Interactive audio instruction (IAI)

A number of other audio-based technologies can be used to extend the reach of broadcast and interactive radio, both of which are highly vulnerable to broadcast interruptions, to teachers and students in remote areas. For example, lessons and instruction can be recorded on audiocassette or CD-ROM and provided to schools-a practice sometimes known as "narrowcasting" (Cumming and Olaloku, cited in Perraton, 1993). This approach occurred extensively in Guinea's 1998-2006 Fundamental Quality and Equity Levels project when government funding for IRI broadcasts ceased. Teachers audiotaped radio broadcasts and created and shared vast libraries of the popular IRI program Sous le Fromager. Using audiocassettes and CD-ROMs, teachers were able to schedule lessons at convenient times; replay lessons; and use the stop, pause, and rewind features of audiocassette recorders and CD players to re-examine a particular piece of information. This recording and use of IRI onto other types of audio formats is known as interactive audio instruction (IAI).

Considerations: audio as a distance learning tool

Audio-based distance learning has been a fixture in the global distance education landscape since the 1970s, when IRI was developed by Stanford University. Radio and audio are simple technologies with which many teachers across the globe are familiar. Schools do not need to purchase computers or Internet connectivity, and teachers do not need to learn complex technology in order to participate in audio-based professional development. Audio-based, oral learning is a culturally familiar medium that does not require the reading and writing skills needed to undertake print-based instruction or the technology skills demanded by online learning-requirements that often prompt teacher attrition in distance education programs.

Audio offers both strengths and weaknesses as a distance learning mode for teacher education. Teachers learn when they can communicate and collaborate frequently in real time; hence any distance education initiative should build in opportunities to allow learners to discuss and reflect with one another through telephone or audio conferencing. (Teacher reflection and technology accommodations for this will be discussed throughout this guide.) Recorded audio files of professional development sessions, particularly content, can be archived on CD-ROMs or audiocassettes, allowing teachers to access these materials for self-study or additional refreshers.

Audio-based instruction-particularly in the two radio broadcast programs profiled in the chapter you read (Diklat SRP and Pas à Pas)-has suffered from weaknesses that have diminished its effectiveness as a mode of distance-based professional development. These weaknesses reveal important lessons that must be built into audio-based distance education in particular and into any type of distance-based professional development in general.

Considering both the strengths and weaknesses of various situations and cases where IRI and IAI have been used, the most critical requirements for effectiveness of these programmes are as follows:

1. Interactivity is critical for engagement and learning: This includes multichannel involvement, participation, and engagement-learner with content, learner with facilitator, learner to learner, and learner with technology.
2. Monitoring and evaluation are key to assuring quality and measuring outcomes: When monitoring and coaching are provided, completion rates for radio-based distance learning increase and when these are not provided, completion rates decline (Perraton, 1993).
3. The distance learning medium must be appropriate to goals: Research on broadcast radio as a mode of teacher training appears to indicate that, depending on the learning goals, radio may have constrained teacher learning as much as it may have helped it.