Week 7: Using a blog to supplement information from class.

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For my biology classes, I plan on having the students maintain their own blogs in which they will post their thoughts related to what they are learning in class, as well as discuss science articles that they find on their own. For my podcast I chose to explain in more detail both where to look for articles and what they should think about when choosing and writing about them. I think this is something that some students may already be comfortable with, and that others may need more explicit instruction in both the methods and the thinking needed. Podcasts seem like they could be an excellent way to make this information available to those who need extra help without boring those that don’t with long explanations in class.


I am using Garage Band and my .mac account which also allows me to add still images to the podcast, however, the format is M4A which is called “enhanced”. When I save it as an MP3 I lose the images. I don’t know if it’s possible to get the enhanced files to show on our blogs, but I’d like to, as I always learn better myself when I have something to look at.


Here is a link to the Podcast on .Mac which has the images. If you are interested, you can compare the difference. If I could embed the M4A file on this blog you would just have the small player window in the middle of the page. You will see that the player offers more control than the PodBean player. You can easily move forward and backward to skip or replay sections. I didn't do it for this podcast, but you can also mark "chapters" to allow moving directly to the section you want to review.


I did try to make the podcast understandable (and interesting) for someone who wasn’t looking at the images. In any case, I believe a series of podcasts like these would be a valuable resource for students that need more help with the technology, and/or the thinking needed. I know that sometimes after I have started an assignment I realize there are parts of it I don’t understand; I like that student’s can listen to the directions again if they realize there is some part they don’t understand. Reading (and writing) step-by-step directions can be tedious, and I think learning this kind of information from a podcast instead might be easier.


I don’t know why Blogger doesn’t support the “enhanced” M4A files which allow images. BeanPod can use these files, so it’s not a proprietary format issue, but when I tried to embed that BeanPod code I got an error message on my Blog. Perhaps there is another blog host that does support these files?