I’m thinking of opening I’ve opened up a CafePress account and started putting some Blog / Podcast / Geek / Teacher / Artist / etc. designs up there. Everything’s being sold “at cost,” so CafePress makes a profit but I don’t. Why? because I’m not that interested in making money here. I just want to get these designs out.
In any case, I’m trying to think of some good slogans. So far, I have:
I’ll be posting pictures to Flickr as well. If anyone wants to make their own shirt with my design or wants me to design something with a slogan of their own invention, let me know.
A Basement of Broken Dreams – An album by John Holowach, hosted on archive.org. I used his song called My Piano Sings (Part 3).
BlogMeister – a blogging engine for teachers and students created by David Warlick. I highly recommend that you also check out his other sites, including his blog and his podcasts.
Those of us who listen to podcasts already know how to get them, listen to them, and in most cases record them. Something I’ve noticed when looking around is that there’s very little documentation on podcasting that will make sense to people who go into it knowing absolutely nothing about it. What we need if we truly want to podvangelize is something like “Podcasting for Dummies” that will explain the basics without going over the heads of the more technologically impaired educators.Now I know many of us do Podcasting 101 in-services / lectures / etc. and even record them and put them online, but that still hits only two demographics: a) the people in the room with you and b) people who are already knowledgeable enough to download your podcast on podcasting. Everything else I’ve seen so far was written for us, not the people figuring out podcasting for the first time.
What I suggest is that those of us who are doing our best to explain podcasting put our knowledge in a medium that will reach the people who need it. (If it’s in print form on paper or on a web site it’s easier to distribute, right?) I made a mediocre attempt on Friday with my “Missing the Conference? Not a Problem!” post, but I’ve a feeling that others could do a much better job than I did.
The following article is for the benefit of people who’ve yet to get their feet wet in the wonderful world of podcasts. If you’re already very familiar with the subject, then it is my recommendation that you share this article or one like it with someone who you think would like listening to podcasts – if only they knew what they were. I’m not going into great depth here, but that should keep people’s eyes from glazing over. I’ve written this out to be printer friendly, so if you’re the type who likes to help anonymously you could always print it out and leave it strategically in the teacher’s lounge.
Due to a misunderstanding I recently missed out on attending this year’s
MICCA conference (online at http://www.miccaonline.org/). I would have
liked to go, but I’m not as upset about it as I thought I would be.Why? Because thanks to the internet I can have guest speakers (and even
whole conferences) come to me!Now I know that when most people think of the World Wide Web they think of text and pictures, with the occasional animation available. That’s mainly holdover from the days when our 28.8k modems couldn’t handle more than that, but now even for those of us using 56k modems (let alone broadband) there are many more resources
out there. You see, there are many people out there who will record lectures, ideas, ponderings, and the like as audio files and place them online. Others can then download these lectures (referred to as “podcasts,” although the term is a bit of a misnomer) and *poof!* – instant conference session.
These lectures can be on just about any topic, including but not limited to history (http://www.summahistorica.com/, literacy and technology (http://www.davidwarlick.com/podcasts/), and even school psychology (http://4.22.114.59/schoolpsy2/)! Occasionally an aspiring teacher will record several sessions (with permission, of course) at an actual conference and put them online for your listening pleasure.
Nothing tickle your fancy so far? Well there are many more where those came from.
When I’m looking for new sites with recorded lectures I usually head over
to a site called Podcast Alley (http://www.podcastalley.com/) and browse through the
Education genre. At the time I’m writing this there are 80 different sites registered in that category alone.
If you try these files out and you find that you like some of them there are even ways to automate downloading new files to your computer or MP3 player. However that gets a little more complicated so when you’re ready for that you can ask the
person who pointed you here for help or email me at TheArtGuy [at] gmail.com.
A Basement of Broken Dreams – An album by John Holowach, hosted on archive.org. I used his song called My Piano Sings (Part 3).
Using email to achieve a paperless system only works if your emails aren’t blocked by another teacher’s spam filter.
When podvangelizing, it’s best to break it down and keep it simple. (Does that mean you share Kool-Aid that’s been watered down?) Also, you can leave printouts from various podvangelizing websites in strategic locations (like the teacher’s lounge).
On a spur of the moment I decided to make some podvangelism banners. Feel free to move these to your own server and use them.
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David Warlick – This wonder of the educational corner of the internet has many pages, including his blog and his podcasts.
Teach42.com: The web site of Steve Dembo – the man, the myth, and my inspiration for podcasting.
Ok, I’ve been looking at various blog engines I can use with my Art Club next year and so far I’m not happy with any of them. You see I want to have students from grades 3 thru 6 blogging about the artworks they’re working on, but since they’re so young I want to have some administrative control over what the students put on their accounts.
I’ve had a few people suggest software solutions, but I’m looking for an existing
blog service. David Warlick’s got a nice one called Blogmeister, but it’s having server problems at the moment so I’m looking for alternatives. If you’ve seen a blog service that you think might suit my needs, by all means please leave me a comment.
UPDATE:
I’ve got a Blogmeister account set up and ready to go. I almost can’t wait until next school year to get started! Yes I know that’s a template and I don’t think they’re editable, but the templates still look nice and the back end stuff so far seems to be very, very sweet.
A Basement of Broken Dreams – An album by John Holowach, hosted on archive.org. I used his song called My Piano Sings (Part 3).
Having teachers email me their paperwork works nicer than having them hand me paper, and I get the same participation rate.
When installing RAM, make sure you do it right the first time. Also, when you don’t have a deadline and a project begins to annoy you, just walk away for a while.
Intaglio and Mezzotint Etchings – The website of a Resident Printmaker and instructor at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center in Laurel, Maryland.
This episode, expect to hear me talking about teachers helping students with their artwork and my “Do it first, then learn about it” philosophy that I sometimes use.
Shownote Links:
Silly Grin – A song by Kelley Vice, hosted on archive.org
Creative Commons – Share your stuff while still reserving some of your rights. (You pick which ones.)
