First Podcast Reflection

When trying to decide what game to discuss in the podcast, my partner Cindy introduced me to Cytus. At first I wasn’t sure how we were going to create a ten minute podcast about this music game; however, I was surprised when Cindy began to explain the backstory of the game. To our surprise, as we worked more on the podcast, we realized we actually had a lot to say about the game.

Before we were ready to record, we had quite a bit of work to do. We decided that it would be best to read from a script what we were going to say, that way it would be less likely for us to make mistakes. Also, this would ensure that we touched on every point that we wanted to make. We both did some research prior to writing the script: Cindy on the plot and myself on Bogost’s chapter on music. Since we were the first pair to turn in the podcast, we didn’t really have a specific structure that we had to follow.

Working on this podcast definitely helped me work toward achieving the learning outcomes for this course. The first learning outcome is rhetorical composition. By gathering information and then having to formulate it into a script, I was able to put in practice the skills that help me organize both research and my ideas. In addition, the podcast also helped me with the digital citizenship learning outcome because I was able to use technology as a medium to express what I had to say. It also gave me a chance to familiarize myself with different applications such as Audacity and Garage Band. I began trying to figure out how to use audacity; however I wasn’t able to completely understand how to use it and so we decided to use Garage Band instead. Nonetheless, I was able to explore different mediums and choose which one I believed was the most effective one.

All in all, I was very happy with what Cindy and I produced. I thought that the beginning was very capturing, given that we recorded an introduction and put a song from the game as background music. That was by far my favorite part of our podcast. However, I think that we also did a pretty good job at analyzing the game and making a connection with Bogost’s music chapter. If I had to give advice to my peers for when they produce their podcasts I would most definitely recommend that they script out what they want to say because it’s more convenient and ensures that you won’t make any mistakes when speaking. Also, in my opinion, it allows the conversation to flow in a more naturally way, without many “ums” or long pauses. In addition, I also suggest my peers to use Garage Band because Cindy and I had a good experience with it. In the end, I was very happy with my podcast and I really enjoyed working with Cindy. I look forward to working on our second podcast and hope that we produce another good episode.