marilyn the librarilyn blog

Podcast reflections

2006-03-10T19:41:00.000-08:00

This author had heard of podcasting but did not really know very much about it. So it was with interest that she listened to Gardner Campbell and the podcast entitled “There’s Something in the Air.” Much WAS learned about podcasts, both in content and process. This paper will offer reflections on this amazing and potentially dynamic technology.

Podcasting, a portmanteau, or a cut and paste word, is derived from “ipod” and “broadcasting,” and is relative newcomer to the world of technology. Utilizing really simple syndication, a podcast is a prerecorded message which is published, often subscribed to, and electronically downloaded at the user’s convenience or request. How cool is that? Podcasting is a voice that comes to the user, like this author. In some ways, it resembles other voices that come; it is like the television and radio which consist of voices that communicate information. And yet it takes the voice, which Campbell reminds his listeners, has long held a fascinating appeal, into the twenty-first century. This is accomplished by enabling speakers to prepare content for varying purposes for specific or general audiences. And it is the specificity and personalizing that sets podcasting apart.

Podcasting offers the personal qualities of a homemade tape recording in that podcasts can be produced by “local” contributors. In Campbell’s podcast, the fictitious college student listened to a podcast from her Arabic class group. And she also enjoyed the enthusiastic science professor’s previews. These podcasts from people the student knew enabled her to be informed, to focus, and to connect with her community. But the communication community can be much larger, and the listener may not be acquainted with the speaker. One can, for example, listen to podcasts of the daily news, listen to a lecture from an instructor in another state, or simply bask in the thoughtful and reflective readings of works by an eminent poet. Even listening to the news via a podcast would feel more personal than reading a newspaper, watching the television, or listening to the radio. At least this author imagines this would be the case. It is almost like mail, which comes right TO one, not AT one. As the world gets busier, it often gets less personal, and perhaps, podcasting will foster global camaraderie.

Podcasts thus offer the listener information. And the information is available with minimal effort. The user can program a computer to download the podcast, often, according to Campbell, while the user is sleeping. It then can be transferred to a personal device. Thus obtaining the content is easy, and that is good. The podcast can be heard at the user’s convenience. Furthermore, it can portable when the user employs an ipod for the listening session. Podcasting is as easy as listening to tunes on one’s ipod or, in the “dark ages,” a Discman. The author is a stickler for using time wisely, so listening to information in transit is appealing.

Another appealing feature of podcasts is their replay feature. Like tape recorders that can be stopped and replayed, so podcasts can be interrupted, rewound, and re-listened to for clarification and/or reinforcement. This author did that several times during the listening of Campbell’s podcast, and she benefited from this aspect of podcasting.

Gardner Campbell mentioned that podcasting was not generally produced by amateurs, but they were not too difficult to learn to do. This is encouraging to those of us who might be considering the ways podcasting might be included in a present or future setting. This author is going to let the tech people take care of the “bit depth” and “sampling rates” for right now, although she does understand that “higher is better.” And any podcast production would have to keep bandwidth in mind. Grabbing too much bandwidth for podcasting would probably not be well received by the tech department. Still it behooves the twenty-first century librarian to be aware of the latest technology and to be experienced with production. This author is going to poke around on the web for sources of information about production in the near future.

Another cool thing about podcasts is the potential educational uses. Even more than blogs, podcasts seem to hold educational promise since they can contain significant quantities of content, like lectures, test review content, literature, and even news, which can be incorporated, consolidated, and made easily available to students. These are most likely podcasts produced by the instructor or some other erudite individual. As the Quiz Bowl sponsor for a middle school, the author just thought that maybe podcasts could be a way to provide team members with trivia for them to listen to and hopefully remember, such as the presidents or explorers, for example. And what about special education students… those who have trouble reading? Could podcasts be used to summarize information that they could listen to prepare them for tests? As an almost-middle school librarian, the author thinks podcasting might be a way to provide information about the library, or some facet thereof. How much more valuable it might be to “talk” to students instead of relying on the written word or on a website.

But perhaps even more beneficial might be podcasts produced by the students themselves. Group projects might include creating a podcast, for example. In Campbell’s example, Jenny, the college student, listened to her Arabic class group via a podcast. Maybe the group will decide to go a step farther and create a podcast, making it available to the whole class. Perhaps a high school drama club podcasts the script of their play for the cast to listen to to get timing and entrance cues down pat. The possibilities for student-made podcasts are like the world to Christopher Columbus- vast and unexplored.

Has anyone considered the negative aspects of podcasting? Can they be used to cheat on tests? Is this just another here-today-gone-tomorrow technology like the beta format for movies? Or are podcasts another invasive technology invading personal space? This author does not know the answers. In terms of usefulness, it is suspected that it will take a little while for a convenient system of podcasting access and cataloging will be in place and organized. Local pods can be marketed, but the ones produced for the global audience will need to be listed to enable users to find them.

Another possible frustration of podcasting is, indeed, the newness of it. There are no training manuals, no Podcasting for Dummies, so educators and others who try it may find it does not always work and then be stuck trying to figure out why. Podcasting is yet another technology librarians need to understand. Unfortunately, the librarian is expected to be the one who knows how to solve glitches, and that may or may not be realistic.

Some might think a potentially negative feature is the need for an additional device to be purchased and be responsible for. And will schools allow ipods in school? The author’s school does not presently permit them to be here. In short, time and experience will be the best indicators of whether this seemingly user friendly technology will truly catch on and have a positive impact of the students and general public who make up the global populace of this century.

Were there any surprises? The author was surprised at the rate that podcasting is increasing in popularity. Podcasting is seemingly growing by leaps and bounds. Certainly the growth numbers mentioned in the assigned podcast are indicative of success. Campbell mentioned the fact that as of April 2005, six million adults had listened to a podcast, and who knows how many young adults had? The number of hits on Google, another indicator of interest, is also multiplying at an astounding rate. The author is going to take a break from writing this paper to explore. Be back soon. A Google search yielded some eighty-five million hits, so obviously, there were lots of sites to explore. Several were tried, including profcasts and poempresents mentioned by Campbell. The author enjoyed some poems read on a podcast, which seemed to open fine one day, but disappeared the next. The author is not sure why this happened, and other podcasts from the same site would not open either. There will be time to explore another day.

Frankly, podcasting is a little overwhelming and sometimes a bit frustrating. And yet, this author is excited about the prospects and possibilities that podcasting offers. In this age of educating people according to their learning style, podcasting presents an exciting new way to meet the needs of the auditory learner. It offers a personalized and portable means of communicating, which is potentially comforting and user friendly. Just like the space program was charged with exploring the new frontiers of the worlds beyond, educators, including librarians, are charged with exploring new frontiers in technology. Five, four, three, two, one- blast off!!

Birthdays February 19-25

2006-02-20T15:31:00.000-08:00

February 19
Nicolas Copernicus, Polish astronomer, 1473
Prince Andrew, Duke of York, 1960
February 20
Ansel Adams, photographer, 1902
Sidney Poitier, actor, 1927
Charles Barkley, basketball player, 1963
February 21
W.H. Auden, poet, 1907
Erma Bombeck, journalist, 1927
February 22
George Washington, president, 1732
Rembrandt Peale, artist, 1778
Frederic Chopin, Polish composer and pianist, 1810
James Lowell, essayist and poet, 1819
Lord Baden-Powell, founder of Boy Scouts, 1857
Heinrich Hertz, German scientist, 1857
Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet, 1892
February 23
Samuel Pepys, English author, 1633
George Handel, German composer, 1685
William E. B. DuBois, founder of NAACP, 1868
February 24
Wilhelm Grimm, German storyteller, 1786
Winslow Homer, artist, 1836
Honus Wagner, baseball player, 1874
Chester William Nimitz, commander in WWII, 1885
Steven Jobs, businessman and co-founder of Apple Company, 1955
February 25
Pierre Renoir, French painter, 1841
Enrico Carous, opera singer, 1873
Herbert Marx, (Zeppo) one of Marx brothers, 1901
Jim Bachus, actor, 1913
George Harrison, member of Beatles, 1943

Favorite and frequently used sites

2006-01-29T05:59:00.000-08:00

Lots more birthdays are available at: http://www.historyorb.com/today/birthdays.php
I often explore the archives at: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
Of course, I use http://www.lisp.wayne.edu/
I love: http://www.ebay.com/
And then there is: http://www.sidebothaminn.com/

Tech Tock

2006-01-22T15:00:00.000-08:00

Nancy Willard, writing in an LM_NET posting had what I think might be a good idea to consider for school library internet use. Here's what she is suggesting basically: There should be separate standards for internet use.
1) Students should be allowed, with teacher permission, to go to restricted sites but only in the context of a specific lesson under the guidance of a teacher. Students could be exempted if their parents objected. As Nancy says, "How are they going to learn about online hate and how to recognize and avoid it if they do not look at it?"
2) Students should be allowed to visit sites that are non-educational or entertaining, again, only in the context of an educational activity. Case in point: this year my Future City team was delayed for more than a month because the school computers could not be configured to allow SimCity, a gaming site, to be accessed. Finally, they installed some computers that were not networked for us to use, but we lost valuable time. Doubtless, there are other sites that teachers (with good reason)could allow their students to visit an creative educational experience.
3) Students should be allowed internet access for personal high quality research. again with some supervision. If a student has the right to look for a book or magazine on a topic he or she is interested in, shouldn't he/she have the right to look on the internet for information also? Now here, the critics might say, the abusers will have a field day. But, if students are, early on, taught the importance of critical and responsible choices,they are learning important skills, especially nowadays.
4) And, of course, students should be allowed access to the internet for class-related assignments, ones specified by the teacher.
I think this hierarchy makes a lot of sense. It puts the responsibility on the teachers, the librarian, and most certainly on the student. This system should work in the library's computer lab since students will be monitered by the teacher and on the general computers in the library for categories three and four. Maybe a student would be asked to fill out a simple form which indicates he/she is using the library computers for category three or four, so the librarian knows the student's purpose for being on the internet.
Your thoughts?

Tech Tock

2006-01-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

I see several other blogs which also focused on internet filters as the topic, so I decided to veer off to the side and consider other school library internet issues. Every year our school distributes forms in August and requires students to have an AUP signed. Every year we stuggle to get the forms returned. I am thinking we should come up with a new plan(s).Maybe we could include the AUP in the registration packet and the parents just sign it along with all the other "beginning of the year" forms. On LM_NET I read about one school which required the students to have a form signed once for each school chunk. That is to say, once for elementary, once for middle school, and once for high school. That would cut down on paperwork and some headaches. Or maybe we could try a negative AUP. Only if the parent DID NOT want the student to have access would a form need to be signed.

Our school does not have "student accounts" that a student must log into before internet use. They just log on in the library as a "user." If your school uses an account system, what are the advantages and/or disadvantages?

Anyone out there with other suggestions of what works or doesn't work for your school library with regard to AUPs and internet use?

Tech Tock

2006-01-21T12:30:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you will hear me vent from time to time about internet filters which are applied to school computers. I understand, although I don't completely agree with, the need for filters. However, my school district's filtering system has many faults. These include consistant filters for students from kindergarten through twelfth grade (how fair is that for senior research?) and the absence of unfiltered computers for teacher use. And then there is the matter of the virtually nonexistant possibility of requesting specific sites be available for student use.
This week at school I was researching Dante's Inferno for a lesson on medieval literature. I was looking for specific punishments for residents to illustrate Dante's "the punishment fits the crime" policy. To my astonishment, a four-syllable word starting with "mother**" appeared in the document, unfiltered and complete. What's up with this?
Clearly, the filters are NOT filtering the potentially objectionable, and from past experience, I know they ARE filtering valuable and educational sites. District librarian have been trying unsuccessfully to make changes in the system. Any ideas?

Marilyn the Librarilyn

2006-01-14T10:12:00.000-08:00

Introduction
I am a Gifted and Talented teacher for sixth graders in Michigan and a full time graduate Library and Information Science. I have created this blog as a partial fulfillment of my first tech class. Ta da!! Here's a little about me. I am the owner of a bed and breakfast inn and the hostess in a small restaurant on the weekends. When I had free time, I liked to knit, make quilts, garden, go to antique stores and garage sales, and travel. I like to cook. In fact, I have been the "kitchen manager" (aka head cook) in summer camps for fifteen years off and on. I also love to read children's books. I am looking forward to the announcement of the Caldecott and Newbury winners. My personal library contains most of the winners and many honor books. Just today, I read St. George and the Dragon in conjunction with a lesson on Literature in the middle ages.