During the last couple of years I have been conducting a variety of podcasting and vodcasting workshops. There was always two elements that proved challenging for the particpants. One was the process of ftp and the other was vodcasting on a Windows platform. There is a nice solution to both of these dilemmas. In a nutshell it is as follows:

1. Record your video using a digital video camera and process the digital video using iMovie (Mac), Windows Movie Maker (Win), Adobe Premiere and so on. Yoiu could also record the video directly using a web cam or iSight (Mac).
2. Upload the video to a Blogger blog within a typical post.
3. Obtain the RSS feed address for the blog and subscribe to it using the “Subscribe To Podcast” menu item in iTunes. The video feed within the blog will be accessed by iTunes and the embedded videos will be downloaded.

You can set up a blog following these instructions and then create a vodcast by reading these instructions.

I use Google Reader to scan through a variety of education blogs. Tonight I set up two blogrolls on this page using the instructions on this Google blog. The interface is not brilliant but I managed to add “tags” to the relevant feeds. They became folders which I could then use as the basis for each blogroll. The fact that an OPML file is created as well is quite useful.

Further to my post below. Two other edubloggers have praised the video created by Michael Wesch and his students. Take in the alternative views of Steve Hargadon and Bud Hunt. Steve’s post has a link to another video by Michael Wesch. This was one of the videos that peppered a variety of presentations and workshops at the NavCon Conference. I cannot help but feel that I am doing the same thing in promoting each video yet via a different medium.

Kathy Schrock has evaluated a number of tools that can be utilised with the iPod touch in an educational setting. Her blog post, iPod touch online applications for education lists and describes 18 online sites that could be uitlised with the iPod Touch. A number are straightforward sites such as “This Day In History” while others, such as Listingly, can allow for more practical uses of the iPod Touch. Can you suggest any others?

I have been interested in the human-computer interface since the early 90s when I was undertaking my postgraduate studies in educational technology at the University of Wollongong. I read books by Tognazzini, Donald Norman and Brenda Laurel. I was reading articles by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid. I was working with HyperCard on the Mac designing interactive apps for use in the teaching of history. The design of useful and intuitive interfaces was interesting. The advent of html seemed such a backward step. Anyway, I digress.

Earlier this year I was browsing through the TED Talks web site and came across two presentations that demonstrate innovative human computer interfaces. I thought back to the interfaces of the eighties and nineties and it is true that not much has changed. Each demonstration speaks for itself. The first is by Jeff Han. The second is by Anand Agarawala. After viewing the demonstrations you cannot but help but desire to be working with each of those interfaces now.

Jeff Han

Anand Agarawala

Each presentation is enjoyable, informative and inspiring. Anand’s web site is here. Jeff Han’s new company is called Perceptive Pixel.