Reflection #6

Can you hear me now?

This lesson was a great teaching tool and really challenged me.  I found that coming up with the topic for the podcast was possibly one of the toughest decisions to make.   I realized that it is important to focus on the information you want to make clear or make sure your listener is getting that out of the podcast.  I did my podcast about using credit card calculators online to determine the length of time to pay off a credit card paying the minimum payment and paying off a credit card with a set time frame.  I just recently taught this lesson in my Principles of Business class and if I knew how to make a podcast last week, I could have shared this with them to reference to on their assignment, instead of repeating myself 25 times.

I can personally see how the podcast makes the online course discussion more personal.  I have taken several online courses throughout several years and the last few years they have really become much more involved including more exciting communication.  It is no longer just a computer screen and reading assignments, you can now interact.

I am very excited about the possibilities that podcasts create.  I intend to use in my classroom as much as possible and also as a realtor.  I can create podcasts to help my students with an assignment or to help clients search for a home!

I used jing and screenshot to create my final podcast.  I also downloaded cinch on my computer and my iphone and I am really enjoying learning about that tool.  I loved the teacher’s idea about having students read their book reports into a cinch podcast and posting to a class website.  I am currently thinking of a way to incorporate that into my current book report project I have my class doing.

Podcasts were very difficult for me because I had no experience with them and it took watching the videos and searching for additional information before I began to understand it.   I finally had that “ah ha” moment and it just made sense.  That is when I got excited about it and began to see all the many possibilities that I can use podcasts for in the future.