My Experience with Podcasting

Well, to say the least I have been frustrated int he creation of my first podcast. The problem was that I couldn't get my microphone to work on Podomatic. Then I found a way to record the podcast on my computer and save the file then uploaded it to podomatic. My frustration was just learning the steps. I am settling down now but my blood pressure was up while trying to do this earlier this evening.

With all that being said, I do think that podcasts can be and are important to education. This is a way to provide "snipets" of information to students about a topic of interest. As some of the videos posted for the class note, it is also a fun way for students to do assignments. I especially liked the example of the students in the history class acting like they were interviewing a historical figure and posting it as a podcast. When I get more used to doing this I could see mysself creating podcasts for topics at work and encouraging people to download the podcast for continued education. I am excited to be exposed to creating these and will continue to experiment with theses.

Practice podcast for class

Sampling

Matt OConnor's Podcast

This is my practice podcast for the Educational Technology class. The podcast is on simple random sampling. I know this can be a borring topic but the assignment was to teach someone about a topic we know about and what better than research and measurement.

Blogging and Twittering

What have I learned about blogging?

I have learned a lot about blogging. First, I learned that blogging is not just for personal expression. Prior to this course, I used to belive that blogging was just some way that a techie type person could put his/her thoughts on a topic on the internet. I never thought that "average" people posted and kept blogs for themselves. Second, I learned that blogs can be helpful in education. Blogs can be used to keep parents informed about their child's progress in school and assignments for class. It can also help teachers keep in contact with their students and offer them additional resources by posting websites, files, pictures, etc. Third, I learned that there are blogs for almost every topic or interest. I have now commented on and follow several blogs of topics that intertest me.

What have I learned about twittering?

For the past several years, I have heard on the news and many other tv stations that they can be followed on twitter. I never really lnew what that meant and was never interested enough to expore it. I have since set up a twitter account and follow the "tweets" of people and topics that interest me. I feel like it keeps me current on things that I used to have to research to find out current information. I chose to follow the Detroit Tigers on Twitter because I don't often have time to keep up on daily transactions that may be going on during the off-season. This keeps me up to date so I am informed when discussing Detroit baseball with friends. By getting into twitter I feel like I am catching up to what people have been doing for the past several years.

Another picture

I travel often in my current job and there was a time I was in a hotel room near LAX airport and looked out the window at the expressway. The traffic jam reminded me of this picture. There are times I love to travel for work to see places I would never see otherwise. What do you like or dislike about traveling.

Blogging assignment

As soon as I saw this picture on Flickr for the blogging assignment I felt it represented how I have felt about many of these technologies. Don't worry, it was on the creative commons license content.

Test Blog

This is a test to see if the blogging works for the "Using the Internet in the Classroom" course at UT.