Blogging and Podcasting
Blogs and Podcasting are two ways for people to share their thoughts, ideas, or opinions to a wide audience with little effort. I do not personally have any other experience with blogging, outside of this blog here, but I have really been enjoying this assignment. With podcasting, I watch one called "The OpTic Podcast" which follows a gaming organization usually during the Call of Duty tournament season. It isn't super informational, but it follows something I enjoy.
The first reading deals with what this whole assignment is about: BLOGS! Throughout the creation of my blog, I have really enjoyed the process of taking the readings and implementing my own thoughts into them. It gives the assignment/readings a more personal feeling. In Amplifying Student Voice in Secondary Language Arts, by Christina Melly, she talks about how blogs can open new horizons for student writing. In the article, she states, "Blogs expand opportunities for class discussion, opening a wider window of time and expression for students learning how to encode their thinking into words" (Melly 12). Melly talks about how blogs open opportunities for students to converse with one another. Expanded class discussion, and more time/ways for students to put their thinking into words, are extremely important for students to not only grasp exactly what their thinking but also grant the ability to comfortably convey it to their peers. Melly also mentions, "My classes needed regular writing practice; blogging filled that need" (Melly 13). So not only does it open up the classroom in numerous ways, but it also slowly (but surely) increases writing confidence and ability. For me, I feel like having this blog has really allowed me to write in a way that's comfortable for me. In my opinion, this assignment has been the best way of informal writing (while still being for a formal purpose) allowing me to mix actual information pieces with my own feelings/emotions about a topic. Melly also mentioned this with her students needing writing practice, and blogs are a seemingly perfect way to practice. Every week we have gotten to express feelings towards a new interesting topic all while practicing wording, vocabulary, grammar, and more.
To continue, podcasting is something that I would have never really thought of using for education. In Voices and Sounds Heard: Composing through Narrative Podcasting, by Aaron Guggenheim, David Glover, and Alexia Mejia, these authors explore a podcasting assignment and how it affected the students. The authors made it clear that podcasting for the students allowed them to find more value in their work with one student even saying that stories with sound are more intriguing as they grab your attention a variety of ways. Alexia, a student in the article, said this, "Many writing assignments did not have a meaning or purpose. It often seemed I could not even express myself in the writing that I was writing. Yet, with our narrative podcasting project, I loved how everyone got to appreciate my work the way I was making it... I got to choose to talk about our experiences as teen parents" (Guggenheim, Glover, Mejia 42). Even with a (probably) extremely sensitive topic like teen parenting, Alexia felt comfortable, and even proud, about the ability to share it in this manner. It is important for students to have this wide-open outlet for sharing in the classroom. I think that everyone should create such an intertwined, caring classroom environment for students like the authors did for theirs, and it would increase student interest/comfort in class.
Lastly, the article Back to 'I': Recasting Students and Teachers as Problem-Explorers through Podcasts, by Kathryn Hackett-Hill, the risk-taking in education of recasting students, teachers, and old tools for learning in a way that puts "I" first. In the Lap 2 section, Hackett-Hill mentions that with this podcasting frame it freed students from other stressful choices of formatting so they could focus on things like "audience awareness and selection of purposeful evidence" (Hackett-Hill 30) and continues later, "Ultimately, podcasting... recasts apathetic 'answer-getting' students as passionate 'problem-explorers,' eager to imagine and write their way into a better future" (Hackett-Hill 32). I know when I am going to write something, I will have the information but struggle with format. Podcasting allows students to focus solely on the information they wish to convey, and how they will do so through audio, all while forming them into more diverse students for problem-exploration. The author also explores how teaching also could use some recasting teaching. She explains how it there is trial and error, complete failure, and the ability to be brave while exploring a new landscape of information in educator's jobs. Hackett-Hill also talks about the expansion of essays to hold "complexity, critical thinking...healing, creativity, and nourishment" (Hackett-Hill 32). I think that Hackett-Hill is encapsulating everything assignments should have in education. They need to not only challenge the student, but also be a creative outlet so that they will be able to put their all into it. I don't really dislike traditional papers, but I know that when I was recording my podcast assignment, I had SO much fun pretending like there were people actually going to watch. If all of my assignments had some form of creative outlet, I would love to do work.
Here is a video from The Podcast Host talking about podcasting in education. Although this video is short, and 10 years old, the host brings up some good points regarding the mix of education and podcasts. He talks about a few benefits of using it in the classroom such as flexible learning anywhere, reusability of material, and helpful informational aid for students with impairments.
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