Podcast Assignment

This assignment really underlined for me the importance of knowing where my students are at in terms of technology. There is a huge variance in their use and also their understanding of technology. In some cases, I am streets behind them, and in others there is not only not much experience or exposure, but also not much interest in using technology, except for games. If I want to close the gaps in exposure, while building interest in the learning side of technology, then I will need to be very careful how I structure assignments using technology.

In terms of demographics: There are eighteen students in my class. Fourteen of them have regular access to the internet at home, although one says his access is intermittent because the computer is old. One student did not participate in the survey. Three students have no access at home but do have access at school; I will need to take care to encourage them to make use of it. More than seventy per cent of the class use the internet to do homework, and several use it to enhance their extracurricular activities. I interviewed three students who use technology frequently because I was interested to see how they used it specifically as a learning tool outside of school. You will hear on the podcast how one uses it to explore her interest in ballet, and another his interest in music. The third student uses technology for a wide range of activities.

I would have liked to include several other students; there are a few that have an interest in photography, for instance, as well as some keen athletes that track their sports heroes online.

I was mildly surprised, however, that many of them do not use their cell phones for anything other than texting and the occasional actual call. I had been expecting more use of apps using the internet based on the reading for this course. Even the numbers with cell phones were lower than I expected. This might be explained by the sky-high cost of both telephones and internet access with them in Bermuda.

In addition, this assignment has made it clear that using the technology we have available has limits. It took a large number of attempts for me to be able to use the recordings I had made, and I am not clear yet why the blog sites will let you attach videos but not sound bites. In order for me to really use audacity properly would have taken even longer. I say this not to complain about the assignment, but to remind myself that learning how to do anything well does take time and effort, and in my attempts to become more technology-fluent I have been reminded that everyone is in a different place.

Here is the podcastmachine url for this project: http://www.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/14211/episodes/74957