Join Me at PodCampAZ Nov. 1st & 2nd

I can still remember last year when I first heard about PodCampAZ. I was so excited only to discover that I had missed it. I was so bummed. But I’m not going to miss it this year, and I’m not going to let you miss it either. So mark your calendars for November 1st and 2nd at UAT in Tempe. VIEW MAP

This year is sure to be another successful podcamp. People still talk about it being one of, if not, the best one. So what is it anyway? Well, it’s not all about podcasting, as the web concedes, but if that is your interest, you’re sure to find plenty of podcasters abound.

PodCamp is a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and anyone interested in New Media. It was held for the first time from September 8-10 in Boston, Massachusetts and is now spreading across the world. (PodCampAZ.com)

Yes, it says free, and it is unlike any conference you may have attended before. That’s why you just have to come out and experience it.

Shelley Rodrigo and I, along with ASU professor, Time Barrow, will be presenting on the use of Web 2.0 tools in education. There are many exciting presenters, so you’re sure to find something of interest to you. Take a look at the line up: Look Who Is Speaking At PodCamp AZ and I’ll see you on November 1st and/or 2nd at PodCampAZ.

PodCampAZ Promo

Drop.io as a Podcasting Tool?

Probably not, but it is a cool idea, and it could be used for a short podcasting messaging system for a class. Drop.io advertises itself as simple private exchange.

Drop.io enables you to create simple private exchange points called “drops.” The service has no email signup and no “accounts.” Each drop is private, and only as accessible as you choose to deliberately make it. Create multiple drops, add any type of media, and share or subscribe as you want.

And I would have to agree. The site is very clean and simple, so much in fact, that I didn’t really understand how I could use the site until I actually played with it. Drop.io allows for you to make drops.

A drop is a ‘discrete’ chunk of space you can use to store and share anything (pictures, video, audio, docs, etc) privately, without accounts, personal registration, or email addresses.

The first thing that caught my attention was the “no personal registration, or email addresses.” I’m not so concerned about myself signing up for yet another Web 2.0 site on the web, but more so that if I had my students use it they wouldn’t have to sign up or register for anything.

Now how does this relate to podcasting? A drop can be audio, and with the subscription capabilities, you can easily create a podcast. But with only 100mb of space, these podcasts would have to be short. There is an option to upgrade for $10 to get 1gb of space. Most drops are meant to be temporary, lasting 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year. You get to choose the length of time your drop will last.

With these constraints, I’m thinking drop.io could only be useful as a podcasting tool if you need a place to leave short class update podcasts for students. Here’s the scenario: You teach a class that has an online component, a CMS or blog, where students frequently visit to get information about the course. Usually you post announcements or blog posts for students. With Drop.io you could call a special number assigned to your drop and leave a voice comment for students. Once you hang up the mp3 file appears on the drop page. Because your drop is subscription capable you can feed that to your CMS or blog. Also students can sign up for email updates or subscribe using their own aggregator.

And if you find a need to add a file, photo, video or a link, you can do that as well. Here’s a snapshot of my drop.

If you’re worried about privacy, drop.io has that covered as well. You can password protect any drop, so visitors would need the password to see the content. I’ll post more about drop.io’s features unrelated to podcasting on my sister blog: The Maricopa Experience, where I blog about teaching with technology.

Another Great Podcasting Resource

When I was in San Antonio, TX a few weeks ago for the ELI Annual Meeting, we had a very enthusiastic participant in our audience during our presentation: Your 2.0 Life: Models and Methods to Meet Learners’ Needs in a Technological Age (Innovative Practice). I was discussing how students in an online course commented that podcasting was one of the things that was helping them to learn in the course. You can see our slides here: http://drcoop.pbwiki.com/ELI2008.

We ended up having a brief discussion about podcasting, and afterwards Brian Yuhnke from Denver shared with me his podcasting website: Podcast FAQ.

“PodcastFAQ.com [is] a website committed to providing everything you need to know about podcasting. This site aims to contain the most up-to-date information for podcast creators, consumers and businesses. The content on podcastFAQ.com is intended to be easy to find, to the point, and without clutter.”

I would agree; the site is very well organized and easy to view, and there is plenty of good information for those interesting in podcasting to help them get started. You won’t find any step by step instructions on how to podcast, but you will find “everything about podcasting.” Stop by and take a look. Tell Brian I sent you.

Created a Slidecast of Podcasting Presentation

I presented the first of four podcasting presentation today at GateWay Community College. Today’s presentation was an informational session/discussion about the theory and practice of podcasting in education. I shared the information I have presented on the wiki and lead a brief discussion. Hopefully, participants left with a better understanding of what podcasting is, how it can be and is used in education, and what are the implications for teaching and learning. If you would like to view a shortened version of the presentation, click the play button below.

This Slidecast was created on Slideshare.net, and it was made by mashing up my podcast with my Keynote slides. I had to export from Keynote to pdf in order to upload the slides to Slideshare. I tried using a PowerPoint file at first, but the export messed up the slides, so I went with pdf. I’m happy with the results.

Embedding Audio in Your CMS or Website

Most faculty don’t really consider how their podcasts are received by students. I’m not talking about whether students like the podcast or not. I’m talking about the process a student goes through to listen to the podcast. Does she have to subscribe to the podcast to listen to them? Does she have to download a file and open it in a media player? There are many different scenarios for listening to a podcast. My philosophy is make it as easy as possible, especially if it’s students you want to listen.

iTunes U and RSS feeds from a blog are great for podcasting, but I’m finding it difficult to explain to students the power of RSS and subscribing to content so it shows up automatically in their media player. They are all over the place in terms of what media player they use, if they use it on a regular basis, or whether or not they even have speakers or headphones for their computers. To solve the problem, I just require a cheap pair of headphones and embed the audio podcast in the places I know they will visit daily: Course blog and Blackboard, the course management system.

A while back I used to use Odeo Sudio for my podcasting needs. I could upload my audio files and embed their nice flash players into the places that students would visit. Something happened along the way, and Odeo is not as reliable any longer, so I needed a substitute. Luckily a great article on Digital Inspiration appeared to save the day.

Amit posted a great article: “How to Embed MP3 Audio Files In Web Pages With Google or Yahoo! Flash Player” that had some great ideas about embedding audio that I never considered. If you just put a link to the audio on your webpage, a whole new window opens up and you will need Quicktime to listen to the file. With Amit’s tip, I can embed the player right in the page and the student never leaves the page. He can look around and read other content as he listens.

This is a great solution and the embedded players look great on my course blog and in Blackboard. My favorite is the Google player because there are no ads or branding. Read the article and give it try.

Podcasting Series: Spring 2008

I’m doing the podcasting series again this semester. If you haven’t signed up for 1 or all 4, do so right away. They are filling up:

Getting Started with Podcasting

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 Click to Register
GateWay Community College, Room MA2128, 1:30 – 3:00 PM

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 Click to Register
Estrella Mountain Community College, Center for Teaching and Learning, North (CTL NORTH) 1:00 – 2:30 PM

FPG: 1.5 hours
Prerequisite: None
About: This session will be an informational session/discussion about the theory and practice of podcasting in education. Participants will leave with an understanding of what podcasting is, how it can be and is used in education, what resources are available to aide in creating and subscribing to podcasts, and copyright issues relating to podcasting.

Creating Audio for Podcasts using Audacity

Monday, February 25, 2008 Click to Register
GateWay Community College, Room MA2128, 1:30 – 3:30 PM

Thursday, February 28, 2008 Click to Register
Estrella Mountain Community College, Center for Teaching and Learning North (CTL NORTH), 1:30 – 3:30 PM

FPG: 2 hours
Prerequisite: None
About: In this hand-on session, participants will learn how to create audio using Audacity, and other online tools like Odeo. Participants will learn tips for creating the best quality audio, choosing the best optimal equipment (mics, recorders), and converting audio to optimal file size.

Making a Podcast

Wednesday, March 5, 2008 Click to Register
Phoenix College, Coronado Room (lower level of the library), 1:30 – 3:30 PM

Monday, March 17, 2008 Click to Register
Mesa Community College, Room Center for Teaching and Learning Workshop Room, 1:30 – 3:30 PM

FPG: 2 hours
Prerequisite: Creating Audio for Podcasts using Audacity (PC) and GarageBand (Mac)
About: In this hands-on session, participants will learn to develop a podcast, upload it to a server, and set up a blog and feedburner. This event will also include podcasting teaching and learning applications, podcasting resources and readings, and a review of copyright issues in podcasting.

iTunes U, Copyright for Podcasting

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Click to Register
Phoenix College, Coronado Room (lower level of the library), 2:00 – 3:30 PM

Monday March 24, 2008 Click to Register
Mesa Community College, Center for Teaching and Learning Workshop Room, 2:00-3:30 PM

FPG: 1.5 hours
Prerequisite: None
About: In this hand-on session, participants will receive an overview of iTunes U at MCCCD, an in-depth review of copyright best practices in podcasting, and a demonstration of Blackboard Wimba’s podcasting tool. This event will also include podcasting teaching and learning applications and podcasting resources and readings.

For more information, contact Veronica Diaz, PhD at MCLI: 480.731.8300.

Use a Teleprompter When Creating Your Podcast

I’m using more “studio” created podcasts these days, replacing the long, boring class recording I was making my hybrid and online students listen to. I’m finding that students are liking these better because they are short and to the point, cutting out all the chatter and adding things that go on in a lecture. I can usually create a 15-20 podcasts out of what I lectured on in class. But doing it outside of class creates a more polished and focused result.

I don’t have a real studio, unless you can call my bathroom a studio, and I’m not using any expensive equipment other than my Macbook Pro and a Logitech USB headset. And now I’m adding a new tool. The CuePrompter.com – Online Teleprompter

CuePrompter is a free teleprompter/autocue service. Your browser works like a teleprompter -no extra software needed.

I was surprised by how well the CuePrompter worked. I felt like a true newscaster. This works best with video podcasts, but I’ve used it with recording just audio too. I like how the words are big and can scroll by themselves. Then I don’t have to fumble around with doing my own scrolling or handling a paper script which can be noisy. You can also change the speed from 1 to 9. Nine was really fast. I can’t imagine trying to read that and sound normal, but 3 worked great for my needs.

Using the CuePrompter or any teleprompter requires that you write out a script. I do this probably 50% of the time. These podcasts are always better than the one created without a script.

Updates Coming Soon

I’ve been on a podcasting posting hiatus, but I will return to blogging about podcasting this week. Yay!  I already have lots of good stuff to share, so stay tuned.

Stop Reading, Start Listening with Bluegrind

I was reading a great blog post, Podcasting Toolbox: 70+ Podcasting Tools and Resources, on the Mashable Social Networking News blog earlier when I came across an interesting website that converts written text from blogs into audio for easy listening. I’ve written about text to speech in the past on this blog, and I was just looking for a few more resources to add.

The Podcasting Toolbox blog posts offers up a few options in this area to explore:

• BlueGrind – Converts text (especially blogs) into podcasts.
• Feed2Podcast – Convert any RSS feed into a podcast.
• Talkr – Convert blogs to audio podcasts.
• Odiogo – convert RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts to podcasts.

I’ve tried and currently use Feed2Podcast. You can read my post HERE, but I thought it might be fun to see what else is out there in this area.

Bluegrind boasts:

If you like reading the news, you will love “hearing the news”. With BlueGrind.com, you can have your personal news anchor reading the news to you every day. It doesn’t just stop at your computer, you can take it with you wherever you go. Long wait at the airport? No problem, you can download enough for hours and hours of News and Blogs that you can listen to.

I can’t say the Bluegrind was easy to figure out at first. I had to sign up before I could discover what it actually does. Within a few minutes I had added two of my blogs. I just added the URL of the blogs to my blog list. Bluegrind then gets the posts from the blog and creates audio – automatically.  And it was quick. It displays all of your posts with media players on the bottom, so you can either read or listen. It looks nice, but the most amazing part is the voice is quite good. It’s almost realistic. I could listen to it for a while if I had to. This is one up on the Feed2podcast service.

They make it easy to download the audio to take on the go. All you have to do is click the “Add to List” button on the side of each blog post and the audio gets added to a download file:

The Download File will include all the Articles you have selected to Add.  Each article will be downloaded as separate MP3 files, which will give you the ability to play in an Audio player, and/or burn them on a CD.

I’m not sure if my blog page is viewable to the public. Guess we’ll find out: http://www.bluegrind.com/feed.html?feed_id=38

You can offer up this wonderful text to speech service to your visitors on your own blog by adding a snippet of code to your blog index template file. Sounds complicated, and it actually was with this Blogger blog. I just couldn’t figure it out. It kept telling me my code was incorrect. I was successful on my first try with the WordPress blog I tried. The code embeds a media player with the audio on each blog post, right on your blog. You can see what I mean here: Freshman Comp II Online. I’m thinking it’s a little overkill for audio on that blog, but it might work nicely for a blog that doesn’t already offer podcasts, like this one. Too bad I can’t get it to work.

I tried subscribing to the blog in iTunes after I set up Bluegrind on it, but it doesn’t pick up the audio as a podcast. It only gathered the podcast audio that I placed in each post. This is probably the case because Bluegrind doesn’t post the actual mp3 file on your site; I believe they stream it from their server. Podcatchers only catch the audio that is actually on the site.

So I’m not finished playing with this new tool, but I think it really has potential. I’m off to see if I can change voices. Enjoy.

Podcast in Under an Hour

I did a presentation at today’s Maricopa 20th Annual Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference which took place from 8:30am – 3:00pm at Paradise Valley Community College. You can find the latest update on this event at: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/events/tltconf07

My session ran from 11:30 to 12:20, which is short, only 50 minutes. What’s a girl to do in only 50 minutes?

Session 4: Getting Started with Podcasting Presented by Alisa Cooper (South Mountain Community College)

This workshop will be hands on with faculty leaving with a short published podcast. Participants will record a short audio clip using audacity, which will then be exported to mp3, uploaded to a server, and turned into a podcast by creating a post on a group blog. We will also learn how to subscribe to that podcast. Participants can later duplicate the process using their own resources.

So it looks a little ambitious if you’re thinking traditional podcasting, but of course I’m not thinking traditional. I’m thinking in terms of students, and how I would possibly use podcasting in a class with students. I want to make it as simple and as quick as possible. So here’s the plan. I have many blogs that I use to communicate with students throughout the semester. I encourage students to subscribe to the blog so they can get email updates to keep them involved in the course. So I’ve set up a Blogger blog to use with this presentation. Blogger is good because they have the RSS feeds already built in; most blogs do actually. But I like Blogger for other reasons.

With Blogger I can invite up to 50 users to be guest bloggers on my blog, allowing for these “guest” to post to the blog. If I were planning to do this more than once, I’d go that route with students, but this is a one time only post, so I’m going to set up posting via email. Blogger provides each blog with a unique email address for this purpose. I will distribute the post email address to everyone in the class so they can post their podcasts URL’s as posts, thus creating a subscribable podcast.

So the theme is Paper or Plastic? Participants will record a short (2 minutes or less) statement where they voice their position on the issue. To help facilitate the recording process, I’ve created a script for participants to follow as they record. Then using Audacity they can then do minor edits and export as mp3. (forgive my shift in tense- started this post pre presentation).

All went well with the plan. Participants then exported their WAV files as Mp3s and saved them to the desktop. I then set it up so they could all upload the file to my wiki server space. This was the easiest method since wikis allow for many people to log in and edit pages. Participants logged in and uploaded their files. It was easy. Then with the copied URL of the uploaded file, we emailed our posts to the Blogger blog using the supplied email addressed. It worked like a charm.

Next I showed them how to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Two clicks and we had all the files dowloaded into iTunes. For a better explanation of this presentation, visit the wiki: http://drcoop.pbwiki.com/PodcastUnderHour

Address to the make shift blog: http://sporty40.blogspot.com/  Go listen to the podcasts and see if you should ask for paper or plastic bags when you go to the grocery store.