For the podcast project, we remained in the same groups that we had been assigned to from the “Know Your Meme” project. For this project, we were pre-required to listen to at least one episode of the podcast entitled “This American Life” and reflect on it on our blogs. We were then to create our own installment to the hypothetical podcast “This West Chester Life”. For this assignment, we were asked to find anybody in West Chester with an interesting story, and model a podcast interview with that person similar to those that are created on “This American Life”. For this project we were provided with an iPod Touch Device and still had our MacBook Pros to work with as well. My group got in touch with and decided to interview members from the Chester County Paranormal Research Society. Although the group could not meet us in person, they were willing to contact us via Skype, and with Dr. Penny’s help we were able to download software that would record the interview so we could then use Garage Band to edit the audio. Because the group that we interviewed had high-quality audio equipment, the interview was very clear and turned out very well.
According to the technology standards for teachers as defined by ISTE.org, one standard that applies well to this project is 1,D which states that teachers should “Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments”. The entire premise of this project was to engage with others in order to produce a final product. Although the intention of the project was to use the iPod Touch Device to interview the subjects face-to-face, my group was somewhat of an exception in interviewing our subjects in a virtual environment. Through this experience, we learned about the easy accessibility to many various types of software (although most recording software required a paid subscription, we were able to find many that offered free demos which were perfect for our project) and were able to produce a very good final product because of it. Additionally, because of access to this unique software, we were able to conduct a very interesting interview that we would not have had the opportunity to conduct without the software.
One thing that I really liked about this project was the flexibility. We were given a lot of freedom in choosing to interview anybody we chose, and were given a lot of flexibility when we presented the idea of conducting the interview via Skype. Originally our group assumed we would not be allowed to do so, because we had been assigned to use the iPod Touch Device, however when we presented the idea we were encouraged to conduct the interview virtually. Not only was the project flexible, but we learned a lot about various iPod applications used for audio recording, types of software available on the internet, and we also learned a lot about using the program Garage Band. Not only did we learn about these things, but we realized how simple all of these things were. Because all of the technological aspects of this project were so easy, I would absolutely incorporate them into my future as a teacher. I think that it is important to teach students to be resourceful, and the only way to do that is to let them experiment with the various resources available to them. I also think that our project was such a great success because of Dr. Penny’s flexibility, which is another aspect that I would like to incorporate into my teaching career as well. Finally, as the standard states, students should engage in learning with other students, colleagues, etc. which is very important. It is important to realize that everybody has something different to teach you, and by working with others you can only gain more knowledge and insight. This project reinforced all of these ideals, and they are all aspects that I would absolutely incorporate into my future classroom.
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