Podcasts

For some reason, I found working on the podcasts to be a little overwhelming.  I love the idea of podcasts themselves, and am really glad this class forced me to explore them.  Looking at the ones on Itunes was incredibly helpful, and I can definitely see myself utilizing them in various ways in the classroom.  I would like to become more familiar with them, and perhaps find a few that I really like and can subscribe to.

In terms of creating my own, the process ended up stressing me out a bit (and I don't really know why).  I immediately had an idea of the topic I wanted to explore, and set to work on creating my little podcast.  As is often the case with me, I am a royal under estimator of time.  I created a script to read from, because I HATE recording my voice, and without the words in front of me would have just flubbed each one.  After I finished my read through (with numerous errors).  I was at 4 minutes 30 seconds.  Way over the 2-3 minute mark.  And I had thought I had 1 minute 30 seconds tops.

The process of cutting out pieces was tough, as it always is once you've settled on a draft.  And I basically had to cut more than half mine out.  Then, I had to go back and cut out wording mistakes and pauses that went on for too long (anything I could do to cut my time).  Once that was all said and done, my pictures were all off.  Some didn't fit at all in the new script, and I needed to find others so that extensive periods of time would not be spent on just one or two within the podcast.  Grrrr.  I was incredibly aggravated at this point!

The part that actually went quite smoothly for me was inserting the soundtrack.  I had thought that might me a toughie, but I immediately found one I liked.  It was shorter than my podcast, but splicing an extra part onto the end went quite effortlessly, and I found that on my first run-through of the finished product that I didn't even hear the splice.

Overall, I don't know if the creation of podcasts is in my future, but the utilization of existing ones definitely is.  They would be a nice thing to utilize at learning stations as well as introducing and completing lessons.  And as a visual person, I'm hoping I might find one or two reoccurring ones that inspire me to continue in the passion and energy I have in my approach to teaching.