Assignment Podcast blog posts

Hello out there in blog land!

This week we were assigned to listen/watch audio and video podcasts. I have to tell you, this assignment has me thinking about creating my own podcast for my own personal use. Podcasts are yet another wonderful tool educators and other professionals can use to get in touch with their students and other clientele. I used a few of Mr. Sullivan's list of podcasts, but I also found a few on my own. I have some preliminary experience with podcasts I have used already.

The first one is entitled Nio Tv. This was a video podcast that basically consisted of a child in a karate class learning how to properly snap kick. First of all, I enjoyed this simply because the kid who was learning was a cute little Asian child whose outfit barely fit him. His instructor was going through the basics and showing hm how to kick the bag. After a few feeble attempts, the child picked up on it and was doing quite well at the end of the lesson. I'm not sure what the purpose of this podcast was, but I can only guess it was for instructional purposes or just for parental documentation; perhaps it was for promotional purposes. This brings me to a discovery I found in these podcasts: they can be used for anything!

Keeping with that discovery in mind, my next podcast was Photofocus. This is (like it sounds) a photography audio podcast. Like majority of pocasts, this one is run like a digital radio show complete with guests and radio personalities. The main difference between this podcast and a radio broad cast is that it is simply exclusive to the subject of photography. I have mild interest in photography so I was mildly interested in the content. I even learned a cool trick on how to get more of your stuff on as carry on luggage at the airport. This leads me to my next discovery about podcasts: itunes will kill the radio!

Moving on in this new discovery, the next podcasts were Mac Break Weekly and KidCast. These both followed the radio format, however the KidCast one was a little more on the informative side and less on that of entertainment/discussion. KidCast basically gave pros and cons of video podcasting versus audio podcasting and quite frankly, I was bored to tears by the time 10 minutes was up. It was informative, but O my God was that guy boring! Mac Break was just as informative, and perhaps because I knew about many of the topics they were discussing it was easier for me to listen to. The Mac guys actually were entertaining to some degree and I even heard some cool information about some audio/video software in which I was unaware. This leads me to discovery number 3: Podcasts are one of the most innovative ways to transmit information I have ever seen.

As I mentioned earlier, I have downloaded podcasts before. Podcasts are used by authors to promote books, and in some cases read entire novels and make them available for their listeners. Musicians have them to promote music, educator teach foreign languages, radio shows record the entire shows for you to hear on an ipod. I enjoyed this assignment and I anxiously await our chance to make ours in class.

By the way, check out the Hot for Words podcast. This is a video podcast done by a very attractive German woman( or some Germanic sounding accent) about word origins and "big words". She no doubt uses her looks to attract downloaders, but she had some interesting stuff on her casts,and she even gave a plug in the episode i saw for a used book purchasing site that may save students money on textbooks! Check her out (and her podcast)!