I might have presented a shorter presentation. My timing was not on cue at today’s Podcasting, Schmodcasting demo at GateWay Community College, but we had a full room, folks were wide-eyed, and asking questions. Or they are just nice people.
During the session, I had the iRiver running, so have made a huge, “umm”-filled recording (27 Mb 14.9 Mb, Stephen Downes challenged me to trim the file) available at:
http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/dl/podcast-gatewaycc-060227.mp3.
To demo the use of small pieces, I blog about this recording (and the shorter live recording demo) in my CogDogBlogLab (Blogger) which I have connected to FeedBurner for auto generating the podcast:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cogdogbloglab
Woah, is this all nested!
In addition, I did a brief demo of recording with the iRiver (I have a second unit, which is useful). Unfortunately, I did not get deep into the demos on using Odeo (though I did play Gardner’s recorded greeting, thanks for calling in!).
I’ll need a bit of time for some more post-demo recap, but its dinner time and this dog wants to go home. This was fun, energetic, but before the next round on Wednesday, I need to trim some of the up front content demos. It’s hard to do!
Update (hours later):
I was hoping in this demo to provide an idea of the variety of media and forms available via podcasts (besides “lectures”). There was strong interest in the room, but a fair amount of uncertainty as to how to use this technology. My plan was to plant some seeds, perhaps disruptive ones. There also seems (and others can confirm/dhoot down) to be a quick move from “I heard about podcasts” to “I want to Record Podcasts” — missing completely a relevant middle ground of first surveying the exploding number of podcast sources, and perhaps start by building some activities that are built around the use of existing content.
There is also the recognition that this is the technology of comfort to young people and of discomfort to the generation in the room. This was confirmed as I walked out of the front of the main college building, and passed in the lobby at least 8 students, 7 of whom were engaged/connected to a cell phone, audio device, and even one young man with a cell phone in one hand and a tiny DV camera in another.
Let’s stop this nonsense of teachers needing to master a technology and leverage the knowledge, experience, and adaptability of the students! They ought to be the creators not just consumers.
There are also some serious support issues. This particular college is rather, ummmm, controlling in their deployment of technology. I got some funny looks walking in with an Apple laptop to what is likely 99% a PC domain. But hey, it is just VGA and ethernet, DHCP, and what is the difference? But more than that, there was even a question if the IT folks would allow them to install Audacity for a workshop, permission needed to be asked to install iTunes on a desktop computer, and it was even questionable if they had enough provided disk space to download rich media. This is all besides the question of getting into content creation and needing a server to hang some content on.
But still folks seemed appreciative of what turned into another firehose of technology and resources. People want more resources (me too) on the instructional design and pedagogy of this stuff (I do like the Five Steps to Designing Podcasts that Teach from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but there should be tons more. One person wanted to know if we had assessment data to show such technology is effective. Woah, this is a quickly moving target and we are just starting to see good applications of it tested out.
Someone else was curious to what happened when subscribing to sites such as the FrenchPodClass, which includes PDF content in the RSS enclosures, what happens to those PDFs when synchronized to the iPods (it looks like they do not make the trip).
Well, I had fun, regardless. They did want more, so that might mean something.
Hi Alan,
Re. the FrenchPodClass and all those pdf attachments. I subscribe to it via the Podcatcher on a stick ( http://www.rotzoll.de/podblogger/mp3stick/ ) which sits on my Creative Nano, and all the attachments come down OK. I’m not sure about iPods, but the Creative players are just treated like a USB memory stick.
Thanks for the, always illuminating, postings.
Mark
Excellent stuff, Alan, and thanks for the shout-out. Actually, if the shout-out refers to a recording I made that greeted you, have I somehow shouted-out to myself through a third party? Is that even legal in Arizona? Seriously, this is a typically thoughtful and observant post that helps me think through my own plant-the-disruptive-seed strategy. It occurs to me that the first thing someone interested in podcasts should do is listen to some podcasts. Obvious, yes, but that’s my specialty. Maybe the middle ground is just finding and subscribing to some favorites that are not necessarily “school” podcasts, then thinking about the possibilities for teaching and learning. And I certainly agree with you about not letting teachers off the hook as creators–or students either. I think the creative process helps us all re-imagine what we’re doing in the classroom.
Hey, empathy with all the comments, I’m an IT lecturer of “mature” age, at an Institute of Technology in New Zealand, my online students seem to be in the age range that would suppport pod casting but I have problems even enthusing them to join in a chat session!! Luckily I have grandchildren who have hauled me kicking and screaming into the texting and podcasting age. I’m getting proficient in both but my students aren’t. What’s the problem?
Hi Robyn,
I wish I could say for certain, but if I had that answer, I’d be bumping people like Mark Presnsky off of the international lecture circuit, and driving a 911 Porsche convertible 😉
My guess is that you are motivated, your grandkids are in-culturated, but your students may be a product of the environment that the practices our schools/society to now have rewarded. It’s all about motivation; not the technology, why should they chat? What will they get out of it? What is the “hhok”? Is there a personal tie in? professional?
Or maybe you should just swap and teach the grandkids 😉 Oh, they likely do not need to be “taught” but “coached”?