Interesting interview with Ewan mcIntosh about social media and how it can used In schools, you can listen to it here, and found more stuff on his blog!!!

Reasons why I think podcasting lectures is useful

1. Firstly reviewability if teachers want students to go to class to listen, surely with the price of a mp3 player, and cheap microphone, it’s a valuable resource for students

2. I have found that the content is so much more focussed with a podcast, for instance we recorded a 60 min podcast recently, where after editing getting rid of all the ahhs and emms, I reduced this to 25 mins, you can go straight the content and frame the lecture in key points with perhaps music breaks to emphasis key concepts, no time is wasted !!!!!

3. I found throughout my studies that some lectures were not concerned with updating there notes, and were just rehashing the same notes as the previous year. The nature of knowledge is that it changes all the time, and having last previous years lecture would ultimately demand reviewability from the teacher and student and hence more updating of the content.

4. Rss feeds are so easily consumed nowadays, and are generally supported in all the latest browsers. Students can easily synch content to be delivered to themselves effortlessly without having to navigate troublesome CMS or company intranets.

5. For thing like questions at the end of a lecture, where there maybe issues of hearing, all question can be reviewed and answered, also additional information can be added to supplement this answers

6. Everyone has a mp3 player

7. I believe all leading institutes have started. Universities who don’t not provide this facility will feel
A. Left behind
B. Not meeting the needs of there learners
C. Not advertising the real assets (teachers and lectures/ facilities etc) of there institute

8. For students who are not sure about taking a class, there is no better reference than listening to last years lectures to see if this topic would interest them

9. Podcasting in effect will only amplify the good or the bad. Podcasting in my opinion requires more planning, and more time, but delivers a far better one to one message. The content once released is under the scrutiny of everyone and managed properly this can provide the foundation for a effective collaborative work environment.

10. Through Skypecasting or Waxii the whole class can participate with an outside voice with lecturer moderating. I think listening to other voices is very important when learning something. They can offer a different voice, perspective, and expertise on the subject. The lessons I enjoyed most where often guest visits we had from professional working in that area. They gave insight on how what we where learning is applied in a professional context.

Free UC Berkeley Courses via Video and Podcast (Essential Classes)

UC Berkeley has made available courses streamed video, others by podcast that you can access for free. You'll find here many essential/core courses here



read more | digg story

Podcast Directories

Useful help on adding your podcast to the different directories,I would highly recommend this site as well for useful podcasting hints and tips



read more | digg story

Really good video on the copyright and music, with the world most important 6 sec drum loop.

LibriVox is a very interesting project I came across not unlike podiobooks in the last post. LibriVox records books in the public domain and releases the audio files back onto the net. There goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. They are a totally volunteer, open source, free public domain project. The recordings are available in a range of languages including English, German, French, Chinese and Portuguese (Brazilian)


There most recent addition of text is the mamooth ( the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,By charles Darwin) which weighs in at a mere 24 hours of audio
.Now although this wouldn’t be my cup of tea, the project has lots of potential

You can read more over at a interview here

Librivox identifys the public domain books through Project Gutenberg (the first and largest single collection of free electronic books) to ensure public domain status of texts.

This made me consider would other publishers start offering there books as podcasts, I know if I had the choice to digest content I would much prefer do it through audio,

But even if its heavily encrypted with DRM, with limited plays my guess is that there would be plenty of other students who would also listen more often , then pick up a book to read, particularly if it’s a tough read,

LibriVox is always looking for new volunteers
“unless someone decides to take on the leadership of a new project, it probably won’t happen. We get all sorts of suggestions all the time, and we’re open to just about all of them, as long as someone is willing to spearhead the effort.”

Currently this guy is organising Ulysses, by James Joyce, check it out here, Any other ideas join the forum and get recording !!!!

Read this very good article how unsigned authors are utilizing podcasting and growing there readership/ listeners. Below is a quote from Mr Sigler who currently has 30,000 listeners

“A lot of no-name authors like me are getting massive grass-roots exposure, and some of us are going to percolate to the top and get on the best-seller list,”

You can find the book which comes in instalments over at Podiobooks. They suggest a donation of 10$ for new covers but frequently people pay over when they enjoy it

I came across this video via the excellent David Noble podcast at Booruch. This teacher Tim Ryland uses the game Myst to promote literacy in his class, In an age where they say literacy has dropped amongst average children this look like really good use of games and ICT in the classroom. The game helps provides the children with a visual immersive environment that provides a platform they can write about .Some of the sample videos look really impressive with the kids looking really into it ,You can find his blog over here

Barcamp is back and this time it in Dublin Horrahhh, I really enjoyed the last one, and would encourage everyone to head along to this, The wikki for it can be found here.

Have just listened to a really good talk about issues with podcasting from the creator of RSS Mr. Dave Winer. This is a very interesting talk not just about future development in podcasting, but also touches on publishing, community,and the role of the media. The podcast can be found over here

There is a really good podcast over at Conn Ó Muíneacháin Edgecast media winner of the recent digital media awards.This podcast is about using podcasting in the buisness setting and is really good example of how podcasting can increase the knowledge transfer within an organisation.The podcast is a conversation between Michael Byrne of QBC Ltd and conn and is fascinating insight into podcasting benefits within an organization.

Test

This look like a potentially good idea at Yodio,or your + audio which claims to be the blogger of audio. The benefits are the claimed ease of use where you can record audio from your mobile phone by ringing a number and recording some audio, this can be easily uploaded, with unlimited storage space. What yodio offers is that is your are selling your audio you get 20 % of royalty based on the price you give. Yodio has a Tour feature, which has real potential if integrated with Google maps and Touristr to be quite successful, and also a card and cast feature which has different options for audio space and the size of supported pictures .

This looks like a great tool for those privileged view with macs, the Prof Cast looks like a very affordable solution to recoding lectures. Prof Cast makes very easy way to distribute podcast to your audience or classroom. There is also a feature to record over your presentation slides, so the can digest both the audio content with the slides as they where delivered to you. You can read more in the blog here

Fab channel our now offering all there concerts where you can embed them into your blog.Since there hasn't been any video on the blog for a while thought i might post this.This is from one of my irish favorite bands,the revs

Many thank to Ewan for this tip, this is great tool for sharing audio files, and involves no registration, just upload and get a link which you give to the person you want to share your audio with. You can set the time of when the link expires from 30 min to 7 days.

Saw this article about starbucks starting these Mp3 downloading stations in there coffee shops, I can see this be very successful especially if people have 30 mins to spare and they want to listen to a free podcast , Personally I would never buy music in starbucks,but I do see this as a big opportunity for different people to explore there specific interests through podcasting, all while enjoying a hot mucha chucha latte!!

This is really good idea found over here, the idea is to record an album in 28 days of February sort of like the fast forward film festival only with music, , if anyone would like to help me they are more than welcome, I reckon I have everything equipment wise to it, now all I need is some songs !! should be fun though, and I think you are bound to get something listenable out of 10 songs,

I am bit late on this , this site does a free montly magazine writing by podcaster for podcasters.This is on its 12th edition now and can be found over here!

Here is a great series of podcasts I am listening to at present. This series of 24 one-hour programs explores the remarkable collection of music, spoken word, and sound recordings that make up Folkways Records, It features the music of modern day giants like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and golden oldies like with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie,

Going to head along to this on saturday,looks like there will be some good talks held down there, check out the wikki which can be found over here

MIT are offering there course in what called OpenCoarseWare. It is expected that by the end of the year every course offered at MIT will be available on the OpenCourseWare site, including lecture notes, homework assignments, and exams.Check out there site and see what you can learn for free

Saw this interesting article on how music industry is changing the way it views podcasting and a way to distribute it music. The article explains how this big record producing companies see podcasting as to display there product. I think that they are recognizing that people will happily will use creative commons music and they in effect are missing out. As “Adam Block, senior vice president and general manager of Sony BMG's Legacy Recordings, says the podcasts are "essentially a movie trailer for our projects." He says the possibility of the shows' being copied wasn't much of a concern because the songs are embedded within a long program that is difficult to redistribute.

Managed to delete most of my old template I was rushing posting something when accidentally saved over my old template , ah well give me a chance to give this blog a facelift, new year ,new look. if any readers out there know is there away blogger can restore your previous template, would be interested to know. I think from now on I will adopt the practice of religiously saving everything!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone happy new year,had great xmas,and took a little break from blogging for a bit,Have plenty on new material to write about the next couple of days,

Saw a good article on Rss and how Microsoft are trying to patent it. I am not sure what microsoft intentions i do know that there are a lot of money to be made when targeting people interests., Also very good post in steve rubel blog where is talking about the new google reader a rss aggregator has a new feature, that shows just where your attention goes, this as steve points out is valuable information

Also found a really good site, with tons of really good information about podcasting and how to promote your podcast from Jason Van Orden. Hopefully will get to implement these ideas soon!!!