Week 3

Podcasting

For the 6 podcast that we were supposed to listened to I chose: Edtechtalk #151, Kidcast #56, Macbreak Weekly #177, This week in Photography #126, Teachers Teaching Teachers #181, and Smartboard lessons #1. All of these podcast were different in many ways, like how many hosts the podcast has and the wide range of topics. Some of the podcasts had just 1 host, whereas the others had multiple hosts and the topics ranged anywhere from photography to the idea of asking questions. Even though they have such wide range of topics they each talk about strong ideas and each host is well versed in his or her topic.

The first 2 podcast that I listened to were: Edtechtalk #151 and Kidcast #56. Edtechtalk #151 was one of the podcast where it had multiple hosts all conversing on a single topic. Having this many hosts all competing for air time was a little much for me, it was almost confusing. The topic for this podcast was technology around the world and its numbers. while the topic was rather interesting because they gave numbers of the amount of people who had internet access and people who had cell phones. The number of people who have cell phones surprisingly outnumbered the number of people who had internet access. The other podcast called Kidcast #56 was the opposite of the Edtechtalk because it only had 1 host. Only having 1 host made it a little boring since there was no real "discussion" going on. The host simply talked about how "Questions Make the World go Round," while this is an ok topic for say maybe you and a friend talking about it in one of those, question the universe conversations, to me it was not something that you could make an entire podcast out of.

The second 2 podcast that I listened to were: Macbreak Weekly #177 and Teachers Connecting #1. Macbreak Weekly had multiple hosts all talking about the new ipad that just came out. This to me was an interesting topic since it is so new that I don't know anything about it. (Not that I would if it had been out for a few months!) The hosts all made valid arguments as to who the ipad was marketed towards and why, all of its features, and if there is any major difference in it from the itouch and iphone. While I didn't like the multiple host I did thoroughly enjoy the topic and the way that it was setup like a radio station with some commercials and advertising. The Teachers Connecting podcast about the Smartboard would have been better if it was not the very first episode. The hosts did seem to have good on air chemistry, but they spent way too much time talking about themselves , in my opinion. I think that I would prefer to have just two hosts on a podcast so it is easy to differentiate between the hosts and it is not confusing, one host just seems a little bit boring.

The last 2 pocast that I listened to were: This Week in Photography (TWiP) #126 and Teachers Teaching Teachers #181. TWiP, to me, was very interesting because I like photography. This particular podcast was on "Racism in Photography" it was about a new camera coming out that had the facial recognition software and how it does not focus on people with darker skin. Once again this was a multiple person podcast and it did get confusing at times when more than one person would speak. The podcast Teachers Teaching Teachers #181 was possibly the farthest topic that I am interested in, which made it boring. The topic was "Getting Schooled on Gaming," it talked about how gaming is being incorporated into education and its pros and cons. Since I do not play games like Avatar, this podcast was completely uninteresting.

Overall, I enjoyed listening to the podcasts and seeing the difference in them and the many different ways that I can apply to my podcast in a few weeks. Some of the ways that I liked were having two hosts, so that it will not be boring with just one and will not be confusing with way too many people trying to talk at once. I may even add some music in the background, so that if there is any "dead air" it won't be silent. They have all given me great ideas for any podcast that I may do in the future.