Category Archives: podcast

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #007 – We’re not negative!

This is the seventh e-Learning Stuff Podcast, We’re not negative!

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #007 - We're not negative!

Download the podcast in mp3 format: We’re not negative!

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

In this the seventh e-Learning Stuff podcast, James is joined by  Nick Jeans, Kev Hickey, Dave Foord, David Sugden and Lilian Soon.

Today we discuss teacher training and e-learning.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #006 – You say Asus and I say Asus…

This is the sixth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, You say Asus and I say Asus…

[audio:http://elearningstuff.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/elearningstuff006.mp3]

Download the podcast in mp3 format: You say Asus and I say Asus…

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

In this show, James is joined by Nick Jeans, Kev Hickey, Dave Foord, David Sugden and Lisa Valentine.

The discussion starts off looking at the role of the Asus EeePC and other netbooks on e-learning on colleges across the UK. The discussion also looks at the variety of presentation software now available from PowerPoint to Keynote, Open Office to Google Docs. Then there is other stuff as well…

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #006 - You say Asus and I say Asus...

Shownotes

  • The Asus EeePC is one year old.
  • Case Study: Using Mobile Technology to Encourage Independent Study (John Leggott College).
  • The ZoomStorm FizzBook which has a handle like the OLPC.
  • ZuiPrezi is a zooming presentation editor which allows you to easily create stunning presentations. With the help of ZuiPrezi you can create dynamic and visually structured zooming maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings. ZuiPrezi has a very intuitive interface and support for online sharing.
  • Create professional video for the classroom with the click of a button! Animoto combines your images and music to produce video with the visual impact of a music video.
  • Using Flowgram you can create interactive guided presentations by combining web pages, photos, Power Point and more with your voice, notes and highlights.  Viewers can control the pages, scroll, click on links, view videos and more. An example Flowgram that was made by James.
  • Wikipedia definition of a mind map.
  • Mindomo is a versatile Web-based mind mapping tool, delivering the capabilities of desktop mind mapping software in a Web browser – with no complex software to install or maintain.
  • Pecha Kucha is a presentation format that allows just twenty slides and twenty seconds for each slide. The presentation from James he delivered at the Pecha Kucha session at Handheld Learning 2008.
  • Dave Foord’s excellent cameraphone!
  • Nice article on how to use web based office tools offline.

Photo source.

Levelling with Levelator

If you are combining recordings or have multiple inputs into a recording it can be a real nightmare to get the levels right. Now you could spend a lot of time and money mixing in the different recordings, however a quick and easy method is to use Levelator.

Levelling with Levelator

It’s software that runs on Windows, OS X (universal binary), or Linux (Ubuntu) that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast or other audio file for variations from one speaker to the next, for example. It’s not a compressor, normalizer or limiter although it contains all three. It’s much more than those tools, and it’s much simpler to use. The UI is dirt-simple: Drag-and-drop any WAV or AIFF file onto The Leveler’s application window, and a few moments later you’ll find a new version which just sounds better.

Find out more.

I used Levelator with my recent podcasts as it was proving difficult to adjust the levels within Skype for each participant. As a result some were very loud, others quieter.

What Levelator was able to do was adjust for those differing audio levels and bring the loud ones down and boost the quiet ones up.

Quite clever really.

As well as for podcasting, it could be useful after recording a classroom discussion for example that you want to podcast or distribute later.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #005 – it’s because he’s from Sheffield…

This is the fifth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, it’s because he’s from Sheffield…

[audio:http://elearningstuff.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/elearningstuff0051.mp3]

Download the podcast in mp3 format: it’s because he’s from Sheffield…

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

In this show, James is joined by Nick Jeans, Dave Foord, David Sugden and Lisa Valentine and they start to discuss podcasting, Skype, quality of Skype before moving onto LLW. Apologies for the poor audio quality of Nick which is because he’s from Sheffield (or so Dave says).

Shownotes

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #005 - it's because he's from Sheffield...

Photo source, thanks Lilian.

Subscribe to the e-Learning Stuff podcast in iTunes

Having now published episode number four and a fair few videos as well, decided it was high time that you could find and subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Subscribe to the e-Learning Stuff podcast in iTunes

Not as simple as it sounds as though the WordPress RSS feed does work for podcasting in iTunes using from the menu Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast… and just pasting in the blog RSS feed.

Subscribe to the e-Learning Stuff podcast in iTunes

It was not suitable for submitting to the iTunes store itself as the WordPress RSS feed is missing a lot of the information which should be in a podcast feed.

So what I did was use Feedburner to create a new feed which will work with iTunes as a podcast feed. Once I had the feed I could then go ahead and submit the podcast to iTunes. A day later and it was authorised and available on the store. It should start to show up in searches in a day or two.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #004 – natives, immigrants, residents and visitors

This is the fourth e-Learning Stuff Podcast, natives, immigrants, residents and visitors.

[audio:http://elearningstuff.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/elearningstuff004.mp3]

Download the podcast in mp3 format: natives, immigrants, residents and visitors

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

In this show, James is joined by Nick Jeans, Dave Foord, David Sugden and Lisa Valentine and they discuss the concept of the digital native, the digital immigrant, resident and visitor. Apologies for the poor audio quality of Nick which we’re blaming on his Skype connection.

Shownotes

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #004 - natives, immigrants, residents and visitors

Oxford lecture tops iTunes chart

BBC reports on how Oxford University are top of the pops academic podcasts on the iTunes Store.

An Oxford University economics lecture about the credit crunch is at the top of a global iTunes chart for education.

Earlier this month Oxford and Cambridge began to distribute lectures to students and the public through the iTunes downloading service.

A talk by the Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, is the current chart topper in the “iTunes U” service for university lectures.

Listen to it now (requires iTunes).

It’s not black and white, it’s grey

I recall in a forum once, someone thought we should not allow recorded lectures to be available as podcasts because this would be unfair to deaf students.

So the spoken lecture is fine, but the podcast is not….

Hmmm

I think part of the problem is that people think in black and white terms, either/or and forget that we can have both or grey areas.

I was showing some staff an UMPC once, the Q1 Ultra, which I am thinking of using in our library, and first comment was that the 7″ screen would be too small for some students.

This is a fair comment, but I am not going to replace all the computers in the library with UMPCs, there would still be big computers with big screens for those that wanted them. The UMPCs would be in addition not a replacement. Some users will be fine with the UMPC, others will want what they see as a “normal” computer.

It’s not black and white, it’s grey

I would say it is similar with web services, just because a service is not accessible to everyone, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be used, but consideration needs to be given how you would support the users for whom it *may* be inaccessible.

In my lecture/podcast example, I would say that if a signer was provided for the lecture, then a signer could be provided for the podcast.

If “services must be accessible to all or they shouldn’t be deployed” then non-web services should be subject to the same constraints, in which case nothing would happen in an educational institution!

It’s not black and white, it’s grey.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #002 – Stuff

This is the second e-Learning Stuff Podcast, Stuff.

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #002 – Stuff

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Shownotes