Classroom Podcasts

After reviewing several of the podcasts, I felt that there was a running theme throughout most of them that warrants some attention. First, it was clear that since this was a "live" broadcast many people were nervous. To avoid long pauses, people kept large quantities of notes to ensure that they would not forget anything. However, because of this action, many of these podcasts felt overly rehearsed and unnatural.
Rather than speaking casually and conversationally as occurs in most podcasts, many groups simply took turns reading their contributions to the discussion. Thus the podcasts felt overly transcribed rather than well rehearsed. Additionally, those groups who did engage in some question and answer portions of the podcast felt very unnatural.
Ultimately it is clear that many people were nervous about this exercise. To compensate for this nervousness they rehearsed to the point where their discussion no longer felt natural. Despite these criticisms, I felt that every group excelled at the knowledge of the topic they were discussing and provided an interesting look into whatever field they chose to discuss.