Week 6 Reflections

Wow! Learning about ITV and Podcasts was enlightening. I have heard of podcast but never saw how they can be used in an educational environment. I was so curious about how podcasting works that I actually took the advice from Richardson (2006) and downloaded the free software called Audacity. It is very simple to set up, but I had a difficult time trying to save my casts to the accompanying software used for storing your podcasts. I loved playing with it. My son read a story and loved hearing his voice; we later tried adding sound affects to it, which made it even more interesting. I see a lot of potential educational use in podcasting.

Interactive Television is definately a new phenomenon to me. I read several articles on ITV and the one most interesting made a few points in which I can relate to. One being that most often TV is a medium in which one relaxes and enjoys the comfort and simplicity of not having to do anything other than watch or listen. I don't watch much TV--only a few episodes of Seinfield or Martin when I need a good laugh. The TV must be already turned to these shows because I find our remote control too complex to use. I can imagine how complicated a remote control would be to an ITV. Sometimes all the blows and whistles that iare supposed to make technology easy and more interactive is simply a turn-off!