Thing 18

Which pod-casts did you find interesting? Identify one or two pod-casts and describe how you would use them in your work. (Be sure to include links in your blog entry to the pod casts mentioned.)

I've subscribed to the podcast called The Health Show. It provides information about various health topics each week. The information is presented by experts who are respected in their particular areas. It helps me keep up with the changes in the health field. This week's show, (July 13) is about the HIV epidemic. It started off with President Obama sharing information about the new national strategy, which includes three components; prevention, treatment, and health disparities. He mentioned that everyone needs to do their part. Government, companies and citizens need to accept their responsibilities in limiting the spread of the epidemic. Our country's goal is to reduce the rate of new infections by 25% in 5 years. This will be significant considering the new infection rate has been constant for the last 10 years. A health reporter for the New York Times was also interviewed about HIV in Africa. Some interesting points he shared included that there are now 4 million people being treated there, but 33 million are infected. Two million of those who are infected will die, and 2.7 million will get infected in the next year. He answered the question of why isn't the number of HIV cases in Africa going down, by saying "you can't mop up the floor very well when the water is still spilling". He added some additional insight to by discussing the plight of women. In Africa women are purchased by their husbands. This makes it difficult for them to say "no" and difficult for them to negotiate the use of condoms. Health professionals have used an educational strategy there that has met with some success. It is called the ABC strategy: Abstinence, Be Faithful and use Condoms. Simple mnemonics like that can be used with adolescents too. They are easy to remember and they make sense. This information might be useful to us as we continue to educate students about this disease and it's implications worldwide.

I also explored the Education Podcast Network (EPN) and podcast.com. EPN had some student created pod-casts that were helpful to hear as examples of student work. I tried allowing students to create pod-casts years ago, and think it would be fun to implement this type of activity again. I could ask the instructional specialist for some assistance as I am unsure of what kinds of equipment Newington has to make this work.

Finally I explored the medical minute and medical minutes pod-casts on Podcast.com. (Link takes you to Medical Minute) This site is helpful as it provides brief, simple one minute pod-casts about different health topics. It is an excellent and easy way to bring in a different teaching modality into a lesson.

7/28/10 Links to podcast.com and The Health Show fixed and now appear to be working.