StigmergicWeb

For my first few podcasts, I hosted them on my web hosting account. The web hosting account storage is starting to get a wee bit full, so I’m moving them all over to libsyn. Sorry if my old podcasts show up in your RSS reader Don’t feel obliged to listen to them; production values were embarassingly lacking.

At long last, and largely due to Dean’s urging, I have another solo podcast. This was recorded on the evening of November 18, 2005 along Albert Street in Regina, after the first day of the SACE conference. I ramble on about Tommy Douglas and other radicals, and I even ran into a notable Canadian education and learning radical in my sojourn (you’ll just have to listen for find out who).

Link: StigmergicWeb Podcast #11

By the way, I’m also in the midst of doing a little tweaking of the sound levels and noise for the next EdTech Posse podcast, featuring a breakfast conversation I had with Dean Shareski and Stephen Downes. Watch this blog for further information once the ‘cast is available.

I recently gave a presentation entitled Weblog Communities to the 2005 AMTEC conference in Calgary. My summary in a nutshell:

• distance learners can feel isolated and disconnected from other learners and from the educational organization, despite well designed instruction and tools for fostering community within courses
• weblogs allow a blogger to express a great deal of individuality, but also for connections with other bloggers through comments, trackback, blogrolls and RSS feed aggregation
• weblog communities can provide a sense of campus community that is usually missing from distance learning

The powerpoint slides and an audio recording of the presentation are available for download:

• weblog communities (powerpoint)
• weblog communities (mp3 audio)

Feedback via e-mail or comments are most certainly welcome!

I could have used my time productively tonight, but instead I put together a brand new stigmergicweb podcast, looking at school websites and how to improve their functionality.

Problems with many existing school websites:

• out of date information
• poor navigation, cluttered web pages (clown pants page design)
• content is maintained by a single person or small group of people within the school
• doesn’t serve the school community

What we need:

• timely, relevant information
• design with web standards
• everyone is a contributor
• enhances the community. Several highly successful online communities exist including slashdot and kuro5hin.

Drupal is a great tool for setting up a dynamic web site that can be maintained by all members of the school community. It has many features that lend itself to enhancing communication and community within a school. My generic high school site is an example of how this might work.

Please leave comments on the podcast here, or e-mail me at robwall [AT] gmail [DOT] com.

OK - time to get some serious lesson planning done!

I was in Saskatoon today, and had a chance to drop in on Rick Schwier to talk over a few projects and ideas. While we were at it, I turned on my iRiver to record another Rob and Rick podcast. This was recorded straight into the built-in mic on the iRiver with no post production, but the sound quality is pretty decent!

Without further delay - StigmergicWeb podcast # 9 (another Rob and Rick show). We spent a lot of time talking about academic publishing, academic blogging and how they fit together (short summary - we’re not sure if they do yet).

Show references:

• id-cop.ca
• Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology
• Stephen Downes
• David Wiley
• Alec Couros
• D’Arcy Norman

Postscript - about 5 minutes after we finished the show, Rick’s brand spankin’ new Mac G5 showed up. Sweet!

It has been over a month since my last podcast so it is well past time for another stigmergicweb podcast. You can find it at http://www.omegageek.net/podcasts/stigwebpdcst_2005-04-04.mp3.

Show notes (such as they are):

This show was recorded earlier this evening on my spanking new iRiver 795 in my car and in my computer lab at the school. The only editing was a bit of compression in Audacity; all the rest is recorded directly. Topics of discussion:

• Easter holiday in Edmonton
• Moodle
• ugly school web pages
• Drupal
• much rambling, in a charming sort of way

Enjoy, and leave comments here!

Its time once again for another stigmergicweb podcast, and you can find it at:

http://www.omegageek.net/podcasts/stigwebpdcst_2005-02-28.mp3.

This is the first podcast since upgrading to MixCast Live 0.9.3 - I love the improved metering!! I’ve also upgraded WordPress to version 1.5, which is supposed to give me automagic enclosures when I link to an audio file - sweet!

Some show notes:

• I am grateful to Norm LePage for his offer of help with my audio - how does this one sound, Norm? I would link to Norm, but he has no blog … yet! (hint hint)
• I quote Seymour Papert, as originally presented about a year ago by Stephen Downes. I highly recommend you read the original article entitled Learning Environmentalism.

Show notes for Stigmergicweb Podcast # 6:

Sound levels are still a bit high, so don’t turn up your headphone volume too much!

• Hunter S. Thompson suicide - I am saddened to hear of the death of the man who is, in many ways, the person that many bloggers/podcasters are trying to emulate.
• Alec Couros is recording Skype calls via MixCast Live - I think he’s ready to start podcasting!
• Open Source in education - as a movement and as a paradigm. OpenAdmin for Schools is a great example.
• Lots of cool sound effects, and great music by Vagabond! (thanks to Garageband.com)

Comments are always welcome.

Its time for another stigmergicweb podcast! Here’s what I was on about this time:

• New Setup
  • Using the recently released MixCast Live to record
  • From the MixCast FAQ - The minimum hardware requirement is a microphone, headphones and a compatible soundcard. MixCast Live is designed to work with the minimum of hardware. TinyScience Radio is recorded with a $30 RadioShack microphone on a Pentium III with a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 sound card.
  • Post production using Audacity to convert WAV to mp3
  • MCL is well worth the $59 (with a $20 discount for the pre-release)
  • Excellent, excellent support from James Prudente, creator of MCL
• Shall we try a skype call?
  • I wasn’t sure if this would work, but it did!

Errata - at the end of the show, the word I was looking for was misanthropic, not misogynistic. When I listened to the show afterwards, I could hear a bit of clipping with the audio, especially me speaking. I’ll try to work on that for next time!

Despite technical difficulties, here is a conversation with Rick Schwier about podcasting and education. This was recorded in Rick’s office on his Olympus voice recorder. During the course of the conversation, I somehow manage to work WKRP in Cincinatti as well as a rant about the utility (or lack thereof) of teaching cursive writing in elementary schools. If you are concerned about education, interested in technology or both, you may find this interesting.

Here’s a (really quick) summary (or should I say a Really Small Summary - nah, too contentious. ;^) ):

• What’s the educational model for using podcasting?
• Comparing blogs and podcasts (including my pathetic begging for someone to send me an iPod shuffle)
• Content is king! (Rick and I rave zealously about CBC radio)
• Rick asks “Who is listening to podcasts?”
• Podcasts as theatre of the mind (mentioned several times)
• What does it take to put together a podcast? What are the needed skills?
• Using video/audio to reduce psychological distance between speaker and listener. I, being the raving Adam Curry fanboy, mention him glowingly several times.
• Where will today’s students take the medium? Producing audio essays (essentially small radio documentaries) as the product of their research.
• What are the necessary skills that schools should be teaching students? This includes my rant against cursive writing.
• Schools relationship with disruptive technologies. This is an idea that, I hope, Rick and I will pick up in the future.

Rick also blogs at Rick’s Cafe Canadien. Comments are always welcome (except for spammers - grrrr!)