High Techpectations

NECC'S ISTEVision: Podcasting for the Absolute Beginner

One of the best new features of the National Educational Computing Conference this year was the addition of the ISTEvision webcasting channel. Many presentations from this conference have been posted, including Larry Anderson's Podcasting for the Absolute Beginner. I've been fortunate to be a part of this session at NECC for the last four years. We had new additions to this group this year including Anna Adams and Helen Mowers, the famous Texas Tech Chicks. I'm looking forward to following their work; they seem really absorbed in learning as much as they can from everyone around them. Many thanks to Larry Anderson for continuing to support and mentor me; he's one of the finest people I know!

Room 132 » Room 132: Archived

Link: Room 132 » Room 132: Archived.

I wondered this fall why there was no activity coming from this vlog's feed. I don't know how I missed this as the announcement was posted October 26, 2006, but my favorite educational vlogger is no longer a regular classroom teacher. I first discovered Bre Pettis when researching video blogging for a Friday 5 edition last year.... I believe I found his stuff via a Yahoo group on vlogging. Anyway, I completely cracked up at his videos depicting events in his classroom; he clearly made learning fun for his students. He did a huge service for parents who deserve a glimpse into the learning lives of their children and for teachers looking for new ideas. Fortunately, the best of Bre has been archived here ( I like Too Much Sugar and In the Future) and he now works for Make magazine. Check out his video podcast on bridge building! If you haven't checked out Make before, you must... the print version and the web site are very interesting!

Geek Out: 4 Cool Things Worth Checking Out

Before I completely lose my mind, I better note here in my blog a few techie things that I have tried out recently.

1) Feedburner - Feedburner is not a new thing at all, but for the longest time, I didn't quite get why I would want to run my blog's RSS feed through this Chicago-based service. I decided to explore Feedburner again after someone mentioned it during a conference call for the ITM. I discovered that I can use something called FeedFlares to add links to bookmark, email and share content at the bottom of each blog post. I haven't done this with the blog site itself as I'd have to break away from my Typepad template, but if you look at my blog in a newsreader, you'll see new links at the bottom of each post. I've always wondered how people did this! Also, Feedburner keeps stats on blog traffic, not extensively as StatCounter, but it gives me an idea of how many people are viewing my blog.

2) Adium - This application combines instant messaging services for Mac OS X users. Wes Fryer suggested this to me as I was having trouble getting Google Talk/Jabber to work for me in Chat.

3) Inquisitor 3 for Safari - Another Mac only app, this adds cool functionality to your Google search box in Safari. Thanks to Bruce Ahlborn for this and the next item!

4) Podomatic -  Bruce and I taught a podcasting workshop at National Louis University recently, and Bruce found this fabulous resource. Podomatic is a great place to host and publish podcasts. Best of all, a basic membership is FREE.  

School's Out

School's out and I am ready for some adventure! I am pinching myself because the summer of a lifetime awaits me. In two weeks, my family and I will be traveling to San Diego so that I can attend NECC 2006 and so that we all can do the Southern California tourist thing... Sea World, San Diego Zoo, Disneyland etc.

And, I had this all planned before I knew about the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute for this summer which promises to be another amazing experience. We're traveling to Europe July 21 -31 to collaborate on a digital global awareness curriculum in conjunction with EF Tours. We will be addressing an essential question via four themes, and this curriculum will hopefully be published on Apple's web site in the fall.

At any rate, I plan to be blogging on a more regular basis now that I have some time. As instructed by David Warlick in a recent post regarding tags for NECC, I'm adding mine here:

tags technorati : NECC NECC2006

Here's to a fabulous summer ! Yay!

NICE Mini-Conference

Download ipodinfo.doc

Here's the handout originally created for my Lab colleagues and adapted for the NICE Mini-Conference. Basic information on iPods and podcasting is included in this handout along with many resource links and commentary from a fellow ADE on how video iPods can transform education. By the way,  Karen Percak and I will conducting an all day, hands-on workshop at IL-TCE on February 27 on using iPods in the classroom.

Any feedback or questions regarding yesterday's NICE session would be greatly appreciated. Email me or Karen Percak!