First blog

Podcasting

Hyperlink: http://www.gia.edu/education/35413/continuing_education_landing_page.cfm_

By Piyare Sert

Gemological Institute of America (GIA) is a non profit organisation, which is the largest institute for gemological research and learning. The organisation is well known for the professional service of diamond grading. GIA invest money to keep the learners within the organization up to date with all information they need to know to be the best at what they do. The organization delivers information through podcast via iTunes U, so that the learners can access the information virtually anytime, anywhere.

The use of Podcast:
The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) uses podcasts to deliver continual educational information for GIA gemologist or graduate/undergraduate gemologist who enroll in the organisations continual education recognition program. Podcasts are used by a variety of students who study through distance education, on campus gemology and Jewelry Manufacturing Arts programs. GIAs’ future ambition will be to have podcasts for the School of Business. All information can be accessible via iTunes U, and students and users of the educational material can view new information immediately, as it gets updated continually.

The benefits of the Podcast in this context:
Podcasts for students and graduates are for free, and allows them to access GIA resources and useful information anytime, anywhere. GIA podcasts inform students of the material they can access on iTunesU, and informs any changes to course information that may have changed since the graduation of students. The director has stated that “as an added benefit, podcasts give us an outlet for more of the visual material we’re gathering”. (Kautsky, 2007, para. 3). Podcasting the information for students also has meant that the organisation can post new podcasts much faster than they have ever been able to, as oppose to the old procedure of putting information on DVD. Furthermore, Duncan Pay the Director of the company has stated that the biggest benefit of all is that students receive updates almost immediately, taking a few weeks unlike the old schedule of approximately 18 months (Kautsky, 2007, para. 3).
Feedback from the students, suggest that the benefit of podcasts is that the learning material comes to life. Hence podcasting the information allows the online environment to be customized to the learners needs to deliver relevant, up to date information (GIA Education, 2008, para. 6).

The challenges, disadvantages or issues of Podcast:
One of the issues I would consider to be a problem within the organisation is the lack of funding to supply iTunes U across the world for their employees and across all areas studied. The organization is expecting to supply podcast for all continuous learners, all across the world, but has not done this just yet. Some countries are not as technology savvy as others, so this may be a problem.


Kautsky, J. 2007, A ‘Revolution’ in GIA Education, Gemological Institute of Australia, Vol. 16, Iss. 3, p.1.

Gemological Institute of Australia. 2008, Education: Learn from the Worlds Foremost Authority in Gemology, viewed 1 April 2008, <____http://www.gia.edu/education /35413/continuing_education _landing_page.cfm____>