ThatCamp Philadelphia: Podcasting In The Classroom

I ran a session on podcasting in the classroom at this year's ThatCamp Philadelphia. Because I ran the session, I did not take a ton of notes. Hopefully someone else posts more notes from the session.

  • Audacity is the go to for open source audio.
  • How do you send it back to students?
  • What about accessibility issues?
  • An idea to include a general message to class before each comment.
  • Students seem to be fascinated by how they stand versus other students and classes on average.
  • Could audio comments push comments to sound more positive/productive?
  • Question in room about how much students will “hear” in audio comments.
  • Question about what is a good open source and/or Linux friendly app for audio transcription.
  • We are discussing my oral recitation project.
  • Oral recitation project as an opening for students to begin having professional presence online.
  • Could record discussions/debates/symposiums and have students relisten and then do reflective essay or answer a set of questions.

Back To School Linux Applications

As far as I know, I am one of the few, if only, Linux users in the faculty on my campus. This comes up from time to time, often when someone walks by my laptop and doesn't see the usual Apple/Windows interface. I have discussed Linux with some of my colleagues; many are interested in how I do the things I do with it for school.

This is a list of Back To School apps for faculty who use Linux. I use each of these on a day to day basis and I would not be as productive as I am without them. Good news for Windows/Apple users: Many of these are cross-platform applications you can use too.

Tomboy: Tomboy is my note taking program of choice. I have a variety of uses for Tomboy: I keep a "to do" list that also loads on Conky (see below) plus numerous notes for each day of the week, ideas for projects, and other assorted randomness. The biggest use as a faculty member for me is having portable notes with lists. I have a pre, and post, semester list. I have a running list of things that need to be added to my annual report. In the summer, I draft and map my classes for the year via Tomboy notes. Tomboy can be synced over a number of computers via the cloud or, what I do, by syncing the folder my notes are in over a number of computers using Spideroak (look down).

Spideroak: I moved to Spideroak about a year ago after issues with a few of their competitors. Spideroak is an extremely secure backup program (see the Security Now! podcast episode about it) that backs up your work and can be synced over a number of devices. It is also cross-platform. I use Spideroak on my home desktop (Linux Mint 15), the laptop I bring to work (Ubuntu 12.04), another laptop running Ubuntu 11.10, and my Android phone and tablet. I can also access it via the web on my office desktop (which I run using Portable Apps...see below) One caveat: You cannot upload files to your Spideroak archive from the web ala Dropbox. I have been told by someone at Spideroak this is for security reasons.

Calibre: Calibre is an ebook manager that can also swap your books between various formats. Depending on your ebook reader, you may want books in .mobi, .ebook, or PDF (I had a student this summer who had a Nook, I think, and wanted everything in PDF) or a multitude of other format options. Calibre lets you transfer between these formats with relative ease to keep up with wherever your books are going.

Conky: Conky is a lightweight system monitor that allows a user to visually display information from their computer. As I said above, I use Conky to display my task list from Tomboy. I also display a monthly calendar, my daily Google Calendar, and various information about what is going on within my computer (CPU. Memory, What Song is Currently Playing). Conky is fairly easy to set up, UbuntuForums have a number of tutorials that users have created, although you don’t have to be a user of Ubuntu (personally I run Linux Mint for the most part) to use them.

LibreOffice: LibreOffice is a great alternative to Microsoft Office that I use on a day to day basis. Many of my students, not willing to put down the amount of money Microsoft wants for their products, also use LibreOffice. LibreOffice allows users to create documents, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. I have used various forks from this project for about 10 years and have never looked back at Office. It’s not perfect, but good enough for me.

Portable Apps: While not Linuxcentric, I use Portable Apps on my work computer a lot to make sure I can use the programs I want. I do trust my IT Department and like them a lot, but I am not that interested in using Microsoft Office or Internet Explorer. I carry a flash drive in my bag with Google Chrome, LibreOffice, and a handful of other programs. I also run HTTPSEverywhere in Chrome to make sure my connections are secure on our Wi-Fi Network.

Linux Boot Drive: Even if you are not a Linux user, I think every academic should have a copy of some form of Linux on a flash drive or CDR. Most forms of Linux allow you to run a "live" version of the OS before you install it. Normally, users would use this to test compatibility and make sure hardware and drivers (I had a laptop years ago that had problem with the rather infamous Broadcom wireless cards) work in Linux. However, this can also be used to, potentially, recover files from a broken Windows system. Say your Windows XP laptop crashes. Depending on how your OS failed, there is a decent chance your files are fine. Booting into Linux could allow you to recover your files before reinstalling. Of course, this is why you should be backing up (see above).

NJCEA: Teaching With Technology

The first panel I attended at NJCEA was the Teaching With Technology one early in the day. Julie Cassidy was the first speaker. Cassidy spoke about requiring students to creat commonplace blogs for her classes. This is an idea I am going to try and implement into my courses this fall. Right now, I am thinking of using Tumblr for this. (see mine)

  • According to Cassidy, blogs allow conversation to begin before class.
  • Students are required to pull three quotes for each story/novel/etc
  • An example of Dr. Cassidy’s classes.
  • Blogs are low stakes, informal, writing, so lots of room for reflection.
  • Cassidy has students use WordPress for the assignment. I’m leaning towards using Tumblr.
  • The required quotes can be worked into prep for paper writing.

Next, Geoff Klock spoke about pacing and technology in the classroom.

  • Klock uses film clips in class to break up discussion.
  • Klock used to use Youtube in class, but he found the clips were too low quality. He now uses DVDShrink, which I have used in Windows before, and MPEGClipStream to pull clips. Is there a Linux version? DVDShrink doesn’t work too well in WINE.
  • Klock also incorporates mp3′s of poems into discussion. I am going to start doing that later this summer.
  • Klock argues that clips bring back interest. Clips refresh class discussion and bring full attention back.

Finally, Megan Titus spoke about student perceptions and blogging.

  • Titus has used edublogs in the past, but they have spammed students.
  • Blogs help teach ethical responsibility and community.
  • Professional writing is increasingly online.
  • Blogging increases opportunity to practice argumentation, citation, and ethics.
  • Titus requires proposals, which are peer reviewed by students and Titus.

Tomboy Notes

One of the programs I really rely on is  Tomboy. Tomboy is a note taking application for Linux/Windows/Mac that keeps organized notes which can be synced over a number of computers. A fear I have had in the past about these kinds of programs is losing my notes. Tomboy makes it easy to move the notes folder to a folder in my  Dropbox  account for easy backup.

Twitter & Blogging: The Evolution of This Domain

One of the reasons I have been pretty quiet in recent months is that I am writing a lot more on Twitter (wpwend42) these days. As Jill Walker-Rettberg notes, it is much easier to dump a series of links (what used to be posted here as “weekend reading” or “weekly reader”) and get instant feedback and discussion from peers and friends. I agree with Jill that this does not offer more long-term discussion, like she gets on a lot of posts, but this weblog doesn’t get a lot of traffic so that doesn’t bother me too much.

My concern at this point is with that real-time discussion. I like the idea of having more long-term discussion in comments like Jill gets, or websites like Prof Hacker, but it is not really realistic for here. This weblog has never been traffic heavy and comments are sporadic at best. Twitter allows me to get instant feedback and discussion going about links, topics, and anything else going on at the moment.

Lately, I have thought a lot about the changing focus of this domain. This line of thought began after I read Torill Mortensen’s recent post about the changing focus of her own weblog. My focus has changed from blogging about personal views, commentary about literature and technology, and my own private life to more about teaching, upcoming publications, and other miscellaneous events.

I will still post about literature and technology, and the intermixing of them, from time to time. Linux is in my thoughts, now more than ever, and will get coverage from time to time. In general, however, my focus has shifted and slowed down to focus on my teaching and writing.

Like Torill, I am a bit embarrassed by how actively I used to blog. When I began in 2004 I would set a goal to post at least ____ times per day/week and it led to some seriously silly/embarrassing posts. As the technology changes and we move to more real-time conversation I am sure this domain will continue to evolve and grow with it. Stay tuned.