Hello again fellow podcasting students!

This week has been stressful... Coming up with a research question and a topic to narrow down is a lot harder than I thought it’d be. Honestly, I thought I’d just pick a topic and keep going... but it was definitely much more difficult. Nonetheless I did manage to find something!

I have chosen to emulate the Spark podcasts. I really enjoy learning about technology—why these new gadgets are built the way they are, how they work, and why people want them. My inner techy nerd is ecstatic to do this. I found that Spark encompasses all of these things that I like learning about. I would like to try and emulate how they talk about the products with a greater knowledge. They really do their research and I hope I can get to their level. I also like how they bring people in for interviews because it shows someone else’s perspective; either one who actually has a higher knowledge of the product or one who is just a personal opinion. I also like how they speak slower. In terms of technology, I find it’s easier to explain the product and how it works when you’re speaking slower because the audience can actually grasp the concepts. That makes me feel better knowing I don’t have to speak super quickly either.

In terms of the topic, I chose to discuss the new Kobo tablets. As an avid reader who enjoys the feel of a book and the turning of pages, I like the idea of talking about e-readers and what they do to benefit avid readers. However, I will be focusing on why the Kobo tablet, specifically, is in such demand. Why do people need a Kobo tablet when there are other tablets out there if Kobo itself is an app? From there I think I can expand the explanations and dig further into the knowledge of Kobo. I think I’ll be able to discuss the differences between tablets and the efficiency of the Kobo app.

I didn’t really use SPARK to help me choose a topic because I already had a general idea of what I wanted to do and going through the podcasts help me fully decide what I was going to do. I did, however, look into SPARK to see how it could have helped me. If I was in the earlier stages of choosing a topic, I may have been able to use the “narrowing your topic” section to do exactly that. I found this site was useful if you were just beginning your assignment and really had no idea what you were going to do. I think the best advice it gave was to make sure you are interested in your topic. That is essential to your research because you won’t want to research something you don’t care about. The only thing I’d add to this advice would be to not be afraid of diving into the unknown. You’re doing this project to learn and if you are interested in your topic, you will be willing to learn even more.

Research time is upon us everyone! Good luck J