A Podcast on How to Improve the World

 For this week's assignment, we created podcasts, podcasts specifically based off of BBC's "60 second idea to improve the world" podcasts where you have 60 seconds to present an idea that you think will improve the world. Some of these ideas were actually useful and practical while I thought some had a bit practicality to them but were somewhat comical.

My idea was to clear the world off of people who harm it, like criminals or polluters. Now, when I say "clear" bad ideas may pop up in your head but my solution was to give them a one-way ticket to an extraterrestrial trip, preferrably to mars. Unlike other punishments, this would actually keep the world safe from them and allow them to build an uncivilized civilization from scratch.

 The process of creating the podcast was harder than i anticipated, it took lots of tries and recordings before I decided it was acceptable. After I was done with the voice recording I removed background noises and gaps, put everyting into a video format with images and subtitles.

 

This type of a activity in a classroom would allow students to express their ideas and practice their speaking skills, also familiarizing them with using multimedia in an educational setting. Though some students might struggle if they're not comfortable with recording their voices or if they don't have the resources to do so. Overall I think this could be a fine activity to do in a language classroom.

 Click here to access the podcast through YouTube.

An Infographic on Plagiarism

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. For this assignment of our ICT course, we were tasked with creating an infographic about the various legal & ethical issues in material design we had covered previously. We were allowed to choose from 5 topics, which were plagiarism, copyright & fair use, safety & privacy, netiquette and cyberbullying. I picked plagiarism as my subject since it is a prevalent problem especially in our line of work in the education department.

  I used Piktochart to create a simple yet informing infographic that I think is both visually appealing and easy on the eyes. I provided a definition, reasons for why plagiarism is wrong and potential risks of it, followed by a list of things we can do to stop or avoid plagiarism. I found the website user-friendly and it had a wide range of graphics/icons to choose from.

Infographics can be great tools of teaching since they can be shaped and catered for every audience accordingly, keeping subjects interesting for everyone. For instance, younger students might find infographics with colorful and whimsical themes more interesting while more mature audiences might prefer simpler, more serious themes. The whole point of an infographic is to be more than just blank text, but a more attention-grabbing passage that is easier to ingest.

Some shapes and colors help when you need to highlight important points, like arrows, question/exclamation marks or bright colors. Using dots or lines to connect items can highlight a correlation or a chronological order. You can also use images or symbols related to the subject to make it easier for the students to understand. This comes in handy especially in language classrooms when you're trying to teach vocabulary or expressions.

Click here to take a look at my infographic.