EDM 310 Podcasts

The podcasts that I listened to were as follows:
Using iTunes and Google Earth in Instruction,
Dominique, Heather, and Kathleen Present 3 Good Websites for Teaching Materials,
How Technology is Used in the College of Education,
The Pros and Cons of Wikipedia,
and the one I participated in, Websites for Elementary Teachers.

Listening to the podcasts I realized just how many times most everyone says "UMM" as a filler. I know from taking Public Speaking that a person should pause instead of using a filler word, but it is evidenced from listening to these podcasts that we d not pause. This can be distracting. Dr. Strange told us not to practice so that we would not sound rehearsed. I think some rehearsing would have been beneficial. It was hard for my group to find any time to rehearse, but I think we could have used at least one run through before taping. During a podcast like this, the participants want to sound as if they are having a conversation, and not like they are reading a script. I believe that you can practice talking about a topic and still sound like you are just talking to a group of people.

Each of these podcast participants seems to know their topic very well. It seems like they have done the research and are knowledgeable. It was very interesting to listen to people who are from different backgrounds and different ages. These podcasts were not done by traditional college students. These podcasts were created by students, some of whom were older than the norm, parents of younger and older children, students who also have jobs and other responsibilities, and other differences. This makes it more interesting to listen to the podcasts. The difference in the backgrounds does have bearing on the way the other participants present the information and their opinions. It also has bearing on how prepared some participants seem to be over the others.

I want to say that I enjoyed everyone's podcasts. I think that most of us had to do at least some research on the topic we choose as a group. Granted some may have done more than others, but I think in the end that all the groups came together. The quality of the podcasts shows that we can accomplish new things when we are given the tools to do so. Although some of us were very nervous, we all got through it and learned how to create something that we might take into our classrooms late. For this I have to thank Dr. Strange for making me, and probably most of us, step out of the comfort zone and into the unknown. He has taken us to a level of technology that we probably knew existed, but might not have known how to take it with us into our daily routine in a classroom.