project. I’ve always been really interested in integrating technology into education. So I want to find out what you've been doing.

 

Louisa: Awesome, can you give us a little bit about your background and tell us about yourself.  

 

Frances: So I have been teaching for about 35 years, all in Japan. I’ve taught Japanese students. I have a master of education. I taught in University now for about nearly 30 years and I did a PhD and well it's actually a Doctorate of education my PhD thesis was actually about why people use so much technology in their private life but we don't use technology more for education to improve learning outcomes from students. And that was the thing that really interested me. Everybody carries an iphone around with them but then in the classroom, we say put your Iphones away. It's just bizarre to me. So yea I am really interested in this topic. 

 

Louisa: Excellent yeah it's it's a difficult issue these days because technology can be such an amazing tool but it can also be a major distress so we really have to find that that happy balance between using it using it productively and not letting it take over our lives and you know especially messaging and online shopping and online dating and everything that can be done online these days. 

 

Louisa: Just so that everybody is aware, Frances is probably the reason that I was able to obtain, almost obtain a Masters degree. She has been my cheerleader and my champion ever since I started this journey and so I'm just incredibly grateful to have her in my life and have her be willing to record this podcast with me. 

 

Frances: Well it's just my joy and my pleasure. So can you tell me what you have been doing with your students? 

 

Louisa: So this project was a collaboration with Oana Cusen, who is also teaching at a university and she's much much more experience than I am and she was the one who actually really designed the project. It was kind of my idea to use podcasts as a project base and she went ahead and designed the sort of very elaborate steps that we had to take to care out the project. I have been listening to podcasts for many years now but I didn’t really use them in any kind of educational context. 

 

But when I started my MET journey, a lot of our material was delivered via podcasts and I absolutely fell in love with this genre of listening and being able to absorb information through podcasts. Honestly, I am so busy I can't you know I just can't get everything done in the day and so when I can listen to my like a specifically my coursework, TED Talks, lectures anything that can be taken from text to audio is hugely helpful for me because I can multitask which probably doesn’t sound very good to my professors but it's the way that I can get things done. As an adult student with a family and you know young children and a lot of responsibilities, I just really started to enjoy listening and being able to you know cook dinner and possibly fold laundry and you know other really mundane things everyday and still absorb the information that I needed to proceed with my course. So that's kind of where my love of podcasts in an educational context started and then later on, I started actually making podcasts, so it was becoming an output strategy. The first time I recorded a podcast, I think it was for one of my core courses and I was so nervous. It was really it felt even more it felt very exposed but after recording it, I felt great. I really enjoyed the process. I found it to be very sort of natural and I mean for me I'm quite extroverted so I do like interviewing people and talking with people and just the whole genre of podcasting appealed to me   

 

Frances: Wow, so it was really an evolution from you as a learner and a consumer of podcasts to you producing and teaching through podcasts. That's so interesting. 

 

Louisa: Yes, and I think that because I am still a student. I am able to really understand it from the students perspective. Which I think maybe sometimes, when you've been teaching something for a very long time you can sometimes lose the perspective of where the students might be coming from. Whereas, I am still very fresh as far as  being in student mode so I have gone through I think most of what my students have had to go through you know in their implementation of podcasting and I know the challenges that they faced. So I think for me it was just a really natural progression.

 

Break

 

Frances: So can you just explain to me the steps that you went through to create this project?

 

Louisa: Yes absolutely. The very first thing that I did with my students was find out how aware they are of podcasts and I was expecting them to all know at least what podcasts were but actually, to my surprise, many of them had never even heard of a podcast. So that definitely shocked me a little bit in the beginning because I thought they were quite mainstream these days. So I decided because of that lack of awareness about what a podcast even was, I asked my students to start researching just regular podcasts. So I gave them different sites to look at. I introduced them to Spotify, podcasts through Apple. I gave them lists of podcasts that I thought would be appropriate for them.    

 

And they actually really enjoyed this part of the process. Some of them found some really interesting podcasts that I never even thought of before. There's a lot of storytelling podcasts, some of them are specific to things like Disney stories or classic fairy tales. One of them found a Sesame Street podcast which was really charming. A few of them got into Naomi Watanabe’s podcast and I was a little bit nervous because she is quite an adult themed podcaster but they are university students so I wasn't too concerned. So that was the very first step for me was bringing awareness.

 

Frances: So it wasn't really a language learning goal. It was just for them to listen to podcasts so they listened in English and Japanese?

 

Louisa: Yes I gave them a choice but the lists that I gave them originally had quite a lot of English Language Learning podcasts. So I was highly recommending the BBC podcasts. They have things like 2 minute English language learning podcasts, 6 Minute language learning podcasts. There's one that I quite like called Espresso English. I've used them in other languages. I used to listen to the Espresso Spanish podcast. So I thought that this would be a good start for them and I thought it would encourage them to do a little extra English study on the side so it was not my intended goal but it was a factor that I thought about. 

 

Frances: Oh yea, that's great.

 

Louisa: And I think that a lot of them were surprised when they looked at their phones and were like oh yeah we have we actually have this app already. We actually have Spotify already and we actually have apple podcasting on our phones and they just weren't aware of it so I think that was kind of a bit of a revelation for some of them. 

 

Frances: Yes, well I mean they use their phones all the time and they all have earbuds basically and they can listen to them on the train and they travel a lot for coming to and from university. 

 

Louisa: Well, it's been interesting because it's been far easier for me to get my students to pull out their phones and a pair of earphones, or earbuds or whatever, than it has been to get them to bring a pc or tablet to class. (Frances: Oh yes I really understand that) So this was kind of inspiration for the podcasting project because it is a very mobile project and I knew that they would all have the equipment to be able to carry it out. So then the next step was actually introducing global issues to the students because we wanted them to choose a topic for their podcast that had to do with global issues or we sort of coined the term impactful issues, impactful language learning issues. 

 

Frances: Can you explain a bit more, what do you mean by impactful language learning?

 

Louisa: Yeah, so impactful language issues are not exactly new but it's not a very traditional way of language learning pedagogy in Japan. Japanese language learning is you know traditionally been very much textbook-based, grammar based, a lot of sort of not very dynamic learning as you know very well and this was we wanted this to head towards a more CLIL based  

strategy and wanted the students to be learning English through content based learning. So the impactful learning idea actually it was inspired by an SDG project that I used to do when I was teaching at a junior high school and we wanted the students to learn English of course but we also wanted them to start learning about the world and we wanted to bring a lot of issues that probably that hadn't been exposed to previously into the classroom and into their language learning experience. So impactful language learning is meant to again bring awareness of issues that probably they haven't been exposed to but also more importantly, it's meant to try to inspire change and of course there's a lot of Global Citizenship Education out there but that is a huge category and there are lot ot very important global issues that we've talked about previously, that of course are hugely important and we do need to solve them somehow but they don’t necessarily impact students here in Japan. So you know when we talk about issues like poverty (Frances: slums and housing, like we don't have slums in Japan). This is exactly something that most of our students can’t connect with and can really understand. I mean, they can conceptualize these ideas but they don’t really understand what it means. I think most of us don’t unless we’ve actually seen it or been amidst it.   

 

Frances: So impactful learning it's connected to SDGs and things but it's actually you've been pulling out the things that are actually connected to the students. Well that seems to be really important for them to want to find out about it and have opinions about it. They have to have some kind of connection to it.  

 

Louisa: There certainly are topics that they can connect with, you know for example a lot of the environmental topics is something that they can relate to and there are things that they can do to make a difference. Whereas if we throw something like, you need to solve world hunger or poverty. That is very much out of their hands, I think it's out of most of our hands. So I think for like especially young language learning students things like learning about recycling. You know talking a little bit more about gender inequality issues I mean that's quite a huge deal still in Japan. And even things like you know the declining birth rate in Japan was quite a popular topic. LGBTQ+ issues came out quite a lot which was really nice to see because it certainly hasn't been an issue that's been up-front in any of my previous teaching jobs.

 

Frances: So can I ask, these impactful issues, how did you introduce them to the students, did they listen to podcasts about them or they did readings or?

Louisa: They didn't get these from podcasts.  We did actually pull a little bit out of our textbooks, we had to use the textbooks they were sort of implemented you know by the universities. So some of the global issues were very loosely pulled out of the textbooks. I know that in Oana’s class their textbook had actual global issues within it. With my textbook it was a little bit more challenging because my students were at a lower level academically. I think they were around 3 to 4 hundred TOIEC and her students were about 7-8 hundred. So I think her students were able to brainstorm a lot more easily on their own whereas I had to have a little bit more input with my students. So again, a very loose connection was one of my chapters was about heroes and it was frankly a very boring chapter but I always bring in my own materials and I introduced them to a speech and a video by Greta Thunberg and I said you know she's one of my heroes and I also introduced them to Jane Goodall who is another you know another one of my heroes. So again it was very loosely pulled out of the textbook. 

 

Frances: Had they heard of these people before?

 

Louisa: Greta Thunburg, yes. Some of them. Jane Goodall, no. I don’t think any of them knew who she was. 

 

Frances: Oh Gosh, that’s surprising isn't it?

 

Louisa: So some of the ideas came out from the textbook especially for Oana. For myself, we did a lot of brainstorming. So I brainstormed with them, we did brainstorming at the front of the classroom on the boards and then I broke them into groups and I asked them to brainstorm on their own and then I asked them to sub brainstorm so come up with topics within topics and then the next step was asking them to actually make pairs or groups, decide on their topics and their subtopics. And then the next step was to introduce the scripts. We gave them an outline which was fairly simple but it broke the podcast into introductions, introduction of the topic. Host one would introduce the first main topic and then host two would give feedback and then the next step would be host 2 introducing the second main second head topic and the host one would give feedback. And then it moved onto a conclusion and wrapping up wrapping up the podcast. And the last step was actually getting them to input some segues which I think was probably their favorite part of the entire podcast. They got to be really creative with segues, they chose their own music and they chose their own sound effects. That was quite fun for them. 

 

Frances: So they can really use creativity as well.  

 

 Louisa: Absolutely, they had a lot of freedom. So I think the biggest challenge for them was the actual tech side of things. I mean it was challenging researching for their podcast and writing the script but I think the more challenging element was the actual implementation of the technology.  So they had to make Spotify for Podcasting accounts and that proved to be a little bit complex in some cases but most of them managed to pull it off. I told everybody that at least one person in the group needs to have this account but I would rather everyone does it so it is fair and equitable. 

 

My co-host is currently being jumped on by my Golden Retriever, very sorry Frances. He just wants to be part of the podcast. 

 

After I introduced the technology, I made several screencasts, tutorial videos for them to watch to help them sign up for Spotify for Podcasters and then the actual recording of the podcast and then finally, we have them upload their finished products onto a Padlet page, I'm sure you're familiar with Padlet, Padlet is almost like a social media but its private and you can post things and then the private community can give response and feedback which was another very big goal for us we wanted there to be a lot of communication between the students even after the podcast were finished. 

 

Frances: Padlet is perfect for that. 

 

Louisa: It really was, it worked out beautifully. After the podcasts were uploaded to the Padlet, everybody listened to each other's podcasts and then gave comments and feedback. And the very final step was a just a reflections process where we asked the students how did you feel when you were doing the project and when you finished the project, what was the most fun part of the project for you, what was the most challenging part of the the project for you and we got some really wonderful feedback. 

 

Frances: Ah right can you tell me some of the things that the students said that they got out of the project. 

 

Louisa: Absolutely, so they said the technology was challenging but I think the thing that stood out to me most significantly was that many of the students said and this was this was word for word, we felt such a great sense of accomplishment after finishing this podcast they said we made a real podcast and we uploaded it and we it was available for other people to listen to and I think that gave them a sense of pride, a sense of agency which is something that I always want to be able to instill in any project that I do. I want the students to have that feeling of independence and that feeling of being able to say, yeah I’ve accomplished something here. I've made something real.  

 

Frances: It's so great to have a product. We try to do that with writing and presentations. In the end the presentation they make is in the classroom or writing they do for the teacher and they might share it with other students in the class, but a podcast you can actually share with a wider community and it really is showcasing what you are doing in your class and what they are learning.

 

Louisa: Yes, and it lasts for as long as you want it to. I've even said to students if you wanted to make a portfolio in the future, you could add this podcast to a digital portfolio. 

 

Frances: Now, you/they’ve only made one podcast so far. (yes) I'm just wondering if after getting this sense of accomplishments, do you feel that they worked harder on making a podcast and they would have doing something for example a presentation or videos but this had a different outcome. 

 

Louisa: I mean I do presentations frequently and I have had them record videos but this has a different outcome I think because it was so easy for them to do it in their pockets of free time. It was a completely mobile project.They all just used their phones, not a single one of them brought a computer in so they were able to utilize the m-learning aspect of it. It was incredibly mobile and I think they really felt that they could relate to this. You know as a presentation it's very formal, you know a presentation is great. I have nothing against presentations but I think because this was sort of very modern and very tech, you know it required some tech savvy skills and it is something that sort of can be left out there you know for a very very long time, it yielded these very you know these very great senses accomplishments.

 

Frances:  One thing that I'm just wondering about, one thing that we're very sensitive about issues of privacy and things like that, were there any issues with that, were there any students that were not happy with their voice. I mean, it's only the voice really being shared. 

 

Louisa: That’s such a good question, because it is a big issue here I think especially with young Japanese students. We arranged it so that everything was done quite anonymously. They did have to sign up for Spotify for Podcasters using an email. And these [podcasts] do go on to Spotify but you basically have to have a link to be able to get to them, so if you didn't have that awareness of the podcast there, you would never be able to find it and the other with the Padlet, it's very very private. And I tell my students, if any of you don’t want these to be public in the long term, all you have to do is delete your Spotify account when the project is over and it will automatically disappear. 

 

Frances: It disappears for both of the students?

 

Louisa: Yes, yeah.

 

Frances: It's really interesting. Thinking about Japanese students, how do you think that a podcast might have been more suitable for Japanese students than doing other kinds of things?    

 

Louisa: That's a good question. As I said, last term, I was having them record videos. But I think the podcasts gave them a chance to be a bit more casual, a bit less formal than recording a video or doing a presentation. And again being able to use their mobile phones was very convenient for them. Every Japanese student in the world has a mobile phone and I think it also just took some of the pressure off of having to present at the front of a class. I mean Japanese students are very shy, they’re very conscious of making mistakes. As you know, sometimes if can be quite a challenge to get them to speak up at all and so I think the podcast really gave them a chance to kind of be themselves and they had the ability to be able to edit and you know take out things that they weren't happy with so again I think that just gave them a level of comfort that they wouldn’t have had in front of a group full of their peers or teachers or if they had to record something and you know on a video and and feel like they had to look perfect and I mean I think that's a beautiful thing about podcasting. 

 

Frances: Yes, it is actually nice. We can sit here and we are not worried about what we look like. 

 

Louisa: I can record a podcast in my pajamas and nobody would know. 

 

Frances: We’ll just add that Louisa is not in her pajamas.

 

Lousia: No, I wouldn’t dream of that. But I could. Yeah so I think it was just very suitable for these particular students given their age you know and their demographic. They like technology, they're not entirely comfortable with it but they're excited to try something new. And I think that was you know that was one thing that really suited them and the fact that they could do it as a form of m-learning and really benefit from it being mobile and being able to do it in in their free time and I mean with Spotify for Podcasters you can even record remotely so they didn't even have to be in the same physical vicinity as their partners to record. They could have done it from their homes if they’d wanted to.   

 

Frances: This is a wonderful project. I mean one thing I'm really interested in is I want to find out from you when they do the next podcast. How is it different? How they approach it differently. It feels to me because I've taught in Japan for a very long time that this kind of style of learning, I know the students love their phones. You can’t get them to bring their laptops, they love their phones, so it's perfect for that. It's difficult to type on phones, you can but you can’t write essays very easily. So this is perfect for that. But also, I'm really interested in this sense of power it's giving them. They listen to podcasts and then they actually make it. I think they feel wow, I can do this. 

 

Louisa: There’s input and output which is really wonderful. It's an incredibly dynamic I think pedagogy because you can you know benefit from both you know taking in information and disseminating information. And you know one of the things that we asked them on their reflections was would you like to do another podcast and they all said yes we definitely want to do another podcast but we’d really like to choose our own topic next time. 

 

Frances: So thats seems a great second stage to go for.  

 

Louisa: Some of them asked to do a cooking podcast or a fashion podcast or you know something that was really really interesting for them and I mean that's just wonderful the idea of them wanting to repeat a project and then even just coming up with ideas for it so I'm really looking forward to doing the next one and I think they are as well so. It's really exciting. 

 

Frances: I can’t wait to hear the next stage of this project. It sounds wonderful. 

 

Louisa: Well thank you very much Frances, as said before, none of this would have been possible without you. You've given me so much encouragement. And of course, I wouldn’t have been able to pull off this project quite as smoothly without Oana. She was really central in designing the whole project from beginning to end. So I'm very grateful to her for that and I'm sorry she's going to be with us today but we will be, I'm sure we'll be doing another one in the future. 

 

Frances: That’s wonderful, thanks very much for inviting me. 

 

Louisa: Thank you for your questions, they were such good questions, they were so insightful and I appreciate your time and for letting my dog jump all over you. 

 

That will wrap up this episode of this podcast and I hope that everyone will enjoy this listening experience and if you have any questions please do let me know in the feedback section. All right, signing off, good night.