H807 – Listening to a podcast (A4.1)

We are asked to go to the Education Podcast network, choose a podcast, listen it, make notes on the following questions and report back to the forum.

• Who do you think the podcast is intended for?
• Can you imagine using the podcast in your teaching or learning? If so, how would you use it?
• What barriers, if any, do you see to the widespread use of podcasts from this site?

As I thought that everybody would go for a podcast regarding technology I decided to go for a different category. Unfortunately the Maledives Dive blog did not yield any podcasts, because I would really need some quite and relaxing time right now. Scuba diving calms me down and is the best stress buster for me.

Healthful living category was next on my list, well very predictable as well considering that I am teaching that subject. I found a promising category ‘Innovative Healings’ 😛  I finally made my choice between The Effect of Stress on Our Bodies or Foods that Help You Balance the Yin and Yang of Your Chi. How the podcast ‘Getting out of debt easily’ ended up in this category, I don’t know. I went for the later as I know exactly about the effect of stress on my body. However, it was pretty boring and I stopped listening it.

The Dose Of Motivation By Clint Cora from March 2010 was the one I finally listened too. The main message was that rather than staying down after you fall, rise each time. We can learn from our mistakes and do it better next time. Clint Cora used Nelson Mandela’s quote to summarize his core statement.

‘The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail’.   ~  Nelson Mandela

For my taste that podcast was to pushy. Well, not sure if pushy is the right word, but he sounded like on of these hosts/holiday reps that push you to do to something, but you want to simply continue lying on couch on the pool. I found an apt picture that captures very good what I want to say 😉

Honestly I don’t belong to those people who would listen to this kind of podcast, but life counselling books, podcasts, websites are booming, thus I guess that type of podcast will find its audience.

I could imagine using the podcast partly in education. I sometimes invite my students on a dream or imaginary journey reading a story to them while they lay down in the classroom. The story can contain different messages and motivation could be one of them. Dream journeys increasingly find their ways into classroom and they are sometimes used in kindergarten or in some nursing facilities. Thus, they can serve a double purpose. Students experience how relaxing a dream journey can be and can probably apply them in their later practice.

Personally I did no know the Education Podcast network, but searching with Google for educational podcast it is first in the ranking. Searching only by ‘podcast’ Apple and e.g. BBC are in the top five. I was a little bit disappointed that some promising subcategories did not yield any podcasts.