From Brooklyn to PhD: Transforming Education Through Podcasting with Dr. JRod

Ever wondered how podcasting could revolutionize education? Join me, Dr. J-Rod, as I share my extraordinary journey from Professor to PhD holder, exploring the transformative power of podcasting in higher education. This episode chronicles my academic adventure, marked by intense challenges, self-doubt, and the thrilling discovery of podcasting's potential as an educational tool. Listen in as I recount my dissertation process, featuring interviews and surveys with experts in the field, and unveil my ambitions to publish journal articles and present at conferences. Plus, get inspired by my commitment to culturally relevant teaching and community support, all stemming from my humble Brooklyn roots.

But that's not all! Tune in for a sneak peek into our exciting summer series spotlighting my students' captivating case studies on real-world hacking incidents. Stay updated with the latest CompTIA certification changes, including the transition from Security Plus 601 to 701 and the revamp of ITF Plus to Tech Plus. Learn about the new Data Plus and Data Sys Plus certifications and my plans to grow my TikTok following for live IT Q&A sessions. With a renewed dedication to regular podcasting post-PhD, I aim to foster a thriving community. Close out the episode with a heartfelt thank you to the incredible contributors like Sarah and Joe Kim, who made this journey possible, and find out how you can connect with me, Dr. J-Rod, for further engagement.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

And and welcome to technology tap. I'm professor jrod. What happened to professor jrod? We'll get into that in a minute. Let's get to it. Hey, and welcome back to Technology Tap, where you guys been. No, just a joke, it's. Where have I been? Well, a lot has happened since. You know, we last talked and the biggest thing that happened is that Professor J-Rod is now Dr J-Rod. You heard that, right, that Professor J-Rod is now Dr J-Rod. You heard that right.

Speaker 1: 1:27

I've been doing this whole time and some of you may or may not have known I've been working on my doctorate and I graduated. I graduated May 15th and I was busy finishing up the dissertation and then I presented and then I had to do revisions. It was an extremely, extremely stressful time in my life. This is one of the hardest things that I've ever done in my life. You know, there was a point in this journey that I almost quit, and it's funny because I always tell my students quitting is the easiest thing in the world to do. Right, quitting is easy, right, you just stop doing. What is it that you're working on? Putting in the work, trying to finish, is the hard part, and I wanted to give up. I really did Just, you know, doing a PhD is not easy. It takes a lot of your life, it takes a lot of your time away and I'm already doing a lot. You know, if you follow me on LinkedIn, you can see all the stuff that I do. And you know, just to, you know, burning myself with this thing, I was, I wasn't, you know, I didn't want to do it. You know I I didn't want. You know, I was just so stressed out. But here I am. You know I finished. I'm Dr Rodriguez. So you know that's that's what's been happening. You know I was busy. I was busy with that. You know, busy with work and stuff. So you know that's that's what's been happening. You know I was busy. I was busy with that. Um, you know, busy with work and stuff. So you know it, it something had to give right. I had to. You know, at one point I had to decide what is it that you want to do? Do you want to finish the podcast? Do you want to? You know I was doing TikTok for a little bit and you know I stopped doing that because I just had to focus my whole time on my dissertation. And you know, let me tell you it was tough and the funny thing is, ironically, I did it on podcasting.

Speaker 1: 3:41

My dissertation is titled Using Podcasting as a Tool in Higher Education. That's my dissertation, that's my thesis that I did it on. You know, this whole thing has been because of this. You know, doing this podcast, you know it has inspired me. I wrote a whole 150-page dissertation on can we use podcasting as a tool in higher education, and I found out that we can During the way, I met a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 4:16

I had to interview people and do surveys and I've learned a lot from other people who are using podcasting as a tool. And this is this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to learn more and I was fortunate enough to interview a couple of people, fabulous people you know, who gave up their time you know, saturday or Sunday or one time at night and let me interview them for this. You know, for my dissertation, which you know, of course, you know that I'm going to pay forward, but you know I learned a lot and hopefully I can you know, hopefully one day become a subject matter expert on podcasting. And you know how do we do it, how do we use it for school. So my next plan is to do. You know how do we do it, how do we use it for school. So my next plan is to do, you know, uh, try to take the, the dissertation and kind of cut it up into different uh journal articles, which is that's my next goal. And, uh, you know, just be, yeah, I want to be on cnn when they talk about podcasting and education. I want to be on c. I want to be the person that they're interviewing Fox News, msnbc. I want to be on the news when they talk about that. Oh, let's talk to Professor Rodriguez. He's a subject matter expert on podcasting. That's my long-term goal with this. I still want to continue doing research. I still have my other research where I do cultural relevant teaching, and I'm actually going to Kansas City in late July, early August, to present at a conference, at the HITECH conference.

Speaker 1: 6:01

You know just, you know spreading, trying to spread my wings, guys. You know just trying to get involved in more and more. You know, trying to help my community, trying to help those who you know are afraid to go to college or don't know how to navigate the system for colleges. You know, I grew up poor in Brooklyn. I grew up poor in Brooklyn. And now, I would have never dreamed I would have a PhD hanging on my wall. I mean, never, never, would have thought of that. I'm so blessed. Of course, my family has a lot to do with it, but my, my, you know the guys who listen to me I could not have done it without you guys, you know, pushing me.

Speaker 1: 6:51

I had one student, I remember he told me at the graduation, because not only did I have my own graduation, I had students' graduation and since I work at different schools, I had kind of several. So that's another reason why I kind of had to put this on pause. You know, one student told me he goes. Oh, professor, I was going to quit, he goes, I was going to quit school and you gave a speech one day. You know, just, you know, I like to do a lot of rah, rah, rah. Right, one of the students called it preaching, that I like to preach. And he said you know, you said that quitting is the easiest thing to do, right, quitting is easy, trying to work through it is the tough part. And he told me you said that, that, and I said to myself I'm not gonna quit, I'm not gonna quit, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay and listen.

Speaker 1: 7:46

I'm not that young, right, I'm. You know, I'm a little older, um, but I got my phd at this age, which I'm not telling you, um, and it's a. It's a hell of a accomplishment, um. Let's see where it goes, right, let's see where this goes. Hopefully it would open up a lot of doors for me and, in turn, open up a lot of doors for me to help people, because, at the end of the day, that's why I'm here, that's why I'm doing, you know, that's why I do the podcasting, that's why I do a lot of stuff. I want to be able to, you know, help people and help my students and anybody who is listening.

Speaker 1: 8:30

So now my question is do I change it to Dr J-Rod or should I leave it, professor J-Rod? Honestly, I'm more inclined to leave it as Professor J-Rod, because I kind of like it, it kind of flows very well, as opposed to Dr J-Rod. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. I mean, I like the Professor J-Rod persona that I have within the last couple of years. So, listen, you tell me, right, should I keep it? Should I change it? You know, email me, professor J-Rod, right, that's J-R-O-D, right, professor J-R-O-D? At gmailcom, and let me know, should I change it to Dr J-Rod or should I leave Professor J-Rod, kind of like Professor J-Rod? You know you guys will still know me as Professor Jayrod. I guess Now I got to do a lot of work to bring you know you guys back.

Speaker 1: 9:31

You know the ones that are still listening. I see a lot of people still hitting my website for the questions that I have. I'm going to get back to that. You know, this summer usually I don't really do a lot of podcasting during the summer. But you know, one of the people who I interviewed gave me an idea that he has his students as their final to convert their project into a podcast and that's their final. So I decided to do that and I got a lot of students who did a lot of excellent work on cases. We did case studies of companies that I got hacked. So I'm thinking like I do like a kind of like a summer series right um of and I'll post my students' episodes that they created right their audio file. I'll clean it up the best I can and, you know, add the intro and the end to it, but I want to see how that works, see if you guys would be interested in hearing about companies that have been hacked, right? So I'm going to start doing it.

Speaker 1: 10:40

You know this, in June and you know this month I got a couple of episodes already that from students that I want to play. You tell me if you like it or not. Right, if you don't like it, then next summer we don't do it, we'll do something else. But I also want to get back to what I regularly do, right? You know there's a lot of things that's been happening since I've been gone.

Speaker 1: 11:00

Comptia has changed Again. Security Plus is almost. It's the 601. It's almost done, right? So those of you who study, I think you got up to the end of July to figure out what you're going to do. If you're going to take the 601 or the 701, you still have a shot take the 601. But don't procrastinate. You know this is is it. It's almost over. And then we have uh, network plus.

Speaker 1: 11:25

They announced that they have a new version of network plus, right? So I gotta do a little research on that. We'll do an episode on that. They change itf those of you who don't know what itf plus is, that's the CompTIA fundamentals. They revamped it. It's now called Tech Plus, which I think is a better name Tech Plus, right? You know, kind of like help desk, and I'll do an episode on that. I took down some notes and I have some stuff that I you know some opinions on on Tech Plus. I think it's better, it flows better. You know they have some new ones, that it's. You know it's been a while since they came out, like Data Plus and Data Sys Plus.

Speaker 1: 12:14

Don't know anything about that. I don't know if I'm interested in that. I don't know if you guys are interested in that. You know you let me know. If you are, we can about it. I just want to get back to our core. You know taking a topic and exploring it and then doing the questions right, and then on TikTok, I'll get back on TikTok.

Speaker 1: 12:34

I was at, you know, professor J Rod on TikTok and I was going in there and you know, doing rapid fire, three questions a day I think I was doing and that was working out well. But I needed to get 1,000 to go live and it's really hard to get 1,000 people to like to follow you. You got to get 1,000 followers. Some people get 1,000 followers. You know they trip down, you know they slip on ice. To get a thousand followers. You know I'm working my, you know, doing these questions and answers, and it's hard for me to get, you know, a thousand, a thousand users. So, once I get a thousand followers because the whole thing is that I can go live Right and if you're having a particular problem with a particular topic, maybe I can go over it during the live right you tell me, oh, I'm, I'm having a problem understanding subnetting, right, then we could do a whole thing on subnetting. Or I'm having a problem, you know, talking about risk, and then you know we can go over and I can give you examples and stuff and you know, and help you. Uh, again, that's that's my, that's my whole goal, but I need 1,000 followers, guys. So, if you're on TikTok, look me up, professor J-Rod, and start following me, and I need to tighten up my stuff. Again, I've been all over the place, but I have a valid excuse. Right, I got my PhD, so you know.

Speaker 1: 14:06

But now that that journey is over, I want to be able to get back to this and again grow this community. Like I've always told you guys, I want to grow it, make it better. You know, I kind of see if I can get my. You know, you guys involved, my students involved, more. This is something. This is my passion project, right? This is something that you know that I really want to do.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I'm not making any money off of it. I'm actually, you know, spending money. You know doing all this paying for this stuff, so it's fine money. You know doing all this paying for this stuff, so it's fine, I don't mind. But I just, you know, if you can get you know, follow me on TikTok, get your, you know, your friends, your family, just to you know, you don't have to watch my videos, but just follow me, right, and then, you know, we'll see where we can go from there. So'll do that. So what I'll do is I'll do the ITF podcast and then I'll throw in a student podcast, and then maybe I'll do Network Plus and then maybe I'll do questions and then I'll throw another student podcast in there for the summer and then, when we come back in the fall, we'll start with the answers. It's tough getting people to take exams during the summer and then, when we come back in the fall, you know, we'll start with the answers. It's tough getting people to take exams during the summer, but it could be done. You know, this week it's been a really good week for me professionally. I got five students to pass their Security Plus exam this week.

Speaker 1: 15:39

The key thing that I believe in the CompTIA stuff that would help you and this has been proven by many people who have worked with me on these CompTIAs is you have to have a study group. You have to have somebody who's pushing you and kind of holding you accountable for the stuff that you don't do or procrastinating it. So these people, they work together and they studied and they all passed five Well, four. One girl she did it on her own because she already had taken the course and she had all the material and a lot of the time. One of the big reasons why they did it is because I was able to get them certifications and those certifications were expiring. They had to take it by Friday, if not it was going to expire. So they took it.

Speaker 1: 16:36

I think we need more of that. We need more of hey, I'm going to push you to take it because if not, you know it's not going to work right. We need sometimes to push people because they always say like, oh, I'm not 100% ready. Sometimes you don't need to be 100% right. A plus you only need to be 72% ready, right, if you, you know 75% ready. If you are 75% ready, then you take the exam. You're probably going to pass. You don't need to be 100% ready because guess what guys? You might never get there, you might never feel like you're 100% ready. That's the sad part, right, you know?

Speaker 1: 17:21

The other thing we talked about this is the big barrier is the money for it. I think what happens is people are afraid to take the exam because if they fail, right, they got to pay for another exam. And people don't have. You know, people struggle. You know struggle is real.

Speaker 1: 17:43

I have these amazing students. You know that they were studying together and they were amazing and I kept telling them hey, you ladies are ready. They were ladies and I was telling them ladies, you're ready, take the exam, don't wait, don't wait. And to this day I don't and this is in December, when I last spoke to them. I don't think any of them have taken the class. I just feel that it's.

Speaker 1: 18:15

You know, the money for the exam is a barrier for a lot of people. So that is something that I need to figure out. What am I going to do? Because that's what's holding a lot of people back is the ability to pay for the certifications, because they worry that, hey, if I pay for this and I fail, I got to pay for it again. So now that we should be giving out, you know, vouchers, right, but if you're ready, and if you prove to me that you're ready, why can't I give you your voucher? So you know, I'm just a little man sitting here in my living room doing this thing, doing this thing, but hopefully somebody there out there hears me and you know, you know somebody who has a foundation or something and wants to, you know, donate some money, for we can get all these students you know who want to get certified but cannot afford it, because that's a shame, that's a shame anyway. So, yeah, so I'm back and we're gonna get this right, we're gonna get this back on track and hopefully you know more, a little bit more consistent. Alright, that's gonna put a ball on this one. Thank you everybody for listening and remember, keep listening, because I got a lot of stuff coming up. All right, guys, until next time.

Speaker 1: 20:16

This has been a Little Cha-Cha Productions. Art by Sarah, music by Joe Kim. If you want to get in contact with me. You can email me at professorjrod that's J-R-O-D at gmailcom.