This week’s podcast class wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I think that maybe I had spent too much time playing around on iTunes U and had been expecting something more podcast like, and not something so much like being able to hear inside a classroom, and yet not see that classroom. The interesting thing was this format allowed me the chance to learn what the classroom dynamic is like for those that can’t see and hear what is happening in the classroom at the same time. We have hearing and vision impaired students in classes all of the time, and I had never thought about what a classroom would feel like for them, especially a technologically heavy classroom, before this experience. I have been so spoiled in my education so far, not only can I see and hear I also have the internet at my fingertips and can instantly access any information I want to answer questions that arise during the class period but suddenly I couldn’t see anything that was happening.
With the first podcast, the one about magic circles, I truly felt outside their magic circle. There were moments they were looking at things on a computer and then talking about them, I tried looking for the same sites but was unable to find the exact ones or pages, and this limited my ability to understand the in-class discussion. It isn’t that I wasn’t able to understand the overarching idea of the class, just that I felt as if I were missing details that would have really added to what I would have been learning. I am really glad that I had the chance to experience distance learning in this way, it has made more really aware of what other types of learning look like. I truly never would have given thought to what it is like to be in a class and not be able to take in all the information being given if I hadn’t been forced into a situation in which I had too, I am grateful that this learning experience came before I started to teach.
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