I thought I had way too much in there, but by talking fast and skimming details I sprinted through 45 screens and 2 web demos in 45 minutes. I used my worn our Star Trek metaphor for how Harry Mudd and gang fooled Norman the Robot, then went through 10 rounds of technologies using a structure of the "Wired, Tired, Expired" feature of Wired Magazine, and threw in the closing bit of Small Technologies Losely Joined, and Rip, Mix, Learn.

Nearly all the images were found in flickr (and duly noted by URL in the screen shots).

While the entire Elluminate recorded version is already available, you need to have registered for the conference to see it. But I created a quick, perhaps not as elegant end around:

I took my screen captures I created for my planning script, and created a Quicktime slide show (5 seconds per slide):
http://cogdogblog.com/alan/movies/harry_mudd.mov

And I captured the audio by sticking my iRiver next to my laptop and tossing through Audacity to get a 14 Mb mp3 (about an hour):
http://cogdogblog.com/alan/sounds/harry_mudd.mp3

So it is not exactly synchronized, that is on your end. Lastly, I tossed together last night a wiki site for all the web references, in the vague hopes that people will add (and not piss over) the goods:
http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ocotillo/wiki?HarryMudd

Whew, I have presentation come down... Time for a naaaaaaaaaaap

It made for a nice ride in. My only flub was the wind inside my helmet made it hard to hear the audio without cocking my head sideways (making it harder to see traffic), and when I stopped to up the volume and accidentally skipped to the next track. I had to go back and start Rael's speech again (the interface on the iRiver is intuitive for about 3 people, likely the ones who made it).

An energetic speaker, Rael makes a case that the culture once limited to hackers, people who pried open technology, tinkered with the parts, and created something new, is now a wider phenomena he classifies as "the Re-Mix" culture. Citing a long list of examples from web technology to Amazon to RSS to telescopes, he makes a good case of it. He chides the music industry for "not getting it" what the customers where asking for "We like your product, we just don't like the way it is packaged" and praises FireFox/Thuderbird for "almost making Windows a usable platform" (I am ducking tomatoes as the Windows lovers rev up their ammo-- he said it not me).

Too bad he did not cite our RipMixFeed or RipMixLearn work, but it may be better to work in relative obscurity.

The point is, from Tivo to Podcasting, people are doing the rip/mix thing for what matters to them the most, and they are not heeding the little "warranty void" stickers.

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/podcast.html

Most of these were colleagues I cornered with my mp3 recorder, as well as a few more audio devices

So added to the list:

* Eric Feinblatt and Michael Feldstein-- from the SUNY system, we were having a Skype conversation so I just tagged on the interview
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/eric_and_michael.mp3

* Shelley Rodrigo-- English faculty at Mesa Community College (one of the 10 Maricopas) when she dropped by my office to chat about her work with our Ocotillo Hybrid Structures action group. She's one energetic teacher!
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/shelley_rodrigo.mp3

* Cheryl Colan-- wears many hats as a part time Media Technician at Phoenix College (another Maricopa), part time web designer for me at MCLI, as well as a talented digital video editor and digital storytelling expert. She had an iPod borrowed from another faculty member along with the Belkin attachment mmicrophone... we got audio, but I'm not impressed with the sound quality.
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/cheryl_colan.mp3

* Roger Yohe-- Faculty Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Estrella Mountain Community College (yes, another Maricopa site). This was interesting. We were using his school's Wimba server for an online audio meeting that had Roger on the west side of town, myself in Tempe, Jim Patterson in North Phoenix, and John Arle from central Phoenix. I would have recorded it directly into my WireTapPro, but Wimba hung by Mac browser, and I had to shift to the Dell laptop. So this audio was transmitted via Wimba but recorded with my little trusty iRiver mp3 recorder.
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/roger_yohe.mp3

* Maureen Zimmerman -- Nutrition faculty at Mesa Community College, but on loan to our office as Director Iand my boss). Recorded with the iRiver in her office.
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/maureen_zimmerman.mp3

So added yesterday and today:

* Steve Dembo, Director of Technology at a school in Chicago, blogs at Teach42 fame. http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/steve_dembo.mp3

* Diana Oblinger, Vice President of EDUCAUSE. We were discussing a summer project over the phone, and I just recorded her with my iRiver 3p3 recorder stuck in front of the telephone speaker. Not the greatest quality, but she has such great ideas and perspective. And EDUCAUSE is going full bore into podcasting.
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/diana_oblinger.mp3

* Rachel Smith, Director of Development and Programs with New Media Consortium, from her home in Sonoma County California.
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/rachel_smith.mp3

* Amy Gahran, blogs at Contentious from Boulder Colorado. She was very patient as I initially recorded her yesterday, but something between Skype, WireTap, LineIn completely hung my G4 and the whole thing was list. She did the interview a second time. There is absolutely something different about the person to person voice connection-- Amy and I had traded some barbs via the written (blogged) format, but person to person it was respectful and fun. And she had a boatload of great ideas she mentioned in the Skperview. Heck, we might even be friends now ;-)
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/amy_gahran.mp3

Interesting trends are that everyone I have spoken to is today taking advantage of content by digital audio, many have more than one device, a few have some high end home network systems for audio, and all are optimistic on the potential for this new communication form.

Also, the overall quality of audio via Skype is superb. Since I am recording just the interview-ees audio, it makes it easy in Audacity to snip out the gaps where I was talking as it is just a flat line in the audio form (mine is not recorded).

Audree, who programs our eportfolio system available at Maricopa and her Chandler-Gilbert Community College has announced the upcoming availability of streaming media being built into the system (see latest ePortfolio enhancements, nicely published in an eport):

The (opensource) Darwin Streaming Server will be installed on all machines along with a set of opensource utilities called mpeg4ip.

The Quicktime client will be used exclusively (unfortunately, proprietary features preclude interoperability between streaming media servers and clients at this time). Quicktime is a standard player which is very easy to install.

When an ePortfolio user adds a Collection item or Document with an extension of mov,mp3,aac,mp4v,mp4,avi,mpg,mpeg, they will immediately be taken to a "Streaming ePort Page". This is similar to what happens when ePort users upload .html files  - they are immediately taken to an 'Upload Image/Reference' eport page.

(Actually Darwin is not even needed on our box since it is an Apple XServe ;-)

But there is more. Chandler-Gilbert Physics faculty David Weaver has been bitten by the podcast bug, and started asking for support for it within the eportfolio tool (more on this later, but David is using an eportfolio in lieu of a course management system!). It took Audree less than 24 hours to add the necessary RSS enclosures to the feeds produced by the eportfolio tool.

So for example, David has built a podcast collection in his eportfolio and the RSS feed has the needed tags to make it work as a podcast:
http://eport2.cgc.maricopa.edu/cgi-bin/syndicateXML.cgi?eportid=weaver.

I think David was one of the first (and always one of my favorite) faculty I met on the job here at a 1992 Ocotillo Retreat at Mormon Lake, AZ, He has always been someone to (thoughtfully, but quickly) jump into new technologies-- in 1994 after turning him onto HTML and Mosaic, it was just a matter of weeks before he was creating web pages for his students and having his students create their own web pages. But he's not just an eager techie, he is first and foremost a talented and engaging teacher. I always enjoyed hearing from him after his yearly Physics conferences where he learned of a new approach and almost on schedule he would be re-inventing his teaching strategies. Its almost like his teaching is a continued experiment in better ways to help students learn Physics- check out his eport for some of the innovative projects and approaches he has used over the years. And he in turn is helping as as co-chair of the Ocotillo ePortfolio Action Group.

I have not exhaustively researched this, but I have not heard of any eportfolio tool out there that has podcasting support built into it. This is in addition to unique tools Audree has in place, including RSS Feeds for all ePorts and the entire eport server, optional email notiifcation of any eport updates, weblog tools built into an eportfolio, a quiz/survey tool, spell checking built into every entry form, and as noted above- streaming media support. The she has built this apparently is modular enough to add new features as needed/requested.

But let's get back to podcasting in an eportfolio-- where might this lead? Why not have students post audio recorded reflections? Wouldn't this be more impactful than what one can write in words? Audio blogging? How about audio feedback from an instructor or other students to a student's portfolio items? There could be new items students can add such as examples of their work for speech, communication, foreign language courses.

Podcastin' eports! Woooooooooooooooo the the technology ride just keeps accelerating! Keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times.

Some preliminary observations:

* Publishing audio has always been there. Some think that providing audio content online is equivalent to podcasting. For years, we have been able to record audio, save as MP3, and provide it as a link from a web server. Technically this is not podcasting but people refer to it as such, and it is technically trivial to do once you figure out how to record/digitize audio. May the gods bless Audacity for providing a free threshold into recording/digitizing to MP3.

* Missing Tools: Creating the Feeds. If you are using weblog software to publish podcasts, there are readily available plugins to the popular blogware that provide the encoding of enclosures into the RSS feeds. But let's say that Joe/Jane faculty wants to create podcasts, he/she manages to record a few sessions and post them on a server. If they are not hosting them via a blog, but a normal web site or a big old Course Management System, how th heck will they create the RSS Feed?

I would like to see an easy to use tool that would allow someone to upload MP3 files from their desktop to a server (or access a directory if the files are already there), and allow them to compose the feed content via a simple interface, and then publish the RSS. Maybe its already out there (I've not looked far).

* Thinking Out of the Recorded Lecture Box. A number of the faculty I have communicated with are thinking of only half of the equation- how they can record content to publish for students. This is fine, and can provide a nice supplement, but I hope we start extending this to consider how to get the tools in the students hands, turn them into the publishers. Like Will Richardson has been talking about the "Read/Write Web", how about the "Listen/Record" web? This could be students doing audi interviews, audio portfolio reflections, audio storytelling, speech/communciation/language assignments, publishing project reports, international connections (audio pen pals?).

My limited experience with conducting quick interviews via audio chat and MP3 recorders tell me the content creation is not the difficult. It is certainly a do-able activity for students. Creating a podcast feed, however, outside a blog, is not so easy.

It's still just a baby technology meme, but its rising madly up the charts. The more we can see and share interesting examples of using it for teaching and learning, the more clear it will be for newbies.

* D'Arcy Norman, University of Calgary
* Sherri Vokey, University of Nevada - Las Vegas
* Bert Kimura, Osaka Gakuin University (Japan)
* Susan Smith Nash, Excelsior College (New York) and Xplanazine writer
* Sue Lister, Ontaria Canada (she made it easy by sending my a URL for her own podcast response to my questions)

I'll be gathering a few more through the end of next week (I am on break through March 21)-- now looking to widen the geographic reach (although I've chatted to Japan just today).

This is so easy to do, especially after a few are done. Call up on Skype / iChat, hit record in WireTapPro, ask the questions, save as MP3, import into Audacity, delete the gaps and umms, and then export again to more compressed MP3 (I am doing a 32 bitrate- I may have been able to go lower, but the files sizes are now a reasonable 600-1100k).

Look at me, the iPodless Podcaster...

Interesting that all 11 I spoke to have an iPod, and a number of them had 2 or 3. Most are making use of podcast content. We are getting some interesting ideas on how it might be used for learning. I have started also asking more about the possibilities for students being the content creators as a first order thought is in the vein of the faculty as broadcaster.

Will Richardson pointed out something I had not thought of-- as you listen there is no way to make notes or even "bookmark" the audio for details worth coming back to. And Susan Smith Nash emphasized the importance of a well written text summary of audio content.

Good stuff comin' in via the digital air waves. Let me know if you have 5 minutes to spare the week of March 21 and I'll give you a Skype call.

Thanks to everyone for playing.

So far it is working out well- I have done 3 using my iRiver mp3 recorder, two via iChat and one via Skype. For the latter, I use WireTapPro to record just the audio out (as the interviewer questions are edited out), and it is pretty quick to edit and save as MP3 with Audacity.

So far I have interviewed:

* Colin Holgate http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/colin_holgate.mp3 (New York City multimedia developer)
* Ben Brophy http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/ben_brophy.mp3 (MIT user interface designer)
* Phil Long http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/phil_long.mp3 (MIT Academic technology Strategist)
* Tom Foster http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/tom_foster.mp3 (Instructional technologist, Chandler-Gilbert Community College)
* Gerry Paille http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/gerry_paille.mp3 (Educational Technologist, British Columbia)
* Will Richardson http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/will_richardson.mp3 (Supervisor Instructional Technology, Hunterdon High School, New Jersey)

(mp3 links here so my own podcast URL will have enclosures).

I would like to get a good variety of viewpoints from different locations, but so far, I have only interviewed the dudes. I am hoping to find some more female viewpoints.

I have a preview set up at
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/podcast.html

-- and there you will find a podcast enabled RSS feed (not yet tested with iPodder software):
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/forum/spr05/podcast.xml

Since I have some scanty descriptions in those feeds, I am also using the same RSS feed to populate the page content (using Feed2JS).

So far, this has been simple and quick to assemble. My podcast Feed is hand coded for now. Any grrrls out there want to talk to me?

Thjis is now posted on a new site FLOSSE (Free/Libre and Open Source SoftwarE) which is a "posse"

FLOSSE Posse is a group blog consisting of members of Free and Open Source Software Association (VOPE) from Finland. We will carry out reportage of FLOSS and Open Content in Education.

The interview is now available at:
http://flosse.dicole.org/?item=future-of-floss-in-education-interview-with-alan-levine

or the direct audio:
http://flosse.dicole.org/media/podcasts/Flosse_posse-Alan_Levine_20050124.mp3

Considered the list of heavy hitters to come in the next interviews, I am humbled and honored to be the first one posted. Go ahead, Leon, take your best potshots.

The open source / free tools themselves used, Skype, Blogs, et al, are themselves a testament to the topics discussed, another cheering round of Small Technologies Nicely Joined. I'm ready to... well think about doing some SKyperviews in the near future.

One of the two major highlights, beyond Helen's expertise and storytelling weaving, was our panel discussion with 5 Maricopa students eportfolio experiences to share. Rather than summarizing, I am noting that by early next week, I will have the 50+ minute audio available as an mp3 cast (it is processing now in Audcacity). Okay, that was too easy-- here is a 12Mb audio mp3 stream of the panel:
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/dd/eport05/student_panel.mp3

I also have lots of pictures, and the progress might have been better but one of my digital camera media cards got corrupted as there were only 34 images out of 100+ I knew I took. Ouch... I knew something funky had happened when I switched out my batteries.

But a little googl-ing got me to PhotoRescue software, where the downloadable demo showed me that it could read the missing images, so after ordering it ($20), I was able to resurrect the lost images.

Another highlight was our 10 station demo session over lunch, where the 5 students plus 4 Maricopa faculty/staff and Helen gave informal demos to small groups. It was an extremely active session and we had a hard time getting folks to sit back down.

The afternoon covered the process fort faculty eport development, and we closed with a nice visioning discussion on the possible, probable, and preferable futures of eportfolios. I know this is vague, but Helen promises to soon post her presentation, and we will soon add some of the supplemental materials she provided us.

Bottom line is we have a bunch of new people energized to try their hands at eport-ing.

Whew!

Anyhow, Larry Johnson had asked me to do a part at the session to talk about the report's coverage of "Ubiquitous Wireless"-- and I offered the challenge of doing a remote presentation since I would not be attending the meeting in New Orleans - I offered to give Skype a go, and he was asking for a safe guard back up via BreezeLive (scratched that as I had no time to prepare), and in the end we settled on using iChatA/V between by desktop here in Arizona and Cyprien Lomas' laptop in New Orleans.

The trial run yesterday as less than a smooth start, but in the end we got everything in place. Because I do not put all my marbles in one basket, yesterday, I recorded a quick, umm-full draft version as a streaming QuickTime movie and gave Cyprien a download of the 10 Mb source. To make it more interesting and to illustrate back channels, I asked some colleagues, including Rick Effland, Anthropology faculty at Mesa Community College (his blog is featured in the NMC report) who was one of wireless pioneers, plus D'Arcy Norman and Gerry Paille up in Canada, and Pate Delaney in San Francisco, to do some on cur chatting about wireless (actually I invited most of them 15 minutes before show time).

I wanted to try and record my audio (not really a keepsake), and had fiddled a bit earlier this morning with WireTap Pro and was glad I did a quick test as the demo version has the annoying "this is a demo version" overlaid on all recordings. Lovely. So in about 4 minutes, I registered ($19) a license, and was set to go. As a backup, I sat my iRiver MP3 recorded on my desk in record mode.

At about 2 minutes to show time, Cyprien gave me the signal, a ring on my cell phone. I initiated the video chat session with him, told the text chat window folks to start jabbering (they did), and I had about two minutes I could hear my colleague Brian Lamb doing his bit on "Extended Learning" (he got gonged).

Cyprien gave me the thumbs up. I hit the record button on WireTap, and started my bit. I was not prohetic at all, and tried to share some perspective on transparency of the technology, and how it is best when it is not obvious, with an anecdote from a Spring 2001 interview I did with some of our faculty who where trail blazing with wireless.

The a/v connection actually held up fine for the whole time. I tried to get a screen capture, but was about 1 task over my multi-task limit.

It went okay, I think I zipped so fast, that I ended before 5 minutes and missed getting a gong. Then (her is the foible part). I hit the stop button on WireTap, and it prompted me with the Save As... box. In my haste, I thought it was saving as a default file name, so I clicked the button, only to realize later it was the CANCEL button, and thus flushed the good audio.

I did hear later, that the window with the text chat never made it on the big screen, which is too bad, cause the folks were bouncing back and forth (and actually continued for another 10 minutes). Oh well, I did save the chat session as a PDF

nlii05_chat.pdf

so thanks D'Arcy, Rick, Gerry, and Pat.

The iRiver recording quailty was pretty awful, but I tried to clean it up quickly in Audacity, and present it here as my first, posted "_____ cast" (well not really as I am not bothering to plop it in an RSS enclosure):

http://cogdogblog.com/alan/sounds/nlii05.mp3

Watch the pops! It hurts.

I am counting on the pros recording the audio podcasts at EDUCAUSE to do a better job -- can you get rid of my ummms and add some intelligent comments to?

Whew! It was a whirlwind. But fun.