Thinking back about my podcast and its creation, I am quite proud. I was able to successfully learn (at least the basics) about a program (Garageband) which I had never even heard of or used before. This in itself was a great accomplishment. At first I was a little reluctant about having to use a Mac, mainly for convenience issues, but now I am at peace with travelling early to class or even an extra day to work on the Macs. They have proved to be much more user-friendly than I anticipated and would love to own one of my own someday.
The actual creation of the podcast was a learning experience as well. I had never used a mic to record myself with a computer and had definitely never used Audacity or LAME. Luckily, after a little frustration, I actually read the Help instructions at the LAME website and was able to convert my audio file to an MP3. A down side to using LAME was that it automatically compacted the separate audio files I had created when recording into one larger, contiguous file. If I were to revise my podcast, I would definitely like to figure out how to keep some of my audio files separate during the conversion process. I wish that I had had little chunks of audio interspersed with music, instead of music only at the beginning and the end.
I loved finding pictures to use to enhance my podcast and its content. I found so many pictures that it was at times difficult to choose which ones to use. For this reason, I ended up with quite a lot of photos (around 50), way exceeding the minimum requirement. While the pictures were probably the most fun part of the process, they were also a little bit frustrating. Each time I put a picture in the queue, Garageband would automatically stretch it out to fit the entire length of the podcast. So each time a picture was added it needed to be shrunk down to the appropriate size. Not a big deal, just annoying. The many pictures were well worth the hassle of repeatedly shrinking down, because I believe that the visual aspects of the podcast greatly supported what my audio was saying. Being such a lover of print media, I had never really taken much time to think about how images can enhance any topic all the while making it more interesting and pleasurable to study.
Now after seeing James and Larissa's iMovies, I wish that I had been able to use this application instead. At least I will be making a snazzy movie soon. The transitions available in iMovie are far superior to those (or lack of) in Garageband.
I am very pleased that each of us were able to chose a topic that was important to us and relate it to the changes that are happening in the 'Flat World.' Parental involvement in children's education has recently came to the forefront of my mind since the birth of my niece. The connection that technology is allowing parents to have in their children's education is amazing and hugely beneficial to both parties.
The copyright issues that have arisen are quite surprising to me. I cannot believe that you cannot use an entire song when there is obviously no intention to sell the product or make a profit. But then again, I am a person who believes that everything should be open source. I miss the days of Napster and free legal downloads. I can say for myself, that I did not purchase any fewer actual CD's, but simply found more music that I would be interested in purchasing the whole album after browsing through a few of the artist's songs. I probably bought more CD's! Anyway, I am curious to find out what sort of repercussions might come of many of us infringing on copyright.
In summation, I believe that the podcast assignment was effective in learning a new technology and applying what we have learned in Friedman and Richardson while exploring an interest that is important to each one of us.
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