Investigation - Criterion A

Podcasts to Examine Adolescence
Well, we are starting a new project now and it is called "PODCASTS TO EXAMINE ADOLESCENCE". I will make a podcast about my adolescence and in it I will talk about the good things as well as difficulties in my teenager life. I will talk about my relationship with parents, friends and teachers as well as other people around me. I will say some of my personal thoughts about certain things.

Before we start talking deeper about our project, what is a podcast? Well, Podcasting is a form of audio broadcasting on the internet. Anyone, who has a computer can download a podcast and listern to it via Windows Media Player, Winamp, other Portable music players. As long as you can listen to music on your computer; then you can listen to podcasts. Or instead of downloading podcasts made by someone else, you can create you own on any topic. Well, podcasting is basically your speech or can be a music. The advantages of podcasts is that it is very productive for audiotory learners and disabled people, blind people. Sometimes people create podcasts just for fun but sometimes it is easier for the person instead of writing. So the way of learning techniques deeply related to the podcasts. Radio Stations always use podcasts or sometimes they just record it lively. Anyone who can speak can make a podcast on any topic they want. For instance, itunes Store is one of the main places, where people download podcasts and there were millions and billions of recordings under each category. Indeed, anyone can listen to them as well. Most of the portable music players as well as cellular phones have the function of recording in order for their users' convienience.

Since I am part of everyone, I think it is one of my duties to learn about creating podcasts. Who knows, what my majoring will be. I may be a teacher who can produce CDs that is full of podcast lessons or I can become a Radio Stationer. I may work for the Radio as a host. Other than that I will learn how to be openminded and how to express myself in my speeches while creating podcasts. I can also tidy up my ideas in a short period of time while practicing podcasts because if the podcast is long then it is very boring. Then I will also try my best to talk as clearly and understandable as possible. I think this project is very productive for my communicating skills. Indeed in IB, we always make podcasts on the literature we read so it will be VERY USEFUL for my later career in ISU.

I can also express my difficulties via this experiment and the troubles I am facing in my adolescence. My podcast listeners will be my classmates, my friends, and my family members. Then while listening they will understand me through this project and get the idea why I act weird sometimes. So further more they will try to help me. Other than that I can compare my adolescence with other teenagers' and get a clue on where I am. How mature am I or How similar I am to them.

Throught this project it is for certain that we will make a podcast or a video about me or an adolescence of anyone. Everyone has different experiences and life conditions that their childhood and teenager life is totally different; even the teenagers nowadays have different importance and interests. It all depends on the person and his/her maturity level. There are things that might be different but also similar. For instance in the NewyorkTimes.com there were articles posted about the teenagers. The teenagers who turned 17 made podcasts saying about themselves. I read many of them and felt like they were a little dull and boring. However I found the one that inspired me a lot. In addition, even though they all were from New York and all 17year olds they were absolutely different with various of different religion, culture, background, interests.

So during class, all of us listened to the podcasts of young New Yorkers. As was mentioned above, there were absolutely different; however there were at least one thing that was similar to us. we discussed all together that some of them had similar inportance compared to ours such as

• family
• school/education
• friends
• responsibility

But there were things that were totally different such as part time jobs, driving because we do not have that condition in Mongolia because of the laws. Another thing that would differ us from those young New Yorkers was that most of us come from a wealthy backgound and that makes the whole idea of adolescence different from theirs'.

Well, we were told to read more of those podcasts and choose one that inspired me. The following is the one I chose to use and the main character inspired me. It was about a girl, who was lesbian. She had a girlfriend but both parents were not happy about their relationship. Her father blames his genetics for the fact that she became a lesbian. Because she was the first girlfriend of her girlfriend, the parents and other fellow students also blamed Zy-Tasia for turning her into a lesbian. There is a constant pressure from her parents telling her that it is just a temporary interest. However what inspired me the most about her was that she made the decision she wanted no matter everyone else was against her.

‘My Parents Had This Big Argument Over Whose Fault It Was, Why I Chose to Be This Way.’

High School for Law Enforcement and Public Safety
BORN July 1, 1990
I WAS born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and my mom raised me to be open to everything: to all types of sexualities. But I guess she didn’t expect it would come out in me. She’s like, “Be nice to everybody, but as long as you’re not a lesbian, that’s cool.” So when she found out I was a lesbian, it was really difficult, and she didn’t accept it at first. She still sort of doesn’t, but she deals with it.
Mostly, people in Manhattan are really open to it. I go to a center on 13th Street called the LGBT Center where they have lots of programs and activities. I’m in a film class, and we’re making films about different experiences we have being lesbian.
Mine is about how my girlfriend’s parents are homophobic — really, really homophobic. We’ve been together about a year. As the relationship got stronger and stronger, the more protective her parents got, the more they tried to pull her away. In July, they sent her to live with her uncle in Chicago. She tries to call me about twice a week to check up on things, but I haven’t seen her since. I live in Far Rockaway, Queens, and my school is in Jamaica. When I came out in my school, in 10th grade, everybody was pushing me away.
When I came out, I was basically established in the school. I knew everybody. So I had to explain to them, I’m still the same person I was before. I just choose to be with another woman instead of a man.
There was a girl at my high school, and she would ask me really silly questions, like, “Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston”? I’d say, “Angelina Jolie,” and she’d say, “See, only a gay person would say that.” And she goes, “Red ice cream or grape ice cream?” I’m like, “Red ice cream.” She says, “See, you’re a lesbian.”
My mom’s the type of person, she calls everyone in the family and says, “Guess what my daughter just told me!” So then my grandmother called me, and my aunt, too.
Then my father called. I don’t live with my father because my parents separated when I was a baby, but we always keep in contact. He goes: “I have gay sisters. Do you think this is genetic?” And my parents had this big argument over whose fault it was, why I chose to be this way.
My father, he still thinks it’s a phase. He’s like: “I think you’re gonna have a boyfriend later on. I’m not worried about it.”
But my grandmother’s cool with it. She says, “As long as you’re not doing pornos and doing anything crazy, getting tattoos on your forehead, I don’t care who you go out with.”
My mom is just like, “Well, I wanted grandkids, and I wanted you to marry a boy,” and every now and then, she throws in: “I met this really nice guy on the train. Are you sure you don’t want to meet him?” And I’m like: “No, Mom. I have a girlfriend.”
My family was brought up as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in heaven or hell. They believe in everlasting life, that everybody’s going to die and then God’s going to bring back all the people who did right and they’ll live on this paradise earth.
And I’m not baptized, so my family’s like: “See, this is what happens when you don’t get baptized. This is what happens when you sit around and play video games instead of coming to church.” And I say, “This has nothing to do with anything.”
But the way my family was brought up, basically every little sin you commit is another strike against you being able to come back for everlasting life. They’re like: “Do you know you just added a big strike to yourself? Now you have to be extra good so he’ll think about bringing you back.”
A lot of my friends stopped talking to me, and a lot of them still don’t talk to me. My girlfriend in Chicago, I’m her first girlfriend. So when we came out in school, as a couple, everybody said: “See what you did to her? Now you’re going to bring two people down to hell.” I’m like, “O.K.” And her parents really made me feel bad. They were like: “You’re ruining our family. She was fine before she met you.”
And I said to myself, well, maybe I shouldn’t be with girls. Maybe I’m just going to ruin everyone’s life. Maybe I should just be with a boy and make everyone happy.
Interviewed by GREGORY BEYER

Podcasts I found interesting to me and useful for my project

Michael Jackson Podcast

The second Podcast was by a guy called Joshua and he made a podcast about Michael Jackson. It was one of the very formal but interesting podcasts I have ever listened to. He was talking about the great achievements of The King of Pop. Joshua talked about the single album and the hit songs of Michael Jackson. Everytime he started talking about a new song, he started with a part of the song to give ideas to the listeners and to decorate his podcast. It was about 40 minute podcast, which I found very long but interesting. He was 27 years old and he was black. The idea of defining the skin color of the recorder is just because I could see that he was inspired by Michael Jackson. So from listening to his recording I can say that he put a lot of effort and time. I really liked this podcast because first it was about my favorite singer, second it was different from other typical podcasts by its songs and third it contained a lot of valid and indeed interesting information about Michael Jackson's songs. It was posted on audiofarm.org on Joshua's profile. He had other podcasts related to his interests.

Releasing from the Gang

The third podcast, I had listened to was posted on the New York Times' website. It was about the teenager life of 17 year old children, kids of the baby boom. They all lived in NY and all were 17 but they had different experience and different adolescence as was mentioned above. So it was about a girl, who lives in a dangerous hood and trying to get released from the bad energy. She is not blaming the idea of hood, though. Her podcast was very short and every minute was spent on her talking meanwhile other podcasts the other teenagers were filled with repeated words or weak adjustments like UGH, OMG and etc. I could see that she was very different from other teenagers. In her podcast she mentions about her tryin her best to study well and getting rid of the gang. In addition, for more information I read the oral history and I found a lot information about Sarah. She had been in a foster care twice. She had seen a lot of good and bad things that gangmembers do. She meant gang as a family for people, who do not have a family; however in the real gang was used in different direction. People bullied others just for entering their hood. So since she was against it, Sarah joined an Anti-Gang Violance Youth Initiave organization. She was willing to help the youngers not to join a gang for bad puposes. Not only she was tryin her best to improve herself but also using the possibilities to assist the community around her, which I really liked. I liked this podcast because she was one of the successful people as long as I consider. Success is realizing your mistakes and going forward for improvements.

The Trains Are Always Late

(Joke)

A man was complaining to a railroad engineer. "What's the use of having a train schedule if the trains are always late?" The railroad engineer replied, "how would we know they were late, if we didn't have a schedule?"

Above is the written script of the podcast. It was a joke on http://www.manythings.org/ . I think, one of the reason I would prefer listening to podcasts will be listening to jokes. It is a lot of fun, with lively human voices and music; instead of just reading a joke. And indeed I will not have to beg someone to tell me a joke. This joke is about trains being late. Online there are millions and billions of podcats which contained jokes; however mass of them were in appropriate. And this specific website was for actually educating english language through podcasts. It was fun to listen to it even though it collided with my principles. I could not find any information about the recorder, not even the name of him/her. However there is a possibility that it was done via computer functions. Well the website copyright was done by Kelly Charles, though.

There were some advantages of this specific podcast over the other ones I have heard. Well, first of all, it was very clear. It was supposed to be clear because it is part of a lesson for ESL Students. However, I was thinking, shouldn't all podcasts be clear and understandable for the convinience of the users? I would say yes, it should. Secondly, at the end of the joke, a robot like voice repeated the website address. I can see that this podcast contains jokes but also advertising certain websites.

Interviewing a parent
about their adolescence.

Today is the 10th of November and as a part of my investigation I interviewed my mom and we discussed about the differences of my adolescence and hers. I could see the usage and help of technology improvement straight away, because I made a podcast on my phone and transferred it into my computer. I thought to myself, "My mom never imagined this when she was at my age!" I felt happy for myself. The only weakness would the language we are interacting. It is in Mongolian. Well, I felt a little nervous at the beginning of the podcast but felt comfortable at the end. It was the first time ever for me to record an audio while interviewing someone. I guess, my interviewee also felt a little nervous due to the fact that I could notice the pauses she was taking during the interview.

Here is a photo of my mom when she was a teenager, probably 17.

I think she looks prettier and younger now. However the quality of this photo was really bad, it was black and white plus it was very small. She had only 2 pictures of her when she was a teenager, and i have like tonns of them =]. Here is another impact of technology improvement. Well this my mom. I couldn't find my USB of my camera so I used the latest photo of hers which was taken in Seoul in November.

Since the podcast is in english, I will write the questions I had asked her several questions such as:

- First I introduced the new project and the purpose of the interview

- What did teenagers do in your adolescence and how did their spent their day?

- What do you think, how does the adolescence of my generation differs from the teenager life of your?

- Why do you think, there are that much differences? How would you explain it relating to the environment and comunity you were in?

- What were the advantages of being a teenager during your generation than mine?

- If you had a chance, do you wish to experience the adolescence of my generation? Or are you happy with what you have experienced already?

These questions were strong enough to give me enough idea about the adolescence in her generation. When they were young parenting was stricter than it appears to be now. The parents had less responsibility of looking over the house due to the fact that they spent most of the time working for the government. Many household cleaning and also other public organizations were on the back of the children, especially the older ones. Because Mongolia has been a Communist country during my mom’s adolescence there were some extreme differences compared to mine. Due to the fact that Mongolia became a Democratic Country, it made a lot of difference in people’s mind and their responsibility. My mom was told to respect and love the public equipments and places; however now no one except in our school teaches us that.
Not only has the government style affected the change of the adolescence; but also the technology has a lot more impact. My interviewee was 100% sure that adolescence had changed due to the high speed of technology. She said, “In my days, there was not an iPod, cell phone, video games, night clubs, movie theatres and etc. Only rich families had TV sets at home and they were also black and white, not even closer to the ones we use nowadays. That is why people interacted more to each other and there were a lot more going on in the public for everyone to participate. The organizations that were held were mostly cleaning the streets, going to the farmland and etc.”
When I asked her about whether she wished if she had been born in a different era; without hesitating she said, “NO”. That was weird of me to get an answer like this; however she explained that all the memories she had were one of the best moments of her life so she was very satisfied with what she had been through. But she said that if she really had the chance to be a teenager in a different era, she would like to try. Well, for me, I am so happy to be an adolescent today. I have the technology, which makes my life a lot easier and fun. I do not wish to give away those satisfactions in order to work on a farmland.
I think, our generation is a very convenient, easier, fun. The higher technology did make a great change and an impact on our daily routine and lifestyle. There might be some weaknesses of our generation that teenagers are becoming less interactive as well as lazy. I guess, it all depends on the parenting and the maturity of the kid, him/herself.

Interviewing 3 DIFFERENT TEENS
As we were told, we were supposed to interview 3 teenagers at my age from different backgrounds. Even though on the instruction sheet it says I have interview from the school, I decided to interview 3 totally different students from different backgrounds. Due to the Swine Flu and the quarantine, I could not talk to the interviewee face to face. The only solution left for us was the writing; I couldn’t make a podcasts or video.


First I interviewed my friend, Ariunsolongo. She is Mongolian and she studies at Russian school. So the condition she has will be totally different from the lives of the other 2 interviewees.

U: Hello, we are working on a project Podcasts to Examine Adolescence. I would like to ask you about your teenager life.
A: Sure.
U: How do you spend your day? What do you usually do?
A: I go to school. Then when I am back from school, I do my homework and clean the house. Sometimes I cook the dinner. Usually, during the evening I go online and chat with my friends or watch TV.
U: Are you satisfied with your life?
A: No
U: Why not?
A: I am losing a lot time. Instead of just being in grade 10 right now, I could have followed my own interest and choose my majoring.
U: Are you happy to be an adolescent today, or do you wish you had been born in a different era?
A: I like the one, I have now.
U: Why?
A: If I was born in back in the past, I would probably experience adolescence during Communist era. So there would not be enough freedom and everyone would have been the same. Other than that, rich people were counted as spies; I do not like that idea. There was no competition at all.


The second interviewee was Bilegt from my class. Since he knew about the project, it was a lot easier to communicate with him.

He is one of my great buddies and I appreciate his ethics and honor.
U: How do you spend your day? What do you usually do?
B: I usually do school work; and during the weekends I spent time with my friends.
U: Are you satisfied with your life?
B: Absolutely. Nothing in my mind that kills me.
U: Are you happy to be an adolescent today, or do you wish you had been born in a different era? Why or Why not?
B: No. I like it right at this time; because if I was born in the past, like during socialism, things were very boring and the world was just plain. Right now is a perfect generation; there are no limits to things and much more fun and more things going on around. I also do not want to be born in the future; because everything will be dominated by robots and mechanics. I want to live my life where there’s both taste for technology and human life.


My third interviewee was Khulan from my class. She is very unique; and she thinks different from other people. That was the reason I chose her to interview.

U: How do you spend your normal day? What do you exactly do?

Kh: Well, when I'm alone I usually spend 90% of my day on the computer. I open my facebook, yahoo messenger and spend almost the entire day on YouTube or deviantart.com. I really don't like this routine, I find it really pointless, yet I do it 24/7. I rather spend my time drawing or reading a book. When I spend time with my friends, I do a whole lot of weird and abnormal stuff, which I rather not say out loud, ha-ha.

U: Are you happy with your life? Why or why not?

Kh: I'm very happy with my life. I've got a great family, great friends and good education. There are periods when I feel a bit down, but it's nothing big, I don't like to mourn over small things.

U: Are you happy to be an adolescent today, or do you wish you had been born in a different era? Why or Why not?

Kh: Yes, I always wished to be around the 80's, looking at their style: clothes, films, music etc. The parties and hanging out with your friends, it seems totally wild and fun. I think nowadays, it's not like that anymore, it seems very dull and everybody's just in their own little world...


As I had mentioned above, we still see the high technology influence on adolescence’s life. We were born during 1993 or 1994 and now we are 16 or 15. At this age, it is lucky for us to have what we have now.

Different Ways that we can record and publish our podcasts

http://www.mypodcasts.com/ and http://www.podomatic.com/ were the online places where people tend to record and publish their podcasts. As well as different recording programs and itunes. As was mentioned above, recordting programs are on cellular phones, on Computers and indeed there are speal voice recording cellular objects are used worldwide. But other than these, there are also more convinient therefore easier to use procedures of recording and publishing podcasts.

Odiogo is can be used by all of the bloggers. The advantages of this procedure is that the written text will automatically become an audio file. Some people were anxious whether the podcast will sound like a robot but it does NOT. It sounds just like a human and it is free for sites such as Blogger, Worldpress, and Typepad.

Huffduffer is another choice of some of the recorders. Mostly people, who use their phones or audio recordings tend to keep their podcasts on their computer or an online folder. Huffduffer lets users create the podcasting equivalent of a linkblog, selecting audio files from anywhere on the internet and combining them into one podcast, whether they were recorded by the user or not. So it will be very interesting of combining one to another and creating totally new. Installing bookmarklet or using huffduff.com is appropriate for this method of recording and publishing podcasts.

Test for my final podcast

Since my product will be on my adolescence and my difficulties in this period; I would like to test the product on several different kinds of people. I would like to test it on 3 different people who are important to me.

Note: the possibilities of testing the product is limited due to the fact that it is in english. It's because the people I would like to test my product are not really good at english.

So, I will test it on my best friend Suugii, Ms.Eggie and Khulan from my class. Those 3 people's english is strong and they are one of the important people to me. So I would like them to listen to my podcast and write a paragraph or two of what information they gained from my podcast about me. What was new about me that they didn't know before?

Through this test, I will know whether I had expressed myself right or wrong. I will test the product's validness as well.

Works Cited

• Gaines, Zy-Tasia. "My Parents Had This Big Argument Over Whose Fault It Was, I Chose To Be This Way." Wild at Heart, and Seventeen. 16 Sep 2007: n. pag. Web. 3 Nov 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/nyregion/thecity/16gaines.html
• Aikens, Joshua. "Michael Jackson Podcast". 24 Nov 2009. http://www.audiofarm.org/audiofiles/3409-michael-jackson-podcast
• Mohess, Sarah. "You Don’t Have to Do Bad Things to Be in a Gang. You Don’t Have to Do Anything You Don’t Want to Do." WIld At Heart, and Seventeen. 16 Sep 2007. The City, New York Times. 29 Nov 2009.
  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/09/15/nyregion/thecity/20070916_SEVENTEEN_GRAPHIC.html
• Charles, Kelly. "Jokes in English." The Trains are Always Late. 2006. Interesting Things for ESL Students. 30 Nov 2009. http://www.manythings.org/jokes/9964.mp3