Sunday, April 19, 2009

EDM 310 Podcasts

I listened to four other podcasts done by students in EDM 310. I listened to one done on "The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch", "Shift Happens", "Burp-back Education", and one on "The Strange Crystal Ball, interviewed Dr. Strange". I also listened to the podcast I participated in.

I have to say it, I really did think all of them were very good! Ok, well onto some suggested improvements. First off, I think one improvement could be that maybe the podcasts did not come off as so scripted. Of course, that's hard to get around. When doing something like a podcast you want to know what you're talking about and it's hard to sound unscripted when you have what you want to say right there in front of you. At the same though, the way to get your listeners interested is to sound like you know what you are talking about and at the same time sound comfortable and interested in whatever you are talking about.

Another improvement I think could be letting the students choose their topic. This could be tricky because some students will pick things completely off subject, but if they're instructed to pick something along the lines of education they may be able to pick something that they are more familiar with. This way they will feel more comfortable talking about it and then the podcast will sound much less scripted and much more upbeat and interesting. It's much easier to have a casual conversation about something when you are somewhat familiar with the subject yourself.

I think the podcasts were a very interesting assignment. By doing them we researched different aspects of education that we didn't know much about and learned how to do a project that we might actually be able to do one day in our own classrooms. I think the main thing to do before a podcast is practice, that and have all of your information available and know it well. With practice they're easy and fun to do.

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