April 2007 Archives

Wayne Brent alerted us to a video called "RSS in Plain English" from a resource called The Common Craft. Right now it is on the homepage to that link. You might go there in the future and need to poke around to find it. I believe the actual link location is http://www.blip.tv/file/205570/ but I can't verify it because the response time is so bad. It must be the hot item on the Web right now.

"RSS in Plain English" seems like a clear explanation about how you can use RSS 1.0 to subscribe to blogs and news sources. Doesn't get into RSS 2.0, which pushes audio and video for podcasts, but if one gets the gist of how RSS works for blogs and videos, they will make the connection for podcasts.

If you teach RSS, as I do in my Intro to IT course, you likely have students whose eyes glaze over and who come close to a falling into a catatonic state when you are trying to explain really simple syndication. Try this video. It's only 3:44 and fairly entertaining.

The ubiquity of the Internet in our lives has extended our professional presence and availability. Someone Googles a topic or your name and chances are you find yourself receiving email from a stranger. What I value the most out of this experience is the chance to share ideas and learn from this virtual colleague.

Earlier this week I logged into my email and found a message from Graham Walton, a research fellow at Loughborough University in the UK. [listen: how to pronounce Loughborough] According to his biographical information, Graham's areas of research interest and experience include delivery of hybrid academic library services along with developing collaborative library and information service frameworks.

Southwest's in-flight magazine, Spirit, includes an article called The Best in the April issue. There is some fun stuff in the article, like "Short-Lived TV Shows," "Beach Volleyball Viewing," "Ballparks" and "Recipes." But what is worth blogging about is are "the best" podcasts. Here's a copy/paste from the article.

When the first podcasts—downloadable (and often independently produced) versions of radio shows—started streaming in late 2004, Bruce Chandley didn’t know where to begin. Sensing an opportunity, the former DJ founded podcastbunker.com, a compilation of the web’s highest-quality podcasts that Time magazine hailed as one of the “50 Coolest Websites.” When he isn’t scouring the web for new talent or producing podcasts of his own, Chandley is listening to these diverse programs:

Best News Podcast
The New York Times Front Page
THE HOST: Times reporter James Barron
THE CONCEPT: All the news that’s fit to—uh, podcast
THE WORD: In about five minutes, you’ll get a brief synopsis of basically everything the Times puts on its front page that day.

Best Sports Podcast
The Fantoo Girls
THE HOSTS: Carol and Robin
THE CONCEPT: A pair of sport-savvy chicks drink beer and ruminate on everything from NASCAR to Tony Romo. (Thank you, God.)
THE WORD: Yes, I produce this one, but the girls are so knowledgeable and fun. It’s an hour-long, weekly podcast that covers all the major sports leagues, and the girls were recently asked to do AOL Sports’ coverage of the Super Bowl.

Best Tech Podcast
This Week In Tech [my favorite tech podcast! And, I'm actually listening to the most recent episode now which is how I learned about this article]
THE HOST: Author and radio and TV personality Leo Laporte
THE CONCEPT: A roundtable of tech geeks breaks down the latest trends
THE WORD: Based near San Francisco, TWiT is an hour-long podcast that will tell you everything you need to know in the world of technology, whether it relates to the iPhone, the Internet, or your home computer.

Best Music Podcast [must subscribe to this one!]
Jazz Corner Innerviews
THE HOST: Reese Erlich
THE CONCEPT: Bossa, Blues, Bebop, and interviews in between
THE WORD: One of the most interesting formats of a podcast that I’ve seen. In anywhere from four minutes to an hour, you’ll get interviews with late jazz greats, followed by audio clips from their performances.

Best Travel Podcast
Trends Taste & Travel
THE HOST: “Captain Cy”
THE CONCEPT: A global guide to fine travel
THE WORD: It’s a 30-minute podcast from a 35-year airline pilot. So far he’s done about 50 of them all over the world. He discusses where to stay, what to eat, and even interviews people from the area who share unique tips visitors should try.

Best Offbeat Podcast
Mysterious Universe
THE HOST: Benjamin Grundy
THE CONCEPT: Get the latest on UFOs, prophecies, and—yes—Tasmanian Tigers.
THE WORD: This podcast is produced out of Australia, and the topics include everything from future science to ancient history to the paranormal.

Our campus Apple rep, Glen Banks, emailed that Apple has released a beta interface for its iTunes U. For examples, Glen suggests looking at Stanford's and Michigan Tech's beta sites. These links take you to a webpage at the host sites. Look for a button to click that takes you to that university's iTunes U site within the iTunes Store. You need to have iTunes installed on your computer.

  
click an image to go to its iTunes U website

We should have a signed contract with Apple, I'm estimating, within a couple weeks. Apple is revising the draft document to reflect Arizona State laws. Here in the LTC, Maritza Wright is developing graphics for our UA site. We will run the draft by James Francis, Assistant Athletic Director, who is responsible for Trademarks & Licensing and must approve use of the UA logo on the design. I expect that once the contract is signed we (the LTC) will being installing the Apple tools necessary to make UA on iTunes U work.

My class recently covered a module on social software, focusing a bit on the Web 2.0 resources that are available to promote communication, collaboration, and hopefully build social capital.

Today in my professor's blog, I posted a couple entries looking at the social software uses related to the tragedy in Blacksburg. In my first entry I wrote "Wikipedia Articles on Tragedy at VA Tech" reporting how an entry on the Virginia Tech Massacres is already in Wikipedia and how a "spur" article was started on VA Tech President Charles Steger.

The second entry looks at how important the Web, blogs, and Facebook have been to VA Tech students, parents, friends and family members. See "More About VA Tech and Social Nature of Tools."

If you are looking for examples of how these tools can have a valuable place in building social capital, I think these are worthy examples.

One of the many positives I get from teaching for SIRLS is when a current or past student shares a link to an interesting, relevant article. One of the students in this semester's class posted a link to Researchers Explore Scrapping Internet, an Associated Press article covered in Earthlink's technology.

The gist of the story is in this quote: "... researchers say the time has come to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, a move that could mean replacing networking equipment and rewriting software on computers to better channel future traffic over the existing pipes." Pipes? I guess it's better than tubes. Maybe Senator Stevens has found his Internet legacy.

Some excellent references at the end of the article for anyone interested in learning more and following this research.

• Stanford's Clean Slate Design for the Internet
• 100x100 Clean Slate Project
• Rutgers' ORBIT-Open-Access Research Testbed for Next-Generation Wireless Networks
• NSF's GENI-Global Environment for Network Innovations

Kathryn Ortiz, a colleague who teaches English comp, is committed to using technology effectively in instruction. So when she spots something new and something interesting its going to be well worth checking out.

She passed along a site called TeacherTube. Think of it as a YouTube for teachers. Its purpose "is to provide an online community for sharing instructional videos." If you know a teacher, definitely bring this to her/his attention.

I like the way it uses a lot of the Web 2.0 features that I look for in a new resource, especially one that seeks to build community. There are numerous personalization features, the opportunity to create one's own account and to share/alert others. It is using folksonomies, AKA tags, so the user community is selecting the keywords.