the server is dead

The server on which all my internet activity depended (and 30,000 other businesses) closed its doors on Wed morning leaving everyone stranded. Only the moodle site sitting alone on another server was accessible to those not dependent on an isp using Veridas in Qld.

I never thought it possible that I would suffer internet withdrawal symptoms during three days of no emails or access to the net. Three days of emails sent to me but not received are now floating out there somewhere in cyberspace.

Such is life.

PS this window only lasted an hour. The service dropped out again until the next wed- late in the day. A total of 8 days off line. The churning of the website and adsl acount took that long.

more things to remember on podcasting

another link not to lose track of:
'Talking to the World in 15 minutes - An introduction to Podcasting'. https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/meeting.jnlp?suid=M.A1D312E1A18DE24E9EC4B286C71163

and to the comment by Johnny on my last post, thankyou.
I am particularly interested in making use of my eMac at home (saves carrying home the toshiba laptop every day) so the related software which operates on system 10.3 would be useful information.

podcasting equipment and technology hints

selected bits from a range of edna posts on sep 18 under the forum
Re: Podcasting: follow up and more with Peter and Michael

Re: Podcasting: Equipmentby Rosa Ochoa - Monday, 18 September 2006, 10:36 PM (Rosa uses podcasting in a blog for teaching ESL
Rosa says
Hi Michael & all,I use podomatic only for the students' podcasts, but often I import onto podomatic mp3 files done with Audacity/iriver.For my other podcasts I use an iriver mp3 player (with a good microphone). I edit the files with Audacity or with Adobe Audition 1.5 (which allows me to mix music a bit better than Audacity).The biggest problem I face is the fact that we can't use podomatic at TAFE to record. Not many students try and do it by themselves at home.

Sue waters says
When ever I want to learn a new technology I find the best way is to just do it:
I attended a podcasting workshop at Westone
Listened to lots of podcasts by lecturers and teachers to work out what does/doesn't work (trust me recording a podcast when you are jogging doesn't!) - and I have to agree with the staff from Westone that you do need to consider some good practice principles when recording podcasts
Selected a topic that would be interesting to podcast (I had trouble working out practical applications for podcasting so decided to interview my students and see what sort of material they would be interested in if it was podcasted) - amazingly discovered that I knew more about podcasting
Recorded the interviews with my PDA
Edited the interviews with Audicity and then mixed them together with music using PodProducer
Initially uploaded podcast into www.odeo.com however Odeo uses a Flash player that does not like files edited with Audicity or PodProducer (makes podcasts sound like a Chipmunk)
All my podcasts are at www.podomatic.com and then I link them across to Odeo so that I can use their nice flash player in my blog site. Odeo does not have a problem if files are first feed throught podomatic provided that they are mixed with PodProducer not Odeo.

I will decipher this all later.

audioblogging and podcasting

Just when I thought that I was starting to catch up, along come odeo and dekita.

Caught up with these through some postings on Edna forums.
http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=9360
and Lud's site

http://www.odeo.com/channel/115838/view

This is more than I can cope with at this stage. The issues of technical skill development and more importantly, bandwidth as refered to previously with podcast attempts, make it all just a little in the too hard basket for this month.

I need to get my teeth into editing the pods I have - one has a very loud and sudden sneeze which needs to be edited out!!! First things first.

Hole in the wall learning of IT skills

Just did not want to lose the thoughts in this article. Not directly relevant to the project but ........
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/5865

Where/how do you find these articles Peter??

ARED project CD

CD arrived today. ordered from the Flexible frameworks site.
http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/home/projects/2005/cache/offonce/pid/121

CD of a frameworks project to help produce software which makes it easy to create online learning resources for programs, easy enough to use for regular trainers to use. ie create your own learning objects.

The commercial software out there like Metamorphosis is so expensive so this is worth following the progress of.

Definitely phase 3 of this learning journey.

The revenge of unintended consequences

It really must be Friday after a long week. This rabbit trail really has a verrrrrrrry interesting new smell to be followed. Everyone refers to this article - I would really like to track down a copy and see if it really is that interesting.

Tenner, E. (1997). Why things bite back: Technology and the revenge of unintended consequences. NY: Alfred A. Knopf

One writer said (Journal of Technical Education):
Nonetheless, there are some potential unintended consequences, akin to Tenner's (1997) treatise on the subject. In the wake of this new design software, the problem-solving process might never go beyond the virtual world of the computer. Even modeling systems like Lego blocks have crossed the line into the virtual world, as evidenced in the article by Kurt Michael in this issue. Students can now virtually model a modeling system that, itself, is intended to model the real world.

Found this as a reference to another article published this issue of Innovate, The “Imponderable Bloom”:Reconsidering the Role of Technology in Education by Robert Sand

About to see how good Google really is. I have now found 5 other articles which refers to the first one, but does not give me the article itself, maybe because it is now 9 years old???

Much later..............

Google is Ok when you type in the correct thing to search for. It is a book. Found a review on it. If I have intrigued you, here is the link to the book review. He has written some other out there stuff as well. Like I said - it is Friday of a very long week!!!!!

Best Practices for Online Business Education

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/246
One for the reading forum

LMS management links

http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=9032
Thankyou Val for this lunchtime reading today.

server sorted, finally, sort of

Almost everything seems to be sorted. The backup process has been automated. All that is left is to test the waters with automatic emails for forum postings but to test that, we need some forum postings!

Two little niggles but we can at least operate. why the forums are not sending out emails when there are postings and the automatic backup is not that automatic. Maybe when we upgrade to version 1.6 later this year the situation will resolve itself.

background theory in pod form

http://www.taketimeradio.com/contents.htm

I have already listened to several pods from this site. Some general and interesting PD material for VTE people, not just elearning specific.

Different voices, different spaces

I have just taken delivery of the CD with reports of soome of the 2005 Flexible Learning framework research reports. More reading sitting up with the computer.............

The main interest in the CD for me is the strategies and resources for teachers/facilitators to help overcome the social isolation factors experienced by online learners.

CD available via website http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/home/projects/2005/NewPractices/pid/126