Week 5 - Digital Audio

Hello Blog -

This week's reading consisted of an online news article on the merits of podcasting in Elementary Schools. Here are my thoughts:

- I agree with the idea that children "get excited about" technology. As we have discussed in previous classes, this excitement can be a bit of a double-edged sword. Are the children excited about using technology to accomplish academic goals or are they simply excited because using technology is something novel, a break from the normal grind of textbooks and chalkboard talk? In the case of podcasts, I think the article makes a great case for the potential quality use of digital audio as it relates to accomplishing academic goals.

- Long ago, when I was a freshman at Virginia Tech, my friend Matt (then a student at Duke University) informed me that he had received a "free" iPod in (IIRC) his freshman seminar course. The idea was cutting edge at the time (2001-2002), Duke was providing expensive iPod listening devices so that students could download podcasts of lectures and listen to them at their leisure (or at least that's how it was described to me). I remember being slightly envious, somewhat disgusted (here was a private school spending money on flashy toys) and definitely intrigued. The point of recalling this story is that, while the costs of mp3 players have dropped dramatically, they are still (IMO) a luxury item for many people. Hopefully, the wealthy school districts in Northern Virginia (Arlington, Va was mentioned in the article) will experiment and come up with all sorts of great uses for the technology so that, as costs fall and success stories grow in number, the evidence will be there for the majority of school districts to follow suit.

- Finally, I can honestly say that I've never created a podcast in my life. In my mind, it's just the next generation of tape recorder - speak into a microphone, save the data onto a computer and play it back anytime (possibly anywhere) you'd like. Chances are I'll learn more about them in tonight's lecture.

Thanks for reading.

Since I'm a current (global) events nerd - here's a story on Fidel Castro stepping down. Weeks from now when I try to remember back to today, perhaps this will help jog my memory.