A Closer Look at Podcasts

Podcasts oh how I love you!  The whole idea of a podcasts has captured me ever since I heard about them. The fact that you can record yourself, create an episode, and then publish it online for the entire world to hear and download to their individual iPod or other device is incredible.  Just the thought amazed me a few years ago when I heard it, but now it seems a bit outdated in the world of Web 2.0 and a variety of awesome ways to inform people about the information relevant to them.  Podcasts have changed from the straight audio to include enhanced and also video podcasts.  Personally, if I am going to complete a podcast I am going back to the bread and butter of straight audio.  I have done this recently using PodOMatic (A great tool if you have not heard about it for publishing your podcasts).  In fact, here is a link to my most recent podcast on Distributed Learning Communities for class last week.

I'm not a professional podcaster and that is OK.  However, some people do spend a lot more time than I do creating and publishing podcasts on iTunes and a variety of other websites.  For a more complete primer into podcasting look no further than my classmate Tyler's recent post on podcasts at Royal Technology.  He also has some great favorites you might want to look into as well.

As you may have guessed, this week in class Dr. Z asked us to look a bit closer at podcasts and especially those on iTunes.  These people are professionals or semi-pros and they have the right equipment, time, and energy to create great podcasts.  We were asked to look at three podcasts of our choice this week and reflect on them.  Here is what I noticed:

PODCAST #1:

Appy Hours 4 U - Blog Talk Radio Feed

This first podcast publisher description was listed as: Educators & App Enthusiasts Lisa Johnson & Yolanda Barker will guide you through a menu of app-ealing lesson ideas, apptivities, and pedagogical practices.  These two ladies are connected with the Techchef4u website and app.  This website is a great resource for individuals that are looking for free apps – through either method.

This podcast was titled: “iLearn App Development Project.”  This was a really informative podcast about the iLearn group of apps (Check out their website for more information).  This was a really interesting podcast because the show hosts interviewed the development team for iLearn.  I was given a closer look into what app production and publishing looks like in the real world.  This podcast was very relevant to my interests with iPads and the apps that are possible.  I am so used to using the VPP and downloading the apps and trying them out, but I don’t really get into the world of developing, code, and the artwork.  This podcast, although it was an interview, did include a lot of dead air time and in addition there are some odd breaks and pauses.  It almost appeared like they recorded this podcast and did not spend a lot of time editing it.  I did like that they covered some interesting topics and the interview was really informative.  However, I would suggest improving this podcast by cutting out some odd pauses, coughs, and uninteresting pieces.  This is a very long podcast, 37 minutes, but there are some other pieces that I felt could be cut so that it could be a bit tighter.  Overall, this is a good listen and the hosts do a great job.  If you want to hear about apps, listen directly to app developers, and hear about integration of apps into the curriculum.  Then this is the podcast for you!

PODCAST #2:

MacCast (Enhanced) - For Mac Geeks, by Mac Geeks

The second podcast publisher description was listed as: The enhanced AAC edition of the show for Mac Geeks by Mac Geeks. We cover everything Macintosh. Keep up to date on the latest Mac news, topics and rumors. Throw in a good dose of helpful tips and listener questions and feedback and you have the MacCast. Enjoy!

The podcast that I listened to was titled: “eMaccast 2012.05.15.”  This was a really interesting podcast because it covered a great deal of information about the rumors, updates, and tips on everything Mac.  This specific episode also interviewed the author of “Paperless," David Sparks.  It was a great interview and overall this podcast was very informative.  The huge number of tips, tricks, and overall rumors about Apple intrigued me.  This is a very relevant topic for me because I do have to oversee and manage over 500 Apple devices on a daily basis.  It is a lot to do and having a few tips and tricks always makes life easier.  What I really enjoyed about this podcast was the relevancy of the information and how the podcast was enhanced.  It had links and images in addition to the talking.  This allowed me to get a copy of the author’s book and click on other topics for more information.  What I did not like about this podcast was that it was extremely long, 1 hour and 24 minutes.  Some of the items the host talked through when I really thought it may have been better for his listeners to click a link, because it is an enhanced podcast, and read up.  This would have offered an alterative to hearing him go through step by step instructions on an audio podcast.  I think that if the host did this with his podcast it would make the length a bit shorter and more manageable for the listeners.  The only suggestion I have is for the host to continue discussing interesting and not redundant Apple news, as many of his listeners probably already have an eye on the forums and chats available about Apple, and to keep the length of the podcasts a bit shorter.  It is hard to dedicate an hour and a half to a podcast that is one person talking.  There was not a lot of volume change, audio transitions, or anything else to signify the switch between topics.  This might be an easy way to break up the length and help the editing as well.  This was an interesting podcast and the trends and rumors about Apple are something that every technology director that has OS and iOS devices in their districts should be paying attention to on a daily if not weekly basis.  

PODCAST #3: 

TED Talks Education

The third podcast publisher description was listed as: “What should future schools look like? How do brains learn? Some of the world's greatest educators, researchers, and community leaders share their stories and visions onstage at the TED conference, TEDx events and partner events around the world.”

The podcast that I listed to was titled: “Joe Sabia: The technology of storytelling.”  In it iPad storyteller Joe Sabia introduced me to Lothar Meggendorfer, who created a bold technology for storytelling – the pop-up book. Sabia showed how new technology has always helped us tell our own stories, from the walls of caves to his own onstage iPad.  This was a very interesting podcast because Sabia used a variety of apps to present.  I counted at least ten tools when I took a look at this video podcast.  This podcast was also very relevant to my interests of podcasting, storytelling, iPads, and apps.  What I really liked about this podcast was that it was a video recording of a TED talk.  TED is a great organization that has so many wonderful videos that are short, sweet, and to the point.  The speaker does not have time to give long and drawn out responses, instead they need to be short and to the point.  I also enjoyed that this was a video podcast.  It gave more life and interest to the content than just an audio podcast.  This podcast, in comparison to the others, was a whopping 3 minutes and 51 seconds.  I really enjoyed the length and think that it fit the message and overall topic very well.  As far as improving these podcasts, I do not think I would want to try.  TED is such a widely recognized organization that what they do and how they do it is top notch.  I did not see anywhere in this podcast where they could have improved.  This podcast is exceptional.  If only I had time to watch the rest of them!

Overall I learned that podcasts are unique items that can be long, short, video, enhanced, or just audio – but all of them were very informative about their specific episode topic.  I was glad that we were asked to look at some podcasts prior to our upcoming assignment.  It provided a few tips, hints, and ideas to work from for my next one.

What podcasts do you listen to?  Have you listened to any of the publishers above?  What other podcasts should have been listed above?

Being on the Bleeding Edge

As many people at the forefront of technology know, being at the beginning of changes in operating systems and new pieces of technology often comes with great excitement and lots of learning. It brings a tech geek great joy to figure out a new piece of technology and how to manipulate and make it do something that it has never been able to do before. Although, tech geeks are not the only people that desire to be the first. Take the millions of people that have lined up in the last few months to purchase a new iPhone 4, Droid, or iPad.

The same excitement that tech people get when they figure out a new piece of technology also often brings lots of pain and headaches along with it. Being one of the first to figure out, break, and try to fix a new piece of technology is not easy nor is it always fun either. You kind of feel like a man walking out on the moon without any support along the way.

This was very much the case as this summer we were blessed to expand our 1-1 Program at the FAIR School Downtown to include both our 9th and 10th grade students this year. This spring we purchased sixty new uni body MacBooks and early this summer we prepared to image them for the fall. We had a debate about which operating system to put onto the computers because they came shipped with 10.6, Snow Leopard, even though the rest of our environment (the roughly eighty-five other computers that we have) is currently is running on 10.5.8, Leopard. We weighed the pros and cons and even though there is not a large visual or end user experience difference between the two operating systems we decided to keep the environment the same for everyone. We began the process to create an image for this new machine based on the 10.5.8 operating system and tested out that image on a few machines. At face value the image looked good, the programs were operating, and the main components were running. So we decided to begin the imaging process for our sixty machines. After three days, and many hours of preparation, imaging, and take down, we completed the process of imaging all these machines ahead of schedule.

However, as we went to do final testing, installation of anti-virus software, and preparation for roll out early September we began to notice some problems in our image. For instance, the sound did not work at all. It had a gray X though it. We dug a little deeper and came across a few other minor errors in our new machines. At first we thought it was singled out to a few machines and then we realized it was all our machines. To the Internet we went, searching for sound drivers, other people that were having the same issue that we were having, or any piece of advice about our problem. We found a few people experiencing the same issue, but no one had a solution to the problem that we were having. After a while I had my fellow tech call Apple Care and see what was going on. The representative that we talked to had us run a bunch of things that we had previously run, resetting the PRAM and checking for updates.

Sometimes I wish that there was an Apple Care support line for tech staff who could call in and say you have done x, y, and z and now here is the issue and what are your thoughts. They could talk to us like geeks and we could talk back to them like geeks and we can get the issue solved. Instead, we have to sit though all the steps that we previously did and that any normal geek hopefully would have already tried. I get the rational for Apple to do it the way it does, but it pains me to sit though the direction from the Apple Care representative to Check for Updates when I tried that three days ago.

After walking through the basic steps from Apple and semi-stumping the Apple Care representative he suggested that we move our computer back to 10.6. Needless to say we did not really enjoy his suggestion, especially because we had all sixty computers imaged with 10.5.8. What choice did we have though? It was not like on the box the computers shipped it said: “Do NOT revert this machine back to 10.5.8 because it will not operate properly.” In hindsight maybe it should have. There was no mention of this warning, but once again we re-created the image and then spent the time to re-image and bring the machines back to the 10.6 operating system they came shipped with.

The very next day an Apple Engineer came out to work on some syncing issues we were having with the Apple server we use for the 1-1 Program. I asked him about the 10.5.8 and 10.6 issues that we were having and his response intrigued me. In no uncertain words he said that 10.6 was built on a completely different platform than 10.5.8, which for people who read about this stuff they recognize the 64 and 32 bit differences. Furthermore, he said that the hardware inside of a machine that is shipped with 10.6 will not work properly when the machine is reverted back to an older operating system. This explained our sound issue with the Logic Card. Finally, he said that if a machine was shipped with 10.6 and is reverted back it runs the risk of overheating and Apple will not support it.

Bottom line: Do NOT revert an Apple computer that comes shipped with 10.6 on it.

We learned our lesson and in the end I am happy that we are giving our students the best possible machine to complete their work on. However, the challenges of maintaining a multiple operating system based site are going to be interesting. We looked into the process and possibility of moving our entire school up to 10.6, but the cost of doing that was too great to consider at the moment.

Being at the front end of technology is a lot of fun and constantly challenging, but with it does come many bumps in the road. Those bumps, although costly in time and headaches, do make us the unique person that we are and for that I give thanks as a tech geek educator to be on the bleeding edge.

1-1 Program: The First Months

The West Metro Education Program’s Mission Statement reads: “We are committed to equity and excellence for all students, eliminating disparities in achievement and opportunity, and preparing all learners to thrive in a diverse world.”

As an effort to continue completing this mission statement the FAIR School Downtown began it’s 1-1 Program by handing out new Apple MacBooks to all 46 ninth grade students. The decision to go with Apple Inc. was due to the video and creative elements that are necessary for an arts magnet school such as our own, not to mention the amazing track record with these machines. In addition there is a similar 1-1 program going on at our sister school, the FAIR School Crystal, since last year. All student MacBooks are set-up with iLife 09’, iWork 09’, Final Cut Pro, Logger, Adobe Photoshop, Firefox, Safari, and access to the Apple Server that we have set-up specifically for the students. The computers sync with the server every fifteen minutes and back up all documents in the “Documents” folder. Unlike other schools that I know of, we do not back up all the documents, videos, music, and other material on the computers, only the materials in the “Documents” folder. All students and their parents/guardians came to the school and filled out paperwork, provided a check for the insurance on the computer, and went through a basic Apple MacBook orientation. The students, in addition to following the rules and expectations for use of the laptop in the school building, are required to bring their computer to school charged every single day. We encourage them to leave their power cords at home, because the MacBook batteries should last the morning periods when they will need their computers the most. In the afternoon all students in the high school have arts periods and generally do not use their laptops in those classes. All in all, it was a very successful evening of handing out laptops to students.

Some of the laptops in their cases ready to hand out to the students

Now...a month and a half into the 1:1 Program here are the early results:

The biggest and most impressive change I have noticed is that students are more engaged in the classroom in all areas and throughout the entire hour. It literally was like night and day between the students having the laptops and then not having the laptops. Students enjoy coming to class, they work together in groups a lot more, and are truly engaged in their curriculum and material throughout the entire hour.

Students have been able to create more exciting projects that are more in tune with their creative desires. For example, sometimes I will give an assignment that requires the students to answer a question, but we allow them to complete it with any application/program that they desire. The projects we get back are nothing short of amazing. In the future I hope to share some of these projects here.

Choosing to continue with the Apple MacBooks was a great decision because the students are so creative on them and the durability and lack of problems has been impressive. In fact, to date I have had to send in or repair one computer due to a manufacture problem, non-student related.

Turning in assignments electronically through our drop boxes has been a wonderful tool. All of the teachers in the high school have an electronic drop box that students can turn assignments in to. From there instructors are able to pull the assignments out, grade them, give feedback, and then return the assignments back to each student’s individual computer. In addition, all high school teachers also have a share folder where handouts or materials for that unit or class period are kept. Students can also share class related or small group files through this folder. With the addition of this electronic file transfer and sharing there has been a dramatic reduction in the amount of paper and ink used within the school. We are excited to be saving the environment and I am excited about being able to read all the assignments electronically.

The addition of the laptops has changed how I teach. Right now I am doing much what I did at Arapahoe, where only some (actually two-thirds) of my classes are using the laptops. When I am teaching the classes with the laptops I have noticed a significant shift in how I actually teach. I feel that I can do so much more with these students, especially because they have access to so many materials right there at their fingertips. I can do a lot less direct instruction and a lot more partnering or pairing with my students so that they look up the information and teach the rest of the class. They interact with the SMART Board, they plug their computers into it and show the rest of the class what they are doing and they help one another figure out what is exactly going on in the passage or text. In fact, having the laptops has also though made teaching a bit more difficult because sometimes I have to compete with the laptop. Not in a ineffective way, because if the students are on their laptops and talking then I will have them close the lids and one of the beauties of a Mac is how fast it starts back up again. But I really feel that I compete with the class in different ways. I have to be as engaging, as exciting, as fast paced, and as engaging as their computer is. At times I feel that I have to be that much like that computer, but at other times I really focus on being different. I am not, nor am I going to be that computer, but I do try to take some of the elements of their computers - the ones that they enjoy and that are engaging to them - and bring those into the classroom. In addition, it has been so much fun to have a SMART Board at the front of my classroom and a classroom full of motivated students with laptops. I am excited about the future and when all students in the high school, in four years, will have laptops.

Finally, the most exciting thing about having the laptops is that we are truly preparing students for success in the 21st Century. They are being creative producers. They are engaging with their texts and with their world. They are learning to type better. They are learning what is good content and what is bad content. They are learning what is appropriate to put up on the Internet and what is not. They are learning how to be and are better artists than they were two months ago. However, in all reality we are not educating only these students, but we are educating entire families. In some situations the laptops that we have provided for these students is the only computer that has ever been in their homes. That is exciting. We are also creating equality across the board because all the students have the same materials, the same computers, and the same access to resources now. It is not a money thing, Minneapolis and suburb thing, a race thing or a S.E.S. Thing - it is a FAIR School Downtown 9th grader thing.

With great thanks to the support of the district, administration, school board, parents, students, staff, and all others that have been involved in this program we have truly created equity and are receiving excellent work from all our students by eliminating disparities in achievement and opportunity by providing all our ninth grade students with an Apple MacBook that is preparing them to thrive in the diverse world which they live and interact in today.

I look forward to the adventures and achievements of our students in the coming months and years as the use of the laptops and the 1:1 Program continues to grow.