Podcasts

I've spent a lot of time listening to podcasts, or just streaming radio shows. I enjoy being able to listen to people talk, learn about what they're investigating, all the while washing dishes, driving or stretching. It seems simple: you talk into a microphone, add some sound effects, and voila! My experience has broadened my understanding of the process: it is not simple or linear...

With that understanding, I can say that creating a podcast is certainly a learning experience of its own accord. This can be a valuable way to keep students interested in the material we learn in social studies - it's essentially asking them to teach a short lesson, but they don't have to stand in front of the class. It would be interesting to assign teams of students a multi-media project (it could be on any topic) that would include audio, visual, and textual components.

Already-made podcasts are also useful in the classroom. There are some very unconventional podcasts out there that will really keep students' attention, and can be used to work on listening comprehension. I'm visualizing students listening in groups to a short podcast, maybe 5-10 minutes, discussing what they heard, and then creating an image or process-drama piece that embodies the author's perspective. This would have to be done with a podcast that takes a position on the topic in order to make it more interesting.

I would be lying if I said I was likely to make podcasts to use in my classroom. While students can make podcasts to deepen their understanding of a topic, it doesn't seem to make sense to invest hours to create a podcast that will be heard for 5 minutes. However, it might make sense for students whose reading skills are below grade level to have podcasts as a resource if they are struggling a great deal.

Multitasking video and attenti, ooo what's that?

PBS's Frontline video on multitasking in education was fascinating. Though it's a short clip, we hear from several college students, all of whom have the same perspective: Not only can we multitask, we can't NOT multitask. This is a very prominent characteristic of our generation, one that my parents and their parents did not have to deal with and can't exactly relate to. It was particularly surprising that the students interviewed did not seem to have any qualms about their multitasking, and were even offended if professors requested their full attention. One student said, "unless I'm overwhelmed, I fall asleep."

To me, this is terrifying. Sure, I'm guilty of multitasking, and it even makes me feel excited and productive a lot of the time. But I can't help but think that it is totally unnatural for our brains to be "on" all the time, thinking about 5 different things at once. In fact, multitasking isn't even the worst, but it's not what we're really doing most of the time. The big problem is "continuous partial attention." The PBS website (under FAQ) describes the difference between the two phenomena this way: "When we're multitasking, we have a specific purpose for each task, and we are trying to do each task well. We shift between tasks, and that sometimes slows down our productivity. But when we're in continuous partial attention, we're scanning multiple dimensions of our environment constantly. We aren't switching back and forth between activities; we're doing lots of things all at the same time."

I think this sort of constant cognitive motion is destructive to our being. I read that the more time we spend multitasking, the less down time our brains have, which stimulates creative thinking. The down time is the key - not only for relaxation, but also for improving our cognitive processes- and it seems like culturally we're moving further and further from that concept and closer to a constantly-on way of being. This has serious implications for teaching and learning since creativity are integral to critical thinking skills and also simply being an interesting person!

I'm going to get off the computer now and go sit in the grass.