I have a new podcast up over at Teachers 2.0. You might want to check it out if you’re a Teachers 2.0 follower OR happen to like things like Second Life or World of Warcraft.
To be honest, I was inspired to record this (or at least the third part of the podcast) after finding out that there’s more than one DEN member that plays Warcraft. We have edu-groups on Facebook, Second Life, and almost everywhere else, so why not Warcraft? (Or any other online environment you happen to like.)
I promised to have this uploaded before I crashed for the night – looks like I got to keep my promise.
This is the audio from my presentation at this year’s MICCA conference. Forgive me if I keep things brief as I’m quite wiped by the experience of these past two days.
Yes, I really do mention David Warlick that often. It’s only because he does so much to help educators.
As I explain in the intro, I was able to use Audacity to remove the background noise but not the slight echo. It annoyed me at first but I got used to it … I think.
I may be wrong about the new version of Audacity having LAME built in, but like I say in the podcast I do prefer iTunes for encoding my mp3 files.
I also over planned, and had very little time to do practical demonstrations. Perhaps next time I’ll focus on one tool? We’ll see.
Last seesion of the day, and I’m in the one for cheapskates people who like free software. Not just free, but created by everyone for everyone. Yeah, saving money is a big plus, but in many cases open source software has better features and fewer bugs. Everybody wins … unless you sell software rather than services.
He’s going over the history of open source, starting with IBM. Some of this I knew, most of it I didn’t.
Just took the presenter’s (Matt Burkhardt‘s) picture, and got a nice reaction from him in the process.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, his presentation was created in OpenOffice using a computer runningLinux. Sweet.
Still going through the history lessons, but now we’re getting to things I remember, rather than having just learne about. Ah, nostalgia.
Linked in uses software from the 80s.
Roundabout story that lead to a tale of “crowdsourcing,” or having many people help a little bit to achieve an amazing goal.
More and more stories … hoping for some software choices soon.
Ask and ye shall receive. Mozilla… Red Hat… MySQL… Trolltech… and more. Now he’s going through project names quite fast. This is a broad overview.
My presentation went very well – perhaps too well, since I kept answering questions and helping people out until the session after mine was over – along with half of lunch. As I said before, that’s not exactly a complaint. I’m happy to help.
I was a few minutes late coming to Will Richardson‘s last session of the day, which I’ve (sort of) seen before. I say “sort of” because like any good presenter he revises his presentations to keep them current. Last year, Ustream.tv didn’t exist – or at least most people hadn’t heard of it. His wiki handout, the same address as last year, has likewise been updated.
Now discussing screencasts. There are a few free ways to do that, including Jing. Jing is very easy to use, but saves everything in a format that I’ve yet to figure out how to edit. People have suggested using Zamzar.com, but not even tat wonder of file conversion can help me.
Went to his Ustream chat room to ask for links to resources. Very cool.
(Went up t osay “hi” afterwards, and once again Mr. Richardson recognized me. My ego knows no bounds.)
When I saw that FableVision was the keynote for today, I admit I was a little worried – but only as much as I’m always worried when I see a presentation by someone running a commercial business. I suppose the idea that a company involved in education is more interested in the business than the education runs deep in me. Goodness knows, I’ve had my share of bad experiences in this area…
But every now and then, I find a glaring exception. The DEN, usually, is one. FableVision is another. We’re a good way into their presentation so far and they’ve barely even mentioned a product that they sell. (I think I caught a few references, but they weren’t shameless plugs like I make.) Rather, they’re talking about using a child’s interests to help them get excited about learning. It started with a story about the twin brother of one of the founders getting in trouble in math class because he was drawing in class.
As you might imagine, I loved the story.
Raffle time. Think I’ll end this post here and stop by their booth later.
Now, they’re talking about games in education. Not much research supporting their importance, but a lot of anecdotal stories and Maryland is apparently at the forefront of the research supporting the idea of good games getting kids into learning.
Ok, now they’re talking about a product, although it’s not being released yet. I think they spent enough time making the case for keeping the students’ interest to spend some time talking about their bread-and-butter. (But that’s just my opinion.)
Labyrinth is a math game (mostly) for middle school students that uses a lot of comic book style storytelling to get the kids interested. It’s being privately beta tested at the moment, but the ThinkPort.org booth in the hallway was offering a way to sign up for a chance to try it out.
There are no instructions, leaving the kids to figure out the mechanics. Makes me think of MYST, a game series that sucked away countless hours of my life in college.
There’s even a way for students to communicate with each other using the “Tasty Pet Communicator ” (the name fits the plot, trust me), although according to the ThinkPort booth there are enough admin rights for teachers to make that communication safe.
“The people who learn the most from educational software are the people who make educational software.” He told us that quote was a secret. Gee, I hope no one blogs it…
That was a segway to talking about Scratch and other programs that help students make their own games – products that FableVision doesn’t make. Encouraging students to compete against them in game development, or trying to encourage students to become future FableVision employees? You decide.
Forgive me if this reads like I’m just a bit distracted – I’m writing this during the awards presentations that are preceding today’s keynote. It’s hard for me to do 3 things at once sometimes.
I didn’t blog from any sessions yesterday, as I spent the entire time showing people just how easy podcasting can be at the podcasting booth. As such, I missed all of yesterday’s sessions.
Don’t take this as a complaint, however. I would have loved to see all the cool things that were going on, but I also loved talking with the many cool people who stopped by to learn about a topic which I’m truly passionate about. I remembered several of them from last year, and was pleased to find that they remembered me, as well.
Granted, my extroverted nature makes me stand out in a crowd. Oh, well.
My goal was twofold – first, I wanted to show as many people I could that podcasting was not as scary or difficult that some people seem to think (including that darn “but don’t I need an iPod?” question). The other goal was to get as many people as possible to call in to the Gcast account I set up for MICCA and let us know what they thought of the conference or podcasting in general.
That 2nd part was … not as successful as I would have liked. At least I can promote it again during my presentation today.
Kathy Schrock is today’s keynote speaker. Naturally, her handout is all online. As such, I’m not going to blog too much about it – She does a much better job than I do.
Multi User Virtual Environment – the great-great-grandchild of the old Multi User Dungeons (or MUDs) that I used to play in college.
“We never say ‘fun,’ we always say ‘engaging.'”
Tapped In
Elluminate
“Second life: It’s like The Sims but not a game.”
A lot of info on 2nd life. I’ve podcasted my opinion on SL before, and my opinion hasn’t really changed. It’s nice, but I can think of other educational online environments that use less bandwidth and do the same thing.
I’m sitting here at my Podcasting Booth, which is unfortunately right next to the conference bookstore. I say “unfortunately” because, as a bookworm, I’ve already found two that I will be buying as soon as they officially open. It’s like those books held a vaccum cleaner up to my wallet and sucked the money right out!
… I have no willpower at all.
Here’s my assessment of what’s going on so far.
+Only took 7 minutes to realize that the horrible beeping noise I was hearing at 4AM this morning was my alarm going off. That’s not much earlier than my usual wake-up time, but it usually takes longer for me to get out of my more primitive “ART GUY SMASH SNOOZE BUTTON!” stage of regaining consciousness.
+Found a good parking spot in a garage right next to the conference hall.
-After trying two other parking lots.
-And it’ll cost almost $30. Ouch.
-When I got here Registration had no list with my name on it.
-Nor did they know where the podcasting booth was.
+A few minutes later they got their computers up and were able to answer both questions.
This time around I might sound a little different – that’s because I’m using my Creative Zen again, rather than GarageBand. I figured since I would be demonstrating it tomorrow I should get back into he process of actually using it.
I was a bit hesitant when I got an email from the publisher asking if I wanted to give these books away at my presentation, mostly because I’d like to think I have some level of integrity and I don’t want to look like I’m stooping low to hawk anything that comes by.
When the books showed up, I opened up the first one to give it a read-through. I have to say, the only thing I didn’t like about them was the fact that they have those plastic ring bindings. Other than that, I’d say they answer 90% of the questions I get asked about podcasting. I wouldn’t recommend the Podcasting in the Classroom book to someone who’s been podcasting for a year or more, but if you’re just getting started I’d say it’s definitely worth it to have one of these.
As for the activities book … I didn’t read that one, mostly because I was unsure if I should take the shrink wrap off of it or not. These are door prizes for people who will be attending my session, after all.
As I write this, my wife and I are listening to one of the 80 unplayed podcasts on my computer, while even now iTunes is downloading more. This is after I’ve gone through and unsubscribed to many podcasts, some of which I miss already, complete with twinges of guilt. The “fat,” so to speak, has been “trimmed.”
I would feel like I’m treading water here, but with over a day’s worth of audio (not even counting the video, mind you…), It’s more like I’m in way over my head.
[Insert a few paragraphs where I whine a bit more, here. I wrote them, then deleted them in a moment of temporary sanity.]
As I see it there are three reasons why I have this problem:
Some people are releasing daily content and others seem to have turned podcasting into a full time job. And alas, practice makes perfect. The daily episodes I listen to are very, very good.
Believe it or not, I have a life outside of the edu-blogo-podcasto-sphere. I know, I know, even I find that comment to be suspicious. But still, not every activity allows me to listen to podcasts while I’m doing it. Teaching, reading, and sleeping are among these activities. (And I’m too old to cut back any more on my sleep.)
We moved back in August, cutting over 15 minutes off of my commute. That half an hour (counting the round trip) of prime podcast listening time every school day adds up pretty fast.
I’m not the only one who’s had this problem, either. Steve Dembo and Doug Belshaw went so far as to wipe their RSS feeds clean and start over. I don’t think I’m ready to go that far, as I’m too attached to the ones to which I’m still subscribed. (Note: My Bloglines.com account has zero unread blog posts, and no, I didn’t just click “Mark All Read.”)
I’m sure there’s a solution to this, but I’m not going to come up with it this late on a school night. I guess I’ll sleep on it.
As I write this, my wife and I are listening to one of the 80 unplayed podcasts on my computer, while even now iTunes is downloading more. This is after I’ve gone through and unsubscribed to many podcasts, some of which I miss already, complete with twinges of guilt. The “fat,” so to speak, has been “trimmed.”