Media Project

My innovation proposal revolves around creating significant learning environment through blended learning where students take ownership of their own learning. I proposed the blended learning environment for the foreign language classroom because it makes sense to pair teacher led instruction with technology.  One of the tools I found that does this seamlessly is a foreign language learning product called QTalk.  It is engaging, fun and effective for the students with little prep required by the teacher.  It is an intuitive program that fosters a sense of curiosity in the student to learn. For this reason, I chose to interview the creator of QTalk for this media project.

​

Challenges

​

This media project has been one of the more technically challenging projects I’ve undertaken in this program. I spent more time on it than any other project. It was interesting, fun, and frustrating all at once. There were several challenges I faced while creating it. The first was connecting my guest to my article. Since I had already mentioned his company in my publication article, integrating QTalk into the project wasn’t too difficult. However, I found it challenging that my guest speaker didn’t have the same academic vocabulary that I have from this course. I had to pay close attention to what he was saying and tie it back to the essential elements in my article by adding captions to frames where he mentioned concepts like COVA and blended learning without actually saying those words.

​

Tools

​​​

For this project, I used a combination of tools to produce the podcast. I used Zoom to record conversations with my guest. We met four times to discuss foreign language acquisition, resulting in over 160 minutes of material. I would have liked to be more concise, but the language program is so good that it was hard to stop talking about it and the topics I had pre-set before the meetings. I also used Canva to create the introduction and concluding slides of the video. To edit the video, I used CapCut, which was a huge learning curve for me. I watched YouTube tutorials to learn how to import and edit videos, but none of the videos I watched were better than trial and error—and there was a lot of error on my part. I finally managed to figure it all out. The video isn’t perfect, but it works for my purposes.  Lastly, I uploaded my video to YouTube so I could import it into Wix. Unfortunately, the frame showing in my upload wasn't very flattering of me, so I had to research how to change the thumbnail of the slide showing in the upload.  It took a little maneuvering but I got it changed.

​

Overall, this was a great learning experience for me.  I know now that any future podcasts will need to follow an outline more closely so that I’m not overwhelmed with the amount of material I have to choose from and edit.