Podcast Project Reflection

Abbey Shepard
The greatest challenge that I experienced in making this podcast was missing days that I
could have helped my group. I was absent a lot during project work time. I could have helped out
with the script a little bit more because, in the beginning, the interviewee was confused or didn’t
get the questions, or the text was not flowing at all. I also wish I could have helped with the
editing the podcast since Trevor was the only one of our group to do the whole editing. I
overcame these challenges by making sure my group knew when I was gone and that they knew
what to do, so they weren’t lost. Once my peers started to realize that our script was not the
greatest, I was able to put my opinion in and help out with the writing. I am not the greatest of
technology; therefore, editing would be a challenge for me. Instead, I gathered the music and
sound effects for the podcast. I also make up for the lack of editing by making the cover art for
the podcast.

If I could go back and do this project again, I would have interviewed or had my group
talked to people in our town with professional opinions about education and automation. Most
because in one of our interviews, a teacher mentioned that they aren’t the experts about
automation and that they can give us their opinion and thought but don’t have numbers or facts
about automation. I would do this because mostly to get even further and deeper into the topic of
automation, and the teachers that we interviewed were great. To maybe push this podcast to the
next level would be to have a professional opinion about our topic.

The most significant insight that I got from this project and this unit was that America has
always had labor problems, and throughout history, we have come up with tons of solutions.
With each solution comes another problem: the future is coming fast, and technology is speeding
up. This nation needs to keep up, or we will have a harder time catching up with other countries.
Throughout the unit, I realized that we had lost the importance of having labor and how we can
maybe try and coexist with automation.

I am most proud of how we came together as a group and produced an excellent

exhibition podcast. We are communicative and let each of our ideas play a part in our podcast.
When someone would have a concern, we would address the problem and work together to
figure out a solution. We would go back and refine our podcast and script multiple times, making
sure it was close to perfect for all three of us. We would have a quick meeting at the start of
every day, making sure no one was left out, and everyone had a job to do that day.

One way that I grew as a student from this project is taking on a leadership role. I am
usually the quiet one that listens and follows. During this project, I took a leadership role a lot
and keeping my group on track. I would be the one who would gather my two peers and tell them
what they needed to get done, or I would help with editing the script and interviewing questions.
This was a big step up for me because I am usually too shy to share my opinion about something,
so I sit back and agreed with everything that the “leader” says. With this project, I was in that
leadership role and telling my opinion and ideas and seeing how my group would react. Luckily
my group was very supportive and backed me up or tell me what they would be thinking. I am
starting to gain the confidence to take on the leadership role more often.