Welcome

Hopefully the resources posted here will assist educators that want to leverage pervasive computing and pervasive connectivity to more effectively and efficiently engage students in powerful learning activities. Materials are presented here under a specific Creative Commons license. Feel free to use these materials with respect for that license.

March 07, 2006

Frequently Asked Questions (and some answers, too!)

I get a lot of email from educators all over the world asking lots of questions about what we are doing at Mabry Middle School. I always feel guilty when I can't spend the time answering the questions beyond cursory generalizations because I want schools all over the world to catch on to how technology can enhance the learning experiences of students.

Therefore, I am compiling a growing collection of questions and answers here in this post. As I get email, I can reference the permalink to the answer in this post! As I get additional questions or have the time to add more substance to the answers, I can edit this post. I would encourage you to monitor the trackback for updates. Once you start on this journey, you will be amazed at where you go and how exciting the trip will be!

Continue reading "Frequently Asked Questions (and some answers, too!)"

Posted by Tim Tyson at 04:10 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2006

Washington Presentation

If you attended Dr. Tyson's presentation at CoSN in Washington DC today and would like a video podcast of the presentation slides, you can download them at this link.

Click above to download and then play in iTunes

None of the podcasts he had in the presentation are in this video podcast (which only contains the slides and no audio). However, you can view the podcasts directly at Podcast Central.

Posted by Tim Tyson at 03:15 PM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2006

Podcasting Tips

This post offers a video podcast that contains tips for making all of your podcasts more effective. This video podcast is intended as a resource for Podcasting 102.

Click above to download and play in iTunes.

Continue reading "Podcasting Tips"

Posted by Tim Tyson at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

Podcasting 101

Purpose
Welcome to Podcasting 101, a mini-course in how to use GarageBand, from iLife '06, to quickly and easily create your basic audio podcast.

Required Tools
To complete this mini-course you will need:

• GarageBand from iLife '06
• About 20 minutes
• USB Mic (not required but highly recommended)
• Headset or external speakers (not required but highly recommended)

Provided Materials
These materials are available for download to help you accomplish our purpose:

• Podcasting 101 pdf (Your step by step directions)
• Sample Podcast Script (To read for your recording. Nothing brilliant here. I'm providing this recorded script because this recording be used to add pictures and music in Podcasting 102.)
• The completed podcast project (So you can hear the finished product)

Podcasting 101

Sample Podcast Script

Completed Project

Posted by Tim Tyson at 07:02 AM | Comments (0)

Resource for Podcasting 101

This is a video podcast of the pdf instructions for creating a basic audio podcast. This presentation can be placed on your video iPod. This resource is designed to accompany Podcasting 101.

Continue reading "Resource for Podcasting 101"

Posted by Tim Tyson at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)

Podcasting 102

Purpose
Welcome to Podcasting 102, a mini-course in how to use GarageBand, from iLife '06, to easily enhance your basic audio podcast with pictures and music.

Required Tools
To complete this mini-course you will need:

• GarageBand from iLife '06
• About 45 minutes
• The pictures of the Rockies provided in this post
• Headset or external speakers (not required but highly recommended)

Provided Materials
These materials are available for download to help you accomplish our purpose:

• Podcasting 102 pdf (Your step by step directions)
• The pictures used in the project. (You will need to click on each picture to open the larger version in your browser. Then simply download each to your computer.)
• A download of the completed project

This tutor assumes you have already drug all of the provided pictures of the Rockies into iPhoto, created a Rockies album, and placed these photos in that album.

Podcasting 102 pdf

To optimize your downloads, do not download the small thumbnails you see bleow. Instead, first, click on each thumbnail to open the larger picture. Then, right click and download the larger picture. You will want to repeat this little process for each picture presented below.

Continue reading "Podcasting 102"

Posted by Tim Tyson at 06:30 AM | Comments (0)

Resource for Podcasting 102

This is a video podcast of the pdf instructions for creating an enhanced podcast that includes pictures, chapters, links, and music. This presentation can be placed on your video iPod. This resource is designed to accompany Podcasting 102.

Continue reading "Resource for Podcasting 102"

Posted by Tim Tyson at 06:18 AM | Comments (0)

Podcasting 502

Prerequisites
Yes, this is a more advanced course. But if you are patient and pay careful attention to every detail of the RSS file, you can do this successfully. If this is too overwhelming for you today, get a friend who likes to write web pages to help you. If you can write a web page and successfully post it to the internet, you can figure this out. If your RSS file does not validate, go get something to drink (perhaps with caffeine), and come back and check every single character in your file--literally!

You must know how to FTP up to a web server in order to complete this successfully. Knowledge of HTML is very helpful but not required. Knowledge of XML would also be helpful but is not required. I do not pretend to know XML at all and was able to do this successfully.

Purpose
Welcome to Podcasting 502, a mini-course in how to create an RSS file, containing the metatags required by the iTunes store, for your podcast.

Required Tools
To complete this mini-course you will need:

• A Text Editor (such as Text Edit which is already on your Mac, or BBedit or SKedit)
• About 60 minutes
• Some patience with detail work
• An internet connection
• A server hosting account
• An FTP program (such as Transmit for the Mac)

Provided Materials
These materials are available for download to help you accomplish our purpose:

• Podcasting 502 pdf (This file contains your step by step directions as well as links to additional resources. The file contains the actual XML code from the index.xml file used for Podcast Central at MabryOnline. This code is presented in such a way as to serve as a template for your own file. You can study the code, compare it to what you see at Podcast Central both on MabryOnline.org and the iTunes store. Reverse engineering is a very effective way to learn!)

Podcasting 502 pdf

Posted by Tim Tyson at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)