Fall 2008 Podcast Critique

I must say that the Podcasts from the Fall 2008 were very impressive. they really presented a great argument and grabbed my full attention. The two podcasts that caught my eye were "Can Youtube be used for Educational Purposes" by Adrienne Lynch, Joylyn Reese and Brian Stevens and Possibilities for Using FaceBook for Educational Reasons" by Allison Midgette and Shaundretta Bethel. I chose these two because they were both about using today's two most highly used websites for educational purposes. And not surprisingly, both of these podcasts were very well done.

The first podcast was about Youtube and whether or not it could be used for educational purposes. The students talked about how students relate to sight and visuals better than just reading. And in this day and age I believe this to be true. One student also claimed that current American students react more to "hands on" types of learning. The go into details about how Youtube has a lot of good as well as bad tools. They were saying that it should be used but used sparingly because of some of the "questionable" material. But One of the students said how it could be used not just for academics, but sports and even theatre blocking schemes. Towards the end of the Podcast the students end it by stating that it can be used for professors as well. It sees that these students came to a consensus that it could be useful in "furthering the education" and development of students, but for educational material only. To access the YouTube website click HERE.

The next podcast I listened to was the Using facebook for educational purposes. This was the exact same argument as the Youtube one, only for facebook. Facebook (for those that do not know) is a world wide site with people having their own profiles showing their pictures, networks, and personal information about themselves. In this podcast one the students stated that she used facebook for a teaching tool when she was a teacher. i can relate to this because my football coaches use facebook to keep tabs on their players as she did with her students. She also said that they had multiple choice quizzes on there which sounded really reputable and something I liked. Later on they said that its good for Universities because they can give out community e-mails and statements via Facebook. I think this is a great idea because they use the same things for football: when there is an announcement, they will send messages to anyone on facebook and its quite convenient.

These two podcasts where defiantly worth the 20 minutes I spent listening to them. They were very insightful and well prepared as far as evidence was concerned. they both pretty much had the same thesis: These things (Youtube and Facebook) would be good educational tools, but used sparingly as well as responsibly for the greater good of our education.