Colin Rhinesmith

As I mentioned earlier, I’ll be participating in a session on podcasting in education on Friday at the MGP2006 conference at UMass Amherst, beginning tomorrow afternoon.

To keep my presentation as close to 5 minutes as possible, I’ve decided to focus on three key points:

• Podcasting is a conversation
• Podcasting in education should invite participation
• Podcasting in education should increase access to knowledge

Because RSS is the contributing factor to what makes a podcast a podcast, I will highlight three main points to help encourage the ideas stated above:

• Cross-posting
• Cross-listing
• And more on syndication (FeedBurner)

Cross-posting

As a podcaster for AudioBerkman, I like cross-posting to our AudioBerkman blog at Ourmedia. I do this because I like the Ourmedia’s mission (and their awesome Digital Learning Center) and also because it increases the chance that Ourmedia users will come across AudioBerkman podcasts.

Cross-listing

One of the great tips I picked up from Podcasting Hacks, was what I call “cross-listing” or getting your podcast listed in a number of podcast directories on the web. This increases your chance of people finding your podcast.

More on Syndication (FeedBurner)

I love FeedBurner, because it not only keeps track of who and how many (or few) people are downloading your podcasts, but it provides a number of ways to bring more visitors to your podcast.

Also, put your educational podcast on a blog (we’re working on it). It does two important things: (1) it gives you a quick and easy way to distribute your content, through RSS–increasing access to knowledge, and (2) it invites participation and learning from others through the use of comment sections.

That’s my three cents worth. I look forward to leaving the rest of the time open for discussion with the audience and to learn from them about how they view the role of podcasting in education. I hope people at the conference (and visiting on the web) will contribute their comments, questions, ideas, etc. on the session wiki.

I plan to record audio and video from the session. I will post links to both here and at the session wiki. I hope this will help to include those who were not able to attend and also to encourage conversation beyond the session.

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I spoke with my graduate advisor, Jan Roberts-Breslin at Emerson College today, who registered me for my classes, in the fall. I’m sooo excited. Here’s my schedule:

Emerson College Schedule of Classes for Fall 2006

Course Code: VM603A Title: RESEARCH METHODS
Instructor: FRY, DONALD Credits: 4.00
Day/Time: T 6:00-9:45

Course Code: VM613C Title: FOUNDATIONS OF IMAGE & SOUND PRODUCTION
Instructor: STAFF Credits: 4.00
Day/Time: W 6:00-9:45

Course Code: VM618A Title: NEW MEDIA PRODUCTION I
Instructor: KELLEHER, DAVID Credits: 4.00
Day/Time: R 6:00-9:45

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(crosspost from acmeboston.wordpress.com)

Watch the video

This video is the introduction to a panel, titled “Human Hybrids: Creating a Global Identity“, that took place during the ID Mashup Conference at Harvard Law School on June 20, 2006. The video features co-founder and CEO of ASAFO Media LLC Derrick Ashong, Slam Poet Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo, Jair of Imaginify Community Network, and Jamaican Educator Marvin Hall, Halls of Learning.

Panel description from the conference website:

“In a world where people are increasingly able to connect across cultural and geographic boundaries, what is the future of human identity? Has technology equalized the transmission of culture, or amplified the voices of some to the increased exclusion of others? In the formation of a global identity, what will be the criteria that define “who we are” and who we hear?”

Time: 6 min. 59 sec.

Please note: This movie file is 30mb and may take some time to load.

This is video that I shot using my little handheld video camera. The full length audio podcast from this panel will be available later this week for download at AudioBerkman.

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by acmeboston with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

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I’m working on my presentation today for the MGP2006 conference this week at UMass Amherst. I will be speaking on a panel on Friday with Bentley College Profs. Elizabeth Ledoux and Mark Frydenberg, titled “Morphing from Music: iPods Enter the Classroom”.

I built out the wiki page for the panel yesterday. We’re hoping that folks will contribute to the wiki during the panel by adding their notes, ideas, questions, suggestions, etc.

My contribution to the discussion will be to talk briefly how the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School (where I work) has embraced podcasting as a tool for education both inside and outside the classroom. I am only planning to speak for 5 minutes, in order to leave plenty of time for discussion.

I am asking some of the following questions (which I’ve also added to the wiki),

• How are new media tools like podcasting changing our understanding of what a classroom is?

• How can more teachers, students, and educational institutions be encouraged to use and embrace podcasting as a tool through which more access to ideas, skills, and knowledge can be shared and built upon?

• How can a local classroom use podcasting and blogs to create global classrooms and online coversations with those who enjoy access to these resources?

• How can students and educators use podcasting to help bring more people online to bridge both the local and global digital divides?

I hope to also get a recording of the panel (either audio or video, or both) that I will make available here, following the discussion.

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I am excited to announce that I am working with the organizers of this year’s International Wikimedia Conference, through my job at the Berkman Center. I will be interfacing with the Media Services Department at Harvard Law School to help implement and manage the audio, visual, and webstreaming/recording needs.

Here’s the description of the conference from the Conference Wiki:

“Wikimania 2006, the second annual international Wikimedia conference, will be held August 4–6 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, within the Harvard Law School campus. Both a scientific conference and a community event, Wikimania brings together members of the various Wikimedia projects in order to exchange ideas, build relationships, and report on research and project efforts. It also provides an opportunity for Wikimedians and the general public alike to meet and share ideas about free and open source software, free knowledge initiatives, and wiki projects worldwide. More about Wikimania…Please explore the conference program, register to attend, read more about the conference, or start a discussion about a related topic. See you in Cambridge this August! Volunteer opportunities are available.”

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I’ve been working at the ID Mashup conference this week for the Berkman Center.

Here’s the description from the website:

“The Identity Mashup Conference is a three-day event hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. The goal of the conference is to explore the role of identity systems (tools that let users and merchants know whom to trust on the web) in furthering or inhibiting privacy, civil liberties and new forms of civic participation and commerce.”

There’s a great site online that was created for the conference. It’s called the Identity Mashup Community Hub. The site has a number of excellent ways for attendees and folks online to participate.

I posted all the audio from day one (yesterday) at AudioBerkman. I hope to post the rest of the (available) audio and video by the end of the week.

The conference schedule is here and here.

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Steve shares his thoughts on this year’s Vloggercon:

“The second vloggercon had a two day schedule and was filled with panels of speakers, buffered by 15 minute breaks between them.

The conference location was only available from 12:00 - 6:00, so that shortened the time we had to spend together and magnified the urgency of trying to keep everything on time.”

. . . compares it to last year’s event:

“The first vloggercon was planned, named and held on a whim. Early vloggers just wanted to meet face to face. At hat time there were under 100 people putting video on blogs, and you could watch every single video from each person. The Yahoo! mailing list was manageable back then with a digestable number of messages.”

“This first vloggercon had a live video stream and IRC chat, and you can still go back and watch all the sessions online at: http://vloggercon.blogspot.com.”

. . . and talks about what he’d like to see for next year:

“I’d like to see the next vloggercon run all day, include more of the un-conference style discussions, and include more sponsored cocktail parties where there’s an opportunity for more mingling.”

“The revolution continues.” - Steve Garfield, “Vloggercon Thoughts“

Thanks, Steve!

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Nicole’s set up a great new blog as “an archive and forum for my study of tactical and digital media activism and the in-built politics of new digital technologies”.

She’s developing her project online and allowing others to follow her ideas along the way. This is great. She has a page titled “workspace“, where she’s sharing notes on the project. It will be great to see how the project develops.

I am particularly excited about seeing this blog, with my recent thinking to blog grad school. I decided against trying to get permission from my teachers and the college to blog class notes beginning in the fall. Instead, I’ll take the time to blog short entries about each of my classes and share some of the key themes and knowledge from each of the classes.

I’m thinking about installing a seperate wordpress blog here on this site that will probably live at colinrhinesmith.com/gradschool. This will be a two-year only blog that will share my studies and projects from each one of my classes, along the way. I hope to share as much of what I am learning and discovering from my education at Emerson with those who care to stop by and following along. I’m looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I’ll be reading medi@tactics which I am sure will inform my thinking about my own studies begining in the fall.

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(cross posted from ACMEBoston)

I was talking with a friend of mine recently about how independent musicians and artists really need to start making some noise about the threats facing the Internet. This was mainly fueled by a recent article that I passed on written by Parul Desai from the Media Access Project. Looks like it’s finally starting to happen!

Save The Internet writes today that “An alliance of singer-songwriters has come together to urge fans to take action before Congress scraps Net Neutrality and harms independent music.”

The alliance has formed a band, The Broadband! Excellent.

The Broadband is Kay Hanley, Jill Sobule, and Michelle Lewis.

“Three singer/songwriters met at a Los Angeles recovery center for those suffering from internet-related anger issues. How could Congress vote to destroy one of the only good things left in America? This made no sense! How could so few people be enraged? What were people doing to keep network neutrality the law of the land?

They realized that they had found kindred spirits in one another and needed to work through their newfound political rage. Their counselor suggested that they could channel their frustration through song, interpretative dance, screaming or simply calling Congress over and over. When they discovered that Michelle was afraid of morons, they decided to just do the singing part. And thus The BroadBand was born.

God Save the Internet is their first outing. It will soon be sweeping the nation.”

Download the song, Save The Internet, and don’t forget about Access!

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Over at the MGP2006 blog, the organizers for the “Democracy & Independence: Sharing News & Politics in a Connected World” conference, June 29 - July 1, 2006 at UMass Amherst, are looking for feedback from participants. Here are some of the questions they’re asking:

• Are you attending MGP2006 in Amherst June 28-July 1? If so, what are your expectations?

• What are the key issues at the intersections of media, politics, education and technology?

• What do see yourself as bringing to the summit?

• What would you like to learn and take away?

• What do you want to see accomplished?

If you can’t make it to the conference, there will be a number of ways to participate on the Internet. There will be live audio and video webstreams of the conference, as well as flickr pics, blip.tv videos, and other social networking tools online that will allow people off site to participate in the gathering.

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