podcasting

just tried to collect a podcast feed, but encountered this error message: Sorry, our RSS feed is undergoing maintenance and will be back soon. i know servers have maintenance downtimes, but who knew that RSS feeds do too?!

i clicked the other orange icon at the top of the harvard site to find the actual URL for their podcasts, then manually subscribed by going to iTunes. as one might expect, when i clicked Refresh, i got a server error. so i'll check back another day!

using GarageBand, i made a small audio file, then created an account on Podbean to publish it. i didn't understand at first that Podbean was assigning me a password, so could not immediately login. i clicked Forgot my password to get a chance to reset it and almost immediately got the followup email message. however, clicking the link just took me back to the homepage, not to a page where i could reset my password. because the podbean password was so forgettable, i really wanted to reset it to my standard web 2.0 password and had to stumble around a while before i found the screen where i could actually update it.

then tried to upload my file, but it stopped at 44%, perhaps because my filetype was band rather than mp3 or any other recognized format. will try that again another day!

PS some days later -- managed to save my podcast to iTunes, which automatically changed the filetype to mp4. then i was able to upload and publish this file at Podbean: http://clairecarpenter.podbean.com/

Facebook and Blackboard

since i created a facebook account over a month ago, i'm going to blog about that first, then come back to google docs later. i probably wouldn't have set up a Fb account on my own, but since Blackboard was providing a new Sync tool, i had to test it! good thing i did, since the Bb connection didn't work right initially, for updates of new stuff in Bb.

i can see that it would be pretty useful for students with a course on Blackboard. if they live their lives in Fb, all they have to do is update BbSync to see links to new discussion board postings, new materials posted by the instructor, new grades, etc. none of that is displayed in Fb, but students can easily click the links they see in Fb to go straight to new materials in their Bb course(s). (so obviously BbSync is the app i added to my apps list -- it took me a while though to realize that the apps links are always listed at the left of my Fb screen.)

i set my privacy settings to be pretty darn private, but i did put up my photo and post greetings on the wall. i also took this opportunity (working in the Flock browser which supports all kinds of Web 2.0 features) to add the Fb search engine to my Flock setup.

since i'm a great admirer of the New Media Consortium and their annual New Horizon reports, i decided to join that group. (i wish we could discuss and use these reports as a regular part of our work in TASC!) Though web 2.0 stuff can be time-consuming, with the rewards not always obvious (the inner skeptic here), i'm actually looking forward to this promise from the NMC group on Fb: "We will use this space for early release of news, announcements and more from the NMC."

firefox is my main browser for most things at work. when i learned of a Fb extension for firefox last month, i added in that plugin, which gives me a whole Fb toolbar at the top of the firefox window. of course that toolbar includes the Fb search window too.

it's fascinating how all these web 2.0 tools are connecting into each other. that i like, even if i choose to keep my social activities to a minimum and my privacy setting private. in fact, i've been hearing about OpenID, which apparently provides a single ID to a variety of these different tools. i have already tried to standardize my username and password as much as possible for all these web 2.o sites, so OpenID might just be the next step!

Exploring iTunesU

i want to do this optional part first, to get the consumer's perspective before trying to produce a podcast. i downloaded iTunes a couple years ago and listened to a few podcasts then and over the years, but never really got into subscribing or checking back to see what was new.

i've just now explored some classical music options in the general store part (you have to pay for them, it appears), then went to iTunesU where i checked out a couple categories -- Language offerings as well as Teaching and Education. i downloaded a couple randy pausch talks but haven't figured out yet where they downloaded to. (later found them under my Movies.)

i'm figuring out that Radio is another way to catch streaming radio stations (i usually tune in by way of Realplayer). channel surfing is even easier, since i don't have to save favorite stations, and the menu on iTunes Radio is already set up! but there are fewer choices overall.

i'm also looking at iTunesU with an eye to how we might develop the UK site. i went to see what various institutions were doing. the ones labeled New are content to start with 12-20 offerings. it strikes me that it would be good to develop the look and feel of "covers" so that UK has a recognizable identity. it also helps to design these so they are colorful and appealing (and legible!!) as thumbnails. i suppose UK PR will handle this side of things.

just figured out how to get the timestamp of my postings into the right timezone via Settings! yeah!

before closing out here, i need to report that i've been playing with my Apple Remote for the first time -- viewed a couple movie trailers, figured out the various menus, and actually watched a vodcast that i'd subscribed to way back when -- Ask the Techies. i just watched their presentation on Firefox 3 and picked up a new trick or two!

Play week -- Flickr

my second new experience for this week is Flickr. i had a hard time creating a Yahoo account, and couldn't get it to go through until the fourth try. -- must have had trouble reproducing the anti-spam letters at the end!

i wanted to try Flickr because i've had some digital photos for couple years that i wanted to show to a friend out in california. so this seems like the perfect tool for that. before trying to post my own photos, i explored some geo-tagged shots and enjoyed various viewer comments!

i finally connected to Flickr and created a related account there. then it was pretty easy to upload a batch of 26 photos all at once. i added only a few descriptions, since the file names are already descriptive for friends and family who are in the know! i set pretty strict privacy standards, but will now mail out my new flicker URL to three friends, two in the pictures and a third who knows them both!

Play week -- RollYo

Last week, or even two weeks ago, i created my own Searchroll to look up words in 6 different Romanian-English dictionaries. i also created a RollBar bookmarklet that sits on my personal toolbar in Flock, and that gives me ready access to my new combo search engine.

since most of the dictionaries are not set to accept searches this way, only two really work correctly to bring up requested definitions. so my first effort is not a huge success, but it's curious nonetheless.

i thought i created an account, but the rollyo site doesn't let me login or get a forgotten password. however, when i bring up the Rollyo site via my Flock browser, it does remember the Rollyo i created and lists it right there among the starter options.

i can't seem to find my Searchroll if i use another browser, so i can't provide a URL here.
other users might or might not be able to search for my "Romanian-English dictionaries."

in the process of doing all this, i found that others' Searchrolls can be interesting and helpful. romanianmedia, for example, provides links to all kinds of current topics in Romania.

social bookmarking

i'll skip the Digg and Delicious options, since what i'm really trying to do is get a better handle on social bookmarking in Scholar, the Bb site for social bookmarking.

last week i read through the support pages for Scholar and tried to activate a course connection. the problem was that i was on my BbAdmin account, and so got a bunch of the wrong courses associated with Scholar, when what i wanted was the courses associated with my claire (instructor) account. i wrote to Bb to ask how to delete those unwanted courses, but have not heard back yet.

in the meantime, i added a new web resource (Countdown Guide for Planning Online/Distance Degrees) and decided that I should try to add more such instructional resources!

Not the most productive day

It's hard to get much done in this web 2.0 world, even if you multi-task! (or perhaps because of multi-tasking). Today I thought I'd learn more about Scholar, Blackboard's bookmark-sharing site. Got started on that, but was immediately distracted by emails from Bb instructors. Then tried to catch up on emails from PB wiki (one a day, with tips to get started). Got distracted there by the Universal Edit Button offered as a Firefox extension -- downloaded and installed that on both Firefox and Flock (mac side). Checked Facebook and finally realized that Apps are listed/linked on the left. Wanted to start reading some blogs, but before doing that, decided to delete a few I'd subscribed to overhastily. Never did get any blogs read. Oh well, maybe tomorrow....

Creating a wiki

The Case Western wiki is quite slick, as is the one at Brown. They no doubt created these using SharePoint. I recall hearing Greg Franseth talk about using SharePoint to create public websites, and now I see better what he was talking about. Sounds like the CWU one announces itself as a wiki and invites participation and edits from all and sundry (if they have a cwu account).

I looked at some of the background info for PBwiki before creating my own. Once I had my account (and before editing) I tried to explore some of the starter links for tutorials and such, but none of them worked for me, perhaps because I'm on a Mac. I did bookmark my wiki as well as the related help site (getsatisfaction).

In creating my first page, I inadvertently skipped the step of naming the page, then found I could not go back to rename it. Adding a comment to answer my question was quite easy.

I'm curious about how businesses could use wikis for project management. Perhaps it's the wiki component of SharePoint that would support project mgt at UK....??

As a former tech editor, I've already edited several pages in Wikipedia where I found typos, but I certainly haven't tried to update or correct anyone's content!

Here's my new wiki at http://clearing.pbwiki.com/
At some point I saw directions for making a live link on the pbwiki site, but then when I needed them, I could no longer find them. So my Mahara URL is not live. And i didn't get any satisfaction by going to the getsatisfaction site, which does not appear to be readily searchable.

I'm curious as to why my blog posts get a timestamp that is two hours behind the time when I actually post.

Setting up Bloglines

I set up Bloglines on the same day as I played with Vodpod, and felt a bit overwhelmed by all the new stuff. I stopped there and decided to just sleep on it all!

Getting the Subscription button set up at work was not hard at all, but it doesn't seem to work from home. When I try to drag the Sub button for Firefox, I just get a barred circle. Hmmm.

Whether I use the button at work or subscribe manually from home, it's a great feature. I'm already subscribed to 9 feeds. But who ever finds time to keep up with them all?? Maybe these can replace the email listservs I used to monitor every day.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

A very nice list from Jane Hart, a savvy lady in the UK (but not UK
as we think of it)! Click the red links to see why people voted as they did.

http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/top100.html

Check out the rest of Jane's site too -- she's collected lots of good info
related to tech tools for learning.