Carnegie Mellon University recently published a white paper on Podcasting. It examines the technology, its applications in educational settings and the pros and cons regarding its use in teaching and learning. Download the white paper here and then read Ken Ronkowitz’s critique here.

Was doing some additional research on Web 2.0 applications and I consulted some more articles focused upon the social networking app Twitter. This blog post endeavours to explain the purpose of Twiiter. This post reveals how a novel is being published, less than 140 characters at a time, using Twitter.

Steve Hargadon and Will Richardson have just blogged about the future of teaching. Their posts reflect on the evolution of students and the needs that they will generate in the future in terms of learning and teaching. “If we want students to be learners, the teachers and schools must be learners”. Steve’s account of the workshop on the future of teaching can be read at his blog. Will Richardson began his thoughts on the topic and he is yet to finish them.

While doing some research on Web 2.0 applications I came across a series of articles focused upon the social networking app Twitter. It is like a mini-blogging app. It allows you to deliver micro-chunks of data to users who have subscribed to your Twitter account. It allows you to post a maximum of 140 characters.

For those of you new to Twitter you might like to catch up with this Wikipedia article. A review of Twitter with an emphasis upon its possible uses and application can be read at the Infocult site. One can view the location of “Twitterers” live via this visual interface.

Educators are considering ways to use Twitter in teaching and learning settings. David Lee King puts forward some ideas here. Christopher D. Sessums has written a nice article and provided a set of useful links with his look at Twitter in education. David Warlick has posted some ideas as well. Alan Lew’s post is rich with some good ideas for educators. Finally Educause has published an article Seven Things You Should Know About Twitter that is well worth downloading as a pdf and reading.

There are a significant number of web based apps similar to Twitter and they can be explored via this link. One of the more significant of these apps is Jaiku. It is quite a powerful tool however I have found it slow to update the published feed. This article compares and contrasts Twitter and Jaiku. Two of the more interesting clones of Twitter include Yappd and MoodMill.

The NavCon2K7 conference is coming up in about 5 weeks. The Navcon2K7 Conference is a collaborative professional learning opportunity established by Australian Navigator Schools Consortium (Navcon) and hosted this year by the Catholic Schools Office (CSO) – Diocese of Broken Bay on the Central Coast of NSW.

I am perusing the eLearning strand workshops and as far as Web 2.0 and podcasting workshops go here is the breakdown… Six of the workshops feature a Web 2.0 aspect and three are focused upon podcasting and iPods. Some of the spotlights explore wWeb 2.0 and podcasting as well. Which should I attend is the question I must now consider?