Podcast Headache Rant

( Note: There are two links in this post)

When I first began this podcast assignment, I did not predict that is was going to be a royal pain and cause so many problems. I began my podcast assignment early at school because I knew I had to create the survey, get it approved from the principal, conduct the survey with my homeroom students, then plead with them to get their permission form signed by their parents in order to move on to the next step of the assignment. Out of fifteen students who were surveyed, seven remembered! I only needed three, so I was okay with that. I compiled the data from the survey http://feed.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/2116/mp3.rss I was ready for the next step. Then the problems from school started.
It all began with the fact that I was unable to download Audacity from my computer at work since it has a surf control block on it. When I contacted one of the administrators who handles the technology in our district, she advised me to contact the company that deals with the teachers’ computer problems by sending them an email. That is when I knew I would not be doing the student interviews that day. I happened to see my principal in the office that day and told her about the road block in my project, and she told me that the computer company that helps with teachers’ computer issues often does not reply to emails as quickly as we would expect… could take a week!!! She then said I could try her computer to see if Audacity would work. Luckily it did, and I was allowed to bring my four students down to her office to conduct the interview portion of my assignment since she was not going to be there on Thursday.
Once I gathered all the students, I had twenty minutes to explain to them that they may not touch anything on her desk, show them how to use the microphone, work the controls of recording and stopping after each questions, etc… It was pretty funny when I look back on it, but the recording http://feed.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/2172/mp3.rss is not great since they were sitting in four chairs and passing the microphone down the line. They seemed to be more interested in the video phone on the wall that displays the people ringing the doorbell to come into school.
In the end, I realized that my school is not prepared for podcasting. I even had the administrator who I had emailed about my problem call me and want to know something along the lines of why schools are just expected to have access to this type of technology and how the recording site could be unsecure. I do not believe I will be including podcasting into my lessons any time in the near future, and I am glad this assignment is over.