Critiquing Class Podcasts

After listening to four EDM 310 podcasts,including the one in which I participated, I have a few ideas on how they could be improved. I will start with my own podcast in which Johnie and I interviewed Dr. Dodge on the educational system in Alabama. I thought overall it was pretty good, since Dr. Dodge had a lot of great information and ideas for our school teachers in Alabama. He also had some amazing advice to give to future teachers. I think maybe the only thing I'd change about this podcast is that I could have spoken a little louder when asking my questions.

The second podcast I chose to listen to was the one called "The Strange Crystal Ball". In this podcast, Dr. Strange was interviewed by Katie, Jamie, and Laura. I think the discussion went well, and for the most part the girls did well keeping up with Dr. Strange. One thing I might suggest is to make it somehow more interesting and engaging, like Katie did when she questioned and challenged Dr. Strange on his opinions and ideas. If she would not have been a part of the podcast, I think it would have been very dry and monotonous. One person talking and rambling on and on is not very exciting to listen to. Also, I would have made this particular podcast shorter than it was. It was just too long!

The third podcast I listened to was the one about Facebook entitled "Facebook: It's In Our Class! But Can it Be Useful in Class?" I liked this podcast because the girls made it sound like an intimate conversation, like a little group of friends getting together at Starbucks to discuss the pros and cons of using Facebook for educational purposes. They also gave the history of Facebook, which I thought was interesting. I really wouldn't change anything about this podcast, except for the fact that it may have also run a little too long. Some of the girls said "um" too much. Overall though, I thought this podcast was interesting, informative, humorous and well constructed.

The fourth podcast I decided to listen to was the one about useful websites for high school teachers. Since I was not able to hear this particular podcast being recorded in real life, I was interested to see how this one was done. I thought the girls did a really good job and found the information given quite useful as well. They also gave several good examples of available resources to high school teachers, which I liked. One thing I would have done is to state the website when referring to it, instead of saying "my website" when I was talking about it. By mentioning the actual websites in abbreviated form, it could better encourage the audience to actually access and utilize these resources for themselves. It would just allow the websites to stick out better in the listeners mind. Overall though, the girls kept the conversation flowing really well and did not talk for an overextended period of time.