Blog Post #4: Podcast Review

Listen to one or two of the podcasts.

I watched Ken Robinson's podcast, "How to escape education's death valley." through Ted talks. Ted talks is very informative and educational websites. The world's greatest scholors and celebrities gave lectures. It conveys powerful and insightful messages. Ted talks has very high quality and authority.

Ken Robinson is an international advisor on education, creativity and innovation. His other podcasts are also very useful and interesting. Frankly speaking, the podcast was TYL's(teaching young learners) class material. My professor recommended it. Thus I could watch it by chance, but it has great message about education.

Provide a link to the podcast on your blog.
Give general information about the content and quality.

Here is links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78iKhInsc

 This podcast is a story about Education system in America. As I mentioned above Ken Robinson is a professional in Education feld. He has given a lot of informative and good lectures. Thus his speeches have high quality and deliver powerful messages.

He described the education system in Ameria as death valley that is dry and looks dead due to lack of rain. However, in 2004, it rained heavily there and after a few months life was back to the valley.  Ken compared this valley to schools. He said that education is learning, organic system and something about human, so if schools give students the ideal conditions, students will survive. He emphasized the importance of the social, human, and artistic capital in learning. And he focused on individualized teaching and learning(engaging creativity), continuous professional development for teachers, and school level control(not goverment or state level control).


What do you think about the podcast? 
Which type of learners could benefit from the podcast?

I strongly believe that it is very good podcasts for teachers or preliminary teachers. It gives educators very important messages. They should rethink about current education system and their roles, and learners' situation.

And I think Korea's education system is not as quite as different as other coutries. Students receive strongly standardized education in Korea. Most schools focuse on test based teaching, and they can not cover or consider students' individual situations. I know it's very difficult to reflect the whole messages. However, educators(including government, schools, and teachers) should rethink about their roles and ways to foster and encourage their students to participate in class more actively. And they should make  more free and less standardized class atmosphere, so students can use their originality.

In conclusion, it provides very good points about education system. All educators should think about this issues and try to change the education system gradually.