Chapter 8 BWP

1. Read Ch. 8 of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts (111-124); post a reflection to your reflective learning blog:
◦How does this reading impact your thinking about technology's role in teaching and learning?
◦What will you do differently as a future teacher as a direct result of this new thinking?
Technology has taken us leaps and bounds in a very short time with publishing media on the internet. The best way to describe it is easy, photo-video-audio, upload-it-as-you-go, as-much-space-as-you-want, whenever-wherever-you-want.
Until reading this chapter I honestly still didn’t know what a podcast was. I didn’t know that it was a simple audio recording. I thought it was like a full blown audio/video/music edited presentation. I had heard of it and never thought I would be able to do. I hadn’t realized that Dr. Boyer’s class lecture audio recordings were actually podcasts. The way I think of it, I would rather be listening to an interesting educational/informational podcast rather than just be wasting time listening to music while I work out, ride my bike, or drive. It is important to remember that these podcasters are generally everyday people and not professional radio broadcasters using high quality editing software. There might be some static, sound crackly, and be a lot of “ums” and “ahs” but the content is the important part.
Again, convenience is the important theme. Almost any podcast I can add to my RSS so it will organize what I am interested in. I can even download programs that will keep track of what I want on my IPod, manage the files at night while I am sleeping, make sure that I can unplug and go in the morning with ease. It is quick and convenient like many of the other successful tech tools out there.
I have (unknowingly) used podcasts by listening to lectures that I wanted to freshen up on. I would like to keep an audio log of my classes for students who were absent. Better yet, assign one/two kids per day to each make a 3 minute podcast that summarizes what we did. It will be helpful for other students to get a different perspective on what we did. The students doing the recordings would probably feel responsible to do a good job since their peers may be reviewing it later.
Video publishing could probably be a tool to use to interest my secondary students. Students love watch and use YouTube. So if I could mix video publishing into my classroom it probably would be a good thing. An interesting fact about YouTube: video is being uploaded to YouTube at 20hours/minute, that means about 4 years/day, WOW. These videos would be converted to MP4 files that would be viewable on IPods.
Screencasts are a very useful tool in making tutorials to help students work through a tech problem or learn a new tech program. I am a visual learner that works well by following an example. It is a bit of “monkey see, monkey do” but it is the truth.
All of these tools generally have a few things in common. They are quick, easy, fun, useful, and educational. I need to use them and get good before I expect my students to use them, but they can be helpful in making my job easier and more effective. Once I am able to introduce these tools to my students they can use them to benefit their education and their classmate’s too by doing student teaching students activities.