PAC 442 Section B The Internet and American Life University of Illinois at Springfield Spring 2006 Prof. Burks Oakley II

Extra Credit #2 - Posted to the Week Four discussion forum on 6 February 2006

For this extra credit assignment, you are asked to create a podcast (3-5 minutes) summarizing your learning experiences during Week Four in PAC442 Section B.  What did you learn that was new to you?  What, if anything, in the Pew reports did you find to be at odds with your own personal experiences?  What would you like to know more about, and why?

I’ll look for the following in your podcast:

• You have a definite introduction and conclusion.
• Your ideas are well organized, clearly communicated, and connect tightly to a central thesis.
• The listener is left with a good understanding of your perspective and personal experiences.

This assignment is worth up to 4 extra credit points (40% of a weekly homework assignment).

Recall that you can create a free blog at Blogger.com, and you can create a free audio recording (up to 5 minutes in duration) at Audioblogger.com – a link to the mp3 file with your audio recording will be automatically posted to your blog.  Additional instructions about Audioblogger are in the course handout at:

http://online.uis.edu/oakley/sp06/pac442b/audioblogger.com_Sp06.html

Of course, you can use your PC to record an audio file directly, if you have a microphone and the technical “know-how” to do this.

And another alternative is to use Odeo.com – which is a free service for recording (up to 3 minutes) and storing audio on the web – additional information is on our course handout at:

http://online.uis.edu/oakley/sp06/pac442b/odeo.com_Sp06.html

Finally, if you don’t want to record a podcast, you can simply post a text message addressing the same issues – but that will only be worth a maximum of 2 extra credit points.

Since this extra credit assignment deals with Week Four, it must be submitted by noon central time on 15 February 2006 in order to receive the maximum credit.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this assignment.

-- Burks