thing 6

I listened to 2 podcasts. One of them was great and the other was barely tolerable. The only reason I finished it was because I wanted to complete this assignment. I listened to 2 history podcasts. I wanted to listen to them on my way out to visit my mom because the trip is about a 5 hour trip. I started off great by listening to a reinactment of someone acting like Thomas Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence. It was cool to listen to it on the 3rd of July because it had a lot of meaning. The second podcast was about ancient Rome. It would most likely have been interesting but the people recording it were very annoying to listen to. They spoke in strange voices and added silly sound effects. I had a hard time getting through it. I liked having the ability to listen to these in the car or while shopping at the store. However, I hated being stuck with the bad one. I couldn't get to another one either as I had no access to internet at my mom's house. I have to say that this is the most time consuming of all of the "Things" I've had to study.
I can see using a podcast in my social studies class very easily. I think it would be great to hear a story or listen to a speech. However, after putting up with the ancient Rome podcast I can see that it would take a lot of prep time to get a good podcast. I'm not sure I would take the time to listen to multiple podcasts just to find one that I like to have in the classroom. I would most likely use this for my own information and professional development. If I get a bad one I can just delete it. I am not stuck with it in lesson plans with nothing else planned for my time. I can say I don't trust the podcasting very much. It is very time consuming and not always of high quality.
I've used YouTube in the classroom before. It was not very difficult or confusing. However, I had a really hard time embedding the video onto the blog. I had the whole embed code highlited blue but it would only paste over the first line of the code. I finally had to copy the code, paste it into a word document and then transfer it to the blog. I still don't know what I did wrong but I tried it several times.
I got to view the video I chose by viewing the Laughing Baby video. I laughed so hard that I teared up and my daughters wanted to watch the Ninja baby over and over again. I chose it because it was very funny and memorable. I had a ton of fun watching it and I figured other people would get a laugh as well.

I think embedding a video allows instant access to the video and no one has to travel away from it. A link requires one little extra step. It also provides a little bit of a visual hook. If the initial picture on the embedded video looks interesting then people might be more likely to view it. A link is just words that may not describe the contents of the link and some might not want to go to the link. The process of embedding seemed easy. I watched the video twice on how to embed. However, I was never able to paste more than just the first line of the embed code when I went directly from YouTube to my blog. The only way I could get the whole code was to copy it out of YouTube and paste it into a word document. Then I had to copy out of the word document and paste it into the blog. For some reason this worked. What should have been really easy was not but I found a way to work around it.
I have used YouTube in class before to listen to history songs by Johnny Horton and to view clips from the history channel. I don't see an immediate use for it in my math class but my social studies class is a great place to use YouTube. I think I could show clips of battle reinactments or show famous speeches.
I think the educational sites are harder to steer into trouble. TeacherTube provides 100% educational content that is guaranteed to be appropriate for student viewing. YouTube includes everything that anyone could possibly put onto the internet. Some of it is innapropriate and it is not always obvious what will be bad until it has been witnessed. If students are on TeacherTube they can find videos about the things they need to learn about and not the latest pole dance performed by Mylie Cyrus. Students are less likely to get off task and become distracted.
YouTube is fun for students because they can "see" things instead of just "hear" things. YouTube is fun to search through and it includes really entertaining material. YouTube also provides students with an outlet if they choose to post a video. They can be creative. I can see a really cool presentation or book report being places on YouTube. I think it also could allow students to give an oral presentation without the stress of being in front of a room full of people. It could put them at ease, allow them to edit, and deliver a speech or oral report to be viewed by the class later or by the teacher in the privacy of her conference period. I can see YouTube as being great for shy students and fun for the outgoing students.
Video sharing and podcasting has made communication far reaching. Students in Texas can listen to a podcast of Colonial Williamsburg about the Continental Congress. Students can post a video of their opinions about a book they read or pretend to be a character in the book as a book report. Outgoing kids can be creative and have fun with podcasting and videosharing and shy kids can hide behind a camera, complete the same assignment without getting in front of a large audience. Podcasts can make learning an "anytime" thing. You don't have to wait to go to school to learn something new and learners are not stuck learning about what their teachers are teaching. If a student finds something else to be interesting they can find a podcast or video that teaches them about it. On the same note, if a student wants to expand their knowledge of something that they learned about in class they can search for that as well. No one is stuck learning only what others want them to learn. Students can take control of their own education in their free time if they choose to. It is very powerful.