Finding My Voice

I was thinking that I wouldn’t need to use my voice in on-line teaching! But I guess I’ll need to get a microphone and try my hand at creating podcasts. At the very least, I need to learn how to record a voice commentary that can accompany slide shows like the one I provided students for the first module, Introduction to Computers.

(Schematic of podcast from http://edmarketing.apple.com/adcinstitute/wp-content/Missouri_Podcasting_White_Paper.pdf)

Podcasts might be useful to remind students of specific class requirements and to give tips as the need arises. However, I prefer to keep all instructions to students in one location, in my written “Instructor Notes” for each module. If students were getting instructions in multiple locations, it would be easier to overlook some instructions. (A valid use of podcasts might be to notify students of changes in written instructions so that they will download the most recent version).

As for podcasts about the content of the course, I don’t think podcasts will be very effective for teaching the skills of this course—a picture is definitely worth a thousand words when learning to use the graphic user interface (GUI) of today’s computer applications. I did some podcast sources on the Internet. Microsoft provides podcasts with instruction on all of the office applications, as well as on specific issues. Consultants like “Mr Excel” also offer podcast tutorials,

Generally, I think videos will be more helpful to students. Microsoft provides online video demos like this one for PowerPoint. Searching YouTube I found numerous videos on specific topics in Microsoft applications like these for Excel, “Working With Formulas,” “Working With Dates,” and “Using the IF Function in formulas” Unfortunately, their usefulness is limited by poor resolution.

It will be useful for me to develop a list of videos that students can consults as an alternate to spending all their time pouring over the textbook.