Blog Post #2

Every summer I work at a 4-h camp as a volunteer. One year at camp I remember seeing nine-year olds toting cell phones around and thinking, "I can't believe their parents let them have cell phones!" At first this enraged me, but then I realized my thinking was skewed. The only reason I thought this concept was outlandish was because I didn't have a cellphone until I was 18. Therefore I thought everyone should have to wait until that magical age until they can have a phone. The more I thought about it, I realized that the only reason I didn't have a cell phone until I was 18 was because, until then, it was too expensive and the phone reception was terrible. That's when I realized that technology is changing so rapidly that we cannot expect today's children to grow up the same way we did.

One way I plan to better reach my students next year is to create my own podcasts. One thing I noticed about my students last year is that almost every student had an iPod or some kind of MP3 player. Last year I found myself repeating the basics of my class over and over with little effectiveness. By making podcasts my students will have 24-hour access to those basic concepts that I get so tired of repeating. Plus, students will be able to download the podcasts to their MP3 players. This works great for me because most of my students do not have Internet access or even a computer at their homes. I will post the podcasts in the course I created in Moodle. There is also a way to create a specific podcast channel in your Moodle class. The second link below describes how to set one up. If you do a little searching on the web, and in Moodle's community, you might even find a podcast that's already been created that you can use. Happy podcasting!

References:

• Podcasting and Education
• Podcasting using Moodle