Vidcasts and Podcasts

WHAT?
Podcasts and Vidcasts—something I think every American teenager and young adult know about. This week we’re learning how to create them, post them, and then use them in our classrooms.

SO WHAT?
In our assignment this week we are choosing one of these and then creating a 40-60 second educational presentation. My group chose to do a Vidcast on fire safety and we are in the process of “hiring” an “actor” to perform in it. After we film it, we will edit it, and then post it on YouTube for the general public to see. This is an intimidating prospect, considering I’ve never uploaded videos onto the internet before, and have never really had a desire to.

This will be good experience to have in the future, if one of my classes ever calls for a video presentation, though. Perhaps not such a public one, but one that I can show in classes to emphasize my argument or give an original way to present the information I want to share. I look forward to playing around more with possible vidcast opportunities in the future.

NOW WHAT?
Technology in school seems to be an inevitable thing these days. Computers are an important part of our education, and the internet is becoming an invaluable tool for resource and quick searches on information. Children as young as Kindergarten are being taught to safely search the web for pictures and information on class projects or personal assignments. Sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, and Veoh are popular places to go to view both educational and non-educational videos.

In the future, I can see myself showing my classes appropriate videos from sites like these, as long as the content goes along with whatever lesson I am teaching. It would be a fun way to draw interest for an otherwise boring subject. Vidcasts could even be used in professional meetings, as long as they pertain to the information that is being shared

VIDEO.
The video was interesting to watch, but probably not for the reasons intended. Out of all the reasons given for student bloging, very few actually seemed to apply to bloging alone. Most appeared to be aimed towards the internet and computers in general. Also, the children shown in the slide-show looked far too young to be bloging, and most looked like they were involved in playing games as opposed to doing any serious writing assignments. Suffice to say, I did not enjoy this video as much as I have the ones in the past.