The Educational Mac Podcast #27–December 28, 2005

End of Year Show!
Top 5 Educational Mac Stories
#5–eMac returns to education sales only
#4–Cobb County Debacle
#3–Henrico contract moves to Dell, a riot ensues
#2–Apple embraces podcasting
#1–Mac line to move to Intel processors beginning 2006
What next for Apple in education? My guesses for the coming year
#1–New machine for education?
#2–Podcasting/Blogging really takes off in education.
#3–New iWork suite with spreadsheet software.
#4–Apple retires AppleWorks officially.
#5–Some big new application that will have a large impact on education.

Happy Holidays to everyone. See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #26 November 20, 2005

This show is mainly comprised of comments from teachers that are participating in a professional development class I am teaching. It has been a great experience for me. I wanted them to get a little flavor of podcasting so we recorded their comments and here they are.
Earlier in the evening we video chatted with Brian Mull. They were excited about the possibilities of using this technology in the classroom.

Apple Store-The Gateway Opening for iPod with Video

Here is a recompressed version of the video specifically for the iPod with video.

Honey, I Blew Up The Blog

Well, in the midst of everything today, I managed to totally hose my WordPress installation at theeducationalmac.com. So, I am redirecting it here until I can rebuild, make it faster, stronger, better.
I was wondering why I was keeping this blog up. Redundancy is everything!

The Educational Mac Vcast #1

This is my first attempt at a Videocast. This is my experience at the Apple Store grand opening at The Gateway in Salt Lake City. Having now had about 24 hours to think about it, I am glad that I went. It really was all about the experience. I really didn't spend that much time in the store, I wanted to give others the chance to get in, but I am looking forward to going back in a week or so and really spend some time. I am happy that Apple finally brought a store to Utah and I hope it is only the first of several.
I'll see you in a few!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

A fun time about to be had-Apple Store @ The Gateway

I am going to chronicle my adventure at the grand opening of the Apple Store here in Salt Lake City. I arrived at about 12:30 am and made a short trip into The Gateway to check out the store. The plywood barriers were all down. Plastic covers the windows, and three gentlemen have formed the line. They tell me how to park close and invite me to share the power they have run. Between the power and the Apple Store's Wireless, I am pretty much set for the night.
3:30 am and we were joined by a young couple about 2:00 am. 6 in line and counting. It is quiet except for the occasional train passing behind The Gateway.
Actually managed to sleep for a couple of hours. Woke a few minutes before 6:00 to other voices and see about another 15 in line. Lots of personal Mac histories being shared.
7:40 am and the crowd is starting to grow. There are about 75-80 in line now. The interesting thing is that about 1/4 of them have their Powerbooks or iBooks out. Hmmm... I wonder what their doing. The general contractor is onsite and waiting for the managers to get in. There are now 3 security guards waiting as well and the window washer is working on the outside glass. When the managerss get here they will peel the plastic of off the inside class and clean it.
9:00 am - 1 hour to go. I would estimate the crowd to be between 300-400 at this point but I can't tell for sure any more. The employees are coming out about every five minutes to excite the crowd. The mall management is starting to look a little worried.
9:20 am-The first guy in line is interviewed by a local newstation, then the first three are interviewed by a newspaper reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune. He even gets to me, so I guess I will be in the paper tomorrow.
10:00 am- They allow the first 70 or so people in. Store employees cheering, music blaring, it was awesome. As anyone leaves the store they allow another in. The queue is still huge. As I left I would imaging there were still 500-600 people in line. I talked to an employee who has worked at two other openings and she said this rivaled either one of those. Photos here Podcast and Vidcast to follow by tomorrow.

Here's to the Crazy Ones

The Apple Store in Salt Lake will be opening in a little under 20 hours from now. I will be heading downtown about midnight to check on the line. I don't have to be first, but I do want to be early. I will have picture, a podcast, and even my first vcast from the event posted sometime Saturday or Sunday. If you are from the are and will be at the grand opening look for me. I'll have a bunch of gear with me and shouldn't be too hard to find.

Salt Lake City Apple Store To Open This Weekend

The first Apple Store in Utah will open at 10:00 am this Saturday, November 19th. I have been waiting for this for a long time. I will be there bright and early.

I can't wait to get to the car

Steve Dembo at Teach 42 is back with a podcast and it looks like he is back in the saddle again. I can't wait to get to the car an listen to his new show.

My Grand Experiment

I began a new professional development class in my district tonight. The title of the course is Using Social Software to Teach the Core Curriculum. I have 8 brave women taking the class. As a group they had very little knowledge about social software. We started with blogs tonight. I gave them a couple of current articles on blogging to read. We set up accounts for each of them at Bloglines and Blogger. We set about 5 feeds I want them to look at over the next week. We also set up a blog on Blogger for the class. They will be commenting on my posts and hopefully creating some posts of their own.
I have the commenting locked down to members of the blog, but if you are interested in follow the progress of these teachers and would like to comment, drop me a line and I will invite you in.
In the coming weeks we will be tackling Wiki's, del.icio.us, and Flickr. I am set for a wild ride. See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #25-October 27, 2005

A conversation with Brian Mull about life for 1 technology specialist in New Orleans after Katrina. It is a unique perspective.
We talked about Brian's experiences, his school, some software, and about how his blog evolved. I think this is the most fascinating view of how blogs can be used and how quickly their roll can change. Go to the blog and view it from the start to see how it changed.
We mentioned the Room 208 blog and the newsletter that Bob Sprankle produces using Pages.
Enjoy the Podcast!
See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #24-October 20, 2005

Show Notes eMac gone for all but education institutional purchase, how long will it last and what's next.
Apple's education shipments on the rise.
A great inservice day! (Tooting my teams horn)
Should some people not use Macs?
Next Show-Special Guest Host: Brian Mull, Technology Director, Trinity Episcopal School in New Orleans
See You in a Few!

One More Thing

The biggest potential One More Thing from Apple's announcement yesterday as far as education goes is the status of the eMac. It has been dropped from every Apple store listing except for educational institution purchasing.
Macworld was finally able to get a response from Apple about the eMac. It apparently is gone for everyone except schools. I have two questions then, 1) How long will the eMac last even for school purchases? and 2) What does Apple have up their sleeve for educational machines for the future?
My guess is that the answers will not be forthcoming until the Intel based Macs start showing up. Apple needs machines in the price niche that the eMacs hit for education. For next year's buying season though I think that makes Apple's position a little shaky. I hope Apple's roadmap for machines for education gets laid out a little more clearly in the next couple of months. Podcast coming! See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #23-September 28, 2005

Show Notes
A conversation (actually sounds more like an interview than we had hoped) with Tony Vincent. Tony is doing great things in his school. He is also a huge Palm® Handheld supporter. He has a great site called Learning in Hand that is devoted to helping teachers use handhelds in the classroom. He is also doing a podcast on handhelds with Mike Curtis called Soft Reset. Tony is also producing podcasts at his school Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska. The podcast is called Radio WillowWeb and the kids do a great job.
We actually recorded this two weeks ago, but it has taken me that long to get around to cleaning it up. It still doesn't sound that great and that is my fault not Tony's. We will give it another shot, if I can convince Tony to come back. Anyway, my apologies to Tony and you the listeners for the lack of quality. I will get it right next time.
See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #22-August 24, 2005

Show Notes for August 24, 2005 New Blog location Henrico Disaster–Which One! Cobb County Disaster–Is the witch hunt over? At least some school systems get it right! Vail Arizona Chatham County, NC iMovie vs. Windows Movie Maker Windows Version of iLife?
Blog and Podcast Pick of the Show
Why do we have to put up with this Windows crap?
Seeking out fellow Mac Using Educators who would like to participate in the podcast as a guest co-host.
See You in a Few!

Call for Co-hosts

I hope to have a new show out in the next 24 hours. In the meantime, I have been tossing around an idea in my head for the past couple of weeks and I think I am ready to share it with anybody interested. I would like to try having some co-hosts on the podcast. I am not sure if I am I looking for permanent co-hosts or temporary. I would like to try it out and see though. So if you would be interested in co-hosting an episode of The Educational Mac Podcast drop me a note at kdumont@mac.com or theeducationalmac@gmail.com. See You in a Few!

Maybe this wasn't the best idea Henrico has had

What would you do for a $50 iBook? I would hope not bash people with chairs, trample a child's stroller, or apparantly completely obliterate a flip-flop. Come on people let's have a little civility!"

Too Many To Fix?

Steve writes about a challenge given to the staff at his new school to fix three of their own broken windows. It started me thinking about which of my broken windows I would and should choose to work on.

One of my initial thoughts was that I have too many broken windows to begin fixing any of them. Then I realized that was probably the first that I should work on. I have a tendency to get down on myself for not accomplishing all that I should in a given day. I need to continually remind myself that there is only so much time in a day and I need to plan accordingly.

This leads to window the second for me. That is to not let me stretch myself too thin. I find myself more and more taking on things I shouldn't. My plate is pretty full and adding things only complicates when I should really be simplifying. I need to learn to say no gracefully and tactfully.

My third broken window which these other two impact deals with my family. I spend more time at the keyboard when I am at home than I should. I need to work out a more efficient schedule so that when I am home with the family, I am with the family.

I know this would help my relationship with my more than patient wife.
teach42

The Educational Mac Podcast #21-August 7, 2005

In this show-
Moving files to Ourmedia.org
New Mac Hardware-iBooks (boring), Mac Mini's (intriguing $699 model), Mighty Mouse (I think I want one bad!)
Apple in Education News Broward County (Good) Henrico County (Bad) Cobb County (Ugly)
Laptop installation at new school
Educational Blogs and Podcasts That I Follow Blogs-Teach 42, Exactly 2 Cents Worth, One Big Head
Podcasts-Teach 42, Connect Learning, Bit by Bit
General Podcast Opinions
iTunes Podcast Support 6 Weeks Later
Contact Information
See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #20-July 16, 2005

In this cast...
Milwaukee-area school drops Macs for Windows PCs, thanks to PTA Inquiry into Cobb County Apple iBook Bids Arizona High School Will Not Use Textbooks Art Rage by Ambient Design
Not much of a NECC wrapup. I forgot to mention in the podcast that I am changing the location of the files to ourmedia.org. If you have any problems let me know at kdumont@mac.com. See You in a Few!

Hold on there!

I will get a new show out tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, iTunes fixed my feed somehow and I am getting a little concerned about a bandwidth hit, so if suddenly you can't get to the show, it is because I have temporarily pulled the plug while I move the audio content over to Ourmedia.
See You in a Few!

Leaving Philly

Yesterday was a relaxing day. I actually slept in and it felt great. I timed it just right to get a Philly Cheese Steak at Rick’s in the Reading Terminal. This was my third attempt. The first day I tried there was nearly and hour wait in line. The second time I went later in the day, like about 2:30 and they were sold out and closing. It was really good. 3 friends from Utah were like 4 people behind me so we were able to talk during lunch. I went and spent the next 45 minutes with a vendor that we buy software from looking at their new and updated products.
This brings me to the issue of the exhibition floor. I spent less than 1 hour total in the exhibit hall. The reason is that it has looked basically the same for the last 3 years. There are slight updates to software, there are all kinds of solutions to help you mine your data for NCLB, there are 8,000 different kinds of students response systems. There is just nothing new or exciting. I felt it much more worth my time to spend my time in sessions. I did not gather one pin, one t-shirt, one demo disk, or catalog. Nada, nothing, Zip. My kids are going to be really disappointed.
I was able to attend David Warlick’s spotlight session on Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century. I have read over this material several times, but David does a great job of presenting it with passion, so it was great to see him present it. I blogged the session, but when I posted it through the Dash Blog widget it got lost. So I will point you instead to the SEGA Tech blog for their blog of the session.
I then went to a presentation call Professional Development in your Pajamas. This is where my policy for this conference really bit me in the butt. I made a pledge I would not walk out of a session I had chosen unless it was so awful. Well this one wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be either. It was basically a team from a district in San Antonio describing a grant project they had developed and worked on. They spent the hour going over the project and not really talking much about the PD piece of the project. I really should have broken my pledge for this one. I have already blogged about the Action in the Classroom session so you can view that on it’s own. It really was pretty good. I went to the beginning of the Podcasting Birds-of-a-Feather session. This was facilitated by Mike Lawrence, the Executive Director of CUE. He basically turned it into a conversational forum. Unfortunately I had to leave after about 15 minutes to go to dinner with our district group. One of the first things I heard though bothered me a little. A representative from a publisher got up and asked and talked about interest in them producing their materials in audio format. I wanted to scream. Although I can see some educational benefit in them doing so, the whole idea of these companies charging huge amounts of money for this ticks me off.
Our district group had our yearly NECC dinner together at the City Tavern. This is one of the most famous restaurants in Philadelphia. It is actually a reconstruction of the Old City Tavern. The tavern was a gathering place for many of the founding fathers after long days of try to create a democracy. The original tavern actually burned and was rebuilt several times. The last time it burned the property sat for some time. Finally the park service decided to rebuild it and make an eating establishment out of it. The meal was a 3 course affair beginning with a selection of appetizers ranging from crabcakes to ham wrapped asparagus. I then selected the Cream of Mushroom soup for my next course and it was wonderful. I selected the Turkey Pot Pie for my main course and was surprised at the size of it. It was delicious. Finally for dessert I chose the Chocolate Mousse Cake with a raspberry drizzle. Again it was fantastic. I absolutely rolled out of the place afterwards. It was a good thing we walked there and back from our hotel about 15 blocks each way.
To cap the evening I attended the Podcast mixer that Steve Dembo at Teach42 organized. All four of us had a good time conversing together. I thought we would gather a few more, but it was great spending more time with Steve.
This morning I got up and took the 90 min. open bus tour. I hadn’t done anything really touristy, so I felt like I should probably see a little more of the city. I am kind of wishing that I had went to a couple of session instead, but oh well. I did get to see the stage for the Live 8 concert this weekend. If i though Philly was a little wild this week, it is going to be absolutely nuts this weekend, I am glad we were able to get out of town.
Although getting out of town was a little more difficult than anticipated. We made sure we got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight. Then came about two hours of standing in line to get our boarding passes gathered and bags checked. In the middle of this we noticed that our flight was delayed. First 30 minutes and then an hour. This actually worked to our benefit as it took us so long to get through United’s ticket line.The adventure was not quite over yet though. We had a connecting flight in Chicago and with the original flight time we only had about 40 minutes to switch flights and at different terminals to boot. Well we found out that our connecting fligh was slightly delayed as well, so we felt better. We loaded on the jet and backed from the gate, started to taxi and then stopped. We sat on the tarmac for a little over an hour. The pilot finally explained that there were several weather related delays particularly related to flights in and out of Chicago. About 3 1/2 hours after our original departure time, we left Philly. We were imagining that we would not be getting out of Chicago until late tonight. However, we were informed that our connecting flight had been substantially delayed as well and we would make it. We made not quite a mad dash from Terminal B to Terminal F in Chicago, but made the flight in plenty of time. So I will get this posted tonight.
For me this conference was about the workshops and sessions attended and most especially about the people I was able to meed after reading and listening to their online work. I will remember it for friendships made and ideas shared. I am looking forward to San Diego next year already.
See You in a Few! necc

Action in the Classroom-Dan Greenwood

This is a session on Digital Video Productions in the classroom. Dan is a curriculum director for a private school in Virginia. He begins by talking about how he got invovled in DV. He is an Adobe Master Teacher, he uses both Adobe Premiere Elements and iMovie. Well he is half right anyway. Actually I have been hearing a lot of good things about Premiere Elements.
Video's Positive Attributes- 1)Communication vehicle-visual(aesthetic element), auditory 2)Part of the Students Culture
Educational Benefits 1)Cooperative learning 2)Touches every learning style 3)Honors all multiple intelligences 4)Cross curricular 5)Requires content mastery
Bloom's Taxonomy creating film encompases Knowledge, comprehension, application/analysis, and synthesis/evaluation
Video Projects in Context 1)Culmination/significant activity 2)Cross curricular activity 3)Option for project 4)Extra curricular activity
How to conduct a video project in a classroom 1)Develop a Project idea 2)Structure activity as appropriate 3)Determine project parameters with rubric 4)Establish schedule-preproduction, production, postproduction
Assign students to video crews Use lexicon and established procedures of trade
Production Process Preproduction-Plan Script/Storyboard Production-Shoot Raw footage Postproduction-Edit Final Production
Video Genres Reality TV-Use for a cheap quick film-examples (Duck, teapot song, gossip) Educational Video-To introduce or explain concepts Documentary-Students as recorders of history News Report-Students as reporters Drama Foreign Film Commercial or PSA Music Video Video Montage Had to leave at this point, but knows what he is doing and is explaining it very well. necc

Podcasting Mixer

Those at NECC and you know who you are! The podcasting mixer Steve Dembo has been trying to organize will be at Tir Na Nog at 1600 Arch street. For a google map go to Teach42. On another note, my post on David Warlick's session today has apparently gone to the great void. It was a great session, I hope those notes show up eventually.

The Educational Mac Podcast #19-June 28, 2005

Apple hits at least a triple with iTunes 4.9, they may even be able to leg it into an inside the park HR.
I meet Steve Dembo and it ends up being even cooler than I thought it would be. It seems Apple Education loves Teach42. Great blogging workshop this morning.
See You in a Few! necc

Adding to the Chorus of Boos

Let me add my 2 cents worth (With apologies to David). It really is not good that the preeminant educational technology conference does not supply wireless access in the session rooms of the conference. In the past 2 yrs. (New Orleans and Seattle) coverage has been a little spotty in the rooms, but you could usually get out. Not here. I am really disappointed. necc

Visual Literacy with Lynell Burmark

This is a another of those things I have been waiting for a long time. I have wanted to hear Lynell Burmark speak for 3 years. Finally I get my chance. When she presents is not what is on her handout, but it is the information provided in the handout. She uses black screens to indicate transitions in her PowerPoint. She begins by saying that we live in a visual world. She talks about the progression from verbal to visual to written and now back to visual communication. We process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. When we process text it has to be done sequentially. An image is processed almost instantenously. "I didn't think...until I saw."-Eugene. What you get is what you see. She suggests using images to start classwork at the beginning of the day, a unit, etc. Also use the image as part of an assessment at the end. Also need to counterbalance what kids are seeing on TV such as murders. Talking now about the healing power of appropriate images. Now color power, we recall or retain information 80% better if image is in color. Different colors give different effects. PowerPoint (presentation tips) 30 million PP presentations given every day. Use images on slides, put information on handouts. Retention and transfer both go down when the presenter reads bullet points from the slide. Graphics on left so your eye is not jumping back and forth. Use for flash cards, things with minimal information. Use to put an image up on the screen as students com into the room. Use Georgia and Verdana as they are not as squished. You can read lower case about 30,000 times faster than all caps.Gave a great Photoshop tip on straightening images. Enjoyable Session. necc

Effective Weblogs in Education Workshop

Tim Laurer, Tom Hoffman, Steve Burt, & Anne Davis (via Skype) Starting with Steve Burt introducing everyone and having us login to a blog they set up for this session. There seems to be a problem with the blog they have setup amd we can't get into. Tim is carrying on while they work on it. Tim is talking about his experiences and introduction to rss and blogging. He went pretty extensively through the Lewis Elementary site and how he uses it.
Steve has the site back up and working and is explaining how to use the Moveable Type engine, mostly for novices.
A question is asked about the difference between listservs and blogs. Tom talks about the ability to subscribe to what you want and not having to put up with Trolls and the like.
Anne is now presenting her part of the session. This is the page she set up for the session.
Tom is now talking about teachers weblogs. He asked for hands of those who have read teachers weblogs and what they think. He is talking about those blogging anonymously and those who are more "out" with theirs. He is urging educators to be professional and discrete in what they blog. He is encouraging teachers to blog under their own name so that they may feel a little inhibited so things don't come back and bite them in a few months or years.
There are a few questions about implementing.
Ben Harris is now talking about Wordpress. I enjoyed the information presented in this session. necc

The Educational Mac Podcast #18-June 27, 2005

NECC Podcast #1 ISTE Affiliate Meeting Hands-on Digital Storytelling: Movie Making Made Simple ... and Fun! David Weinberger Keynote Possible Apple Announcement Tomorrow Maybe at the Podcasting Event? See You in a Few! necc

More Digital Storytelling

This afternoon we divided into teams of three and made movies. I had the privilege of working with Tom Horn from Rexford, New York and Annette Chamberlain from Fairview Heights, Illinois. With the theme of Voices and Revolution, we made a film call Simple Acts about the revolution in how people with disabilities are treated. It was a little light hearted and a whole lot of fun working with these two great educators. necc

Digital Storytelling from ADE's

Class taught by several ADE's including Marco Torres and Don Henderson. Talking about visual grammar. POV, Different Shots
10 commandments- Light-White Balance, No light, no picture, Light influences mood, emotion, light metering-use your hand, shadows-soft vs. hard Composition-Rule of thirds, pay attention to the intersections not the squares Get a tripod, keep camera movement to a minimum, pant, tilt, or zoom only for a purpose, walk like Groucho if you have to. Hold your breath for the close up shot. Keep the lens clean. Sound-Makes or breaks your movie, Mics-Handheld, lavaliere, boom, Camera mic & your closet-Buy one(any or all three), record ambient noise, room tone. record narration into camera, not the computer, headphones are a must, level your sound in FCP between 9-12 Light- Composition- Sound- Light- Composition- Sound- Light+Composition+Sound
Shooting Tips- be aware that you're in a team, shoot multiple takes, not them on the storyboards, separate shots using a slate, clapper, get permission forms if necessary.Software Tools suggested-Comic Life, Inspiration Storyboarding-give a scene in words and make them draw it.
Marco Torres examples http://homepage.mac.com/torres21 Planning sheet http://sfett.net/process.html necc

Philadelphia, Here We Are!

Our entourage arrived in 15 pieces (people) this evening. We took a little walk from our hotel (Courtyard by Marriott) and dined at the Nodding Head Brewery. It was quaint and the food was good, although my favorite part was the bobble head collection. The first NECC ADE Podcast has been posted. My first 'cast will come Monday night, unless I have lots of energy after dinner tomorrow. For me, tomorrow is a full day at the ISTE Affiliates Meeting, then some place fun for dinner.
See You in a Few! NECC

The Educational Mac Podcast #17

Pre-NECC Podcast Running down my NECC Schedule. See the NECC website for others who will be blogging and podcasting from Philadelphia next week. See you in a few from the City of Brotherly Love!

5 days until NECC

Okay, with 5 days left before NECC begins, here is a rundown on what I will be up to. Sunday June 26th ISTE Affiliate Meeting All Day Monday June 27th Full Day Workshop-Hands On Digital Storytelling. I am most excited about this bcause one of the facilitators is Marco Torres. I have admired his work with his students and filmaking for several years. Tuesday June 28th Half Day Workshop-Effective Weblogs in Education. I am excited about this one as well. It will be led by Will Richardson, Tim Lauer and others whose blogging in education has been such great examples to me. Tuesday night is the Student Film Festival which I am excited to view. Then there is the Apple sponsored Premiere Podcast Party. Knowing more about Apple's podcasting plans, I hope there are a few more details given here. Wednesday June 29th-The highlight of the day for me will be to get to see and listen to David Warlick's keynote on Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century. The district group I am attending NECC with will also be eating at the City Tavern that evening. I am excited about eating in such a historic venue. Thursday June 30th-This will be a shortened day as we will be leaving mid-day, but I hope to attend as many sessions as I can. Right now my biggest concern is when I will have time to spend in the exhibition hall. See You in a Few! Any who are going to NECC, hope to meet you there.

The Educational Mac Podcast #16

The Educational Mac Podcast #16-June 10, 2005 Shownotes: A rambling wreck of a podcast. My brief musings on the Apple/Intel news and the impact on Macs in education. Cobb County Schools sued over laptop initiative. From MacDailyNews Macon County Journal David Warlick’s interview with Bob Spranckle of Room 208 podcast, give it a listen. Podcatching in iTunes 4.9 iPodderX CosmicBlobs -Modeling and Animation Software Looking forward to NECC Mini-Casts from Philly June 27, 28, 29 Show length-Goal to keep casts’ to 20 minutes See You in a Few!

Podcatching in iTunes 4.9

You have surely read this elsewhere by now. But Steve Jobs announced earlier this week that iTunes 4.9 which is due in a couple of months will include the ability to subscribe to rss feeds for podcasts (and extensibly all others.) Rexblog discusses some possible easily foreseeable extensions to this capability. I am off for a weekend in the sun. There will be no cast this week, but there will be on June 1st. See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #15

The Educational Mac, Podcast 15, Saturday, May 21st Welcome to the Educational Mac Podcast. I apologize for the late show this week, but life has been crazy for a couple of weeks. Just as things are settling down at work as the school year begins to wind down, illness finds its way into the house. My son has not been at school in five weeks now. Three weeks of this was planned as our elementary operates on a year-round schedule and he was on a 3 week break. However, the coughing that began 3 days before he was to go back and the pneumonia that followed has kept him out the last 2 weeks. He was even to sick to play baseball, too sick to even want to play ball. That’s how we really knew how sick he was. His team is undefeated 11 games into the season and it has killed him not to be able to play these last 2 weeks. Anyway, he is finally getting well, but I took a lot of time off caring for him. The funny thing was, things at work started to pick up again as well. Thanks to email and iChat I was able to accomplish a lot of what I needed to while staying at home and caring for the boy. If there was a week I didn’t want to be late with the podcast, this was it. There actually hasn’t been a lot of Mac related educational news this past week, but some things kind of poked their heads up the last couple of days.
Cobb County Developments Macsimum News Coverage Cobb County BOE Press Release University of Georgia bow out of evaluation
Also, I apparently have a retraction to make from the blog, as the podcasting event that appeared on the social calendar for NECC disappeared today. NECC Social Calendar sans podcasting event
Steve Brooks over at the Edugadget blog posts about some new iPod software that looks promising in some ways. Edugadget Post on iStory Creator iStory Creator Homepage
Finally, from the sometimes wishes do come true department, information directly from a Henrico County Schools employee.
See You in a Few!

Late Night Podcasting Lounge at NECC

Just read this from the NECC RSS Feed. The Late-nite Podcasting Lounge will be hosted by Apple, showcasing the emerging trend of podcasting and its impact on education. Outstanding examples of educational podcasts along with classroom integration strategies will be showcased. Come see for yourself how easy it is to use podcasting to impact learning! Since the event is late, you'll be bribed with food, drinks, and even some iPod give-aways ... bring your own iPod to throw into the party mix after the session! Almost sounds like Apple's first public acknowledgement of podcasting. Could it be? See You in a Few!

Late 'Cast This Week

Life is getting in the way of the podcast so far this week. It may be Friday before it gets out. When it does look for some inside information as to what happened to Apple in Henrico. See You in a Few!

Now for a Useful Widget

Over the course of the past several days, I have downloaded about a dozen Widgets for OSX Tiger. Some of the widgets have proved more useful than others. One of the most usefule is AirTraffic Control by Spintriplet.com. It allows you to see what Airport and other wireless access points are in range. For example, right now it is showing a new wireless point that just popped up in my neighborhood. Now another Widget that was published just the other day is not so useful, but works for a great quick diversion. It is a Minesweeper widget. Small, but cool.
Finally, is the widget I am using right now, called Dashblog. If it works, I think I will find myself publishing to the blog much more often, because it is right out there for me to see whenever I invoke Dashboard.
I hope it works well.
See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #14

TEM Podcast #14 May 11, 2005
New iMacs and eMacs
Cobb County Dialogue
We're #1 Technology Counts 2005
Future of Podcasting My personal vision of the future of podcasting

The Educational Mac Podcast #13

Tonight's show includes my own little Tiger Review Including my take on Spotlight Dashboard Safari RSS iChat AV 3 including my disappointment QuickTime 7 (This podcast was recorded entirely in QT 7) Dictionaries see sidebar
The latest from Henrico and Cobb Counties
Tiger Tactics
Mac win in a small way
Interview Next Week
See You in a Few!

Tigerize Me

Okay, I got Tiger sooner than expected. Work came through rather quickly with a copy. I had backed up last weekend in case I was able to obtain a copy. So I took a chance and just updated with Tiger. The update ran fine, the machine restarted and wouldn't finish loading the OS. Great! I restarted once, everything came up and this machine has purred ever since.
I love this OS. Even with just updating the OS everything runs faster. I am especially impressed with how fast Safari is loading everything, but especially images. I imported my RSS feeds from Firefox, updated them and they are working great. I like the look of the reponse page for feeds much better than Sage in Firefox.
I am really liking Spotlight as well. My drive indexed in about 20 minutes. I was expecting it to take much longer. I never got Quicksilver to work right for me, but Spotlight works really well for what it is supposed to do. I don't know about "expert" Mac users, but I think teachers will really love Spotlight.
Dashboard is really fun, really cool, and really looks good. I don't think it will improve my workflow in any way, but it is really fun, really cool and really looks good.
I like the changes to Mail as well. I like being rid of the drawer. That always bugged me. Overall it just is cleaner to deal with for me.
Now let me get my rant out. The thing I was most looking forward to with Tiger was the new iChat AV. 10 in an audio chat, 4 in a video chat, cool, cool, cool! Oh, but wait, hold the phone. Come to find out there are some limitations to these functions. With my Powerbook G4 1.5 I can initiate and participate in an audio chat of more than two. However, I cannot initiate only participate in a video chat involving more than two machines. I don't get mad at Apple very often, but I am pissed about this one. Maybe I wasn't listening very well at some point, but I never heard anyone or saw anything saying I would have to have a DP G4 or a G5 to utilize all of the features of the new iChat. Boo on not letting the word out louder.
Aside from that however, I am very pleased with Tiger. About 10 of us in the office loaded it today, and for the most part installation went well. One guy's email didn't quite make the transition, but he'll live.
Other than my gripe, I have to say that Apple did a pretty good job with this update and I look forward to them making it even better.
See You in a Few!

From the You Have Got to be Kidding Me Dept.

A suit to block the release of "Tiger" an operating sytem by "Tiger Direct" a mail order house. Man, I would really get confused there. I want to order a "crap" PC so I might accidentally log in to the Apple store rather than the "crap" PC online dealer. Where has Tiger Direct been for the past 18 months? Nice Timing! What a nice way to ride on Apple's coattails for a few days. My opinion, any judge that doesn't crack up laughing at this needs a serious dose of nitrous oxide. See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #12

In this 'cast we look at two sides to a question of Apple producing lower cost iBooks. Also I try to mend a PC. Finally, a presentation by Alan November is available on the Apple Learning Interchange.
Michigan Laptop Dilemma Should Apple build a feature reduced iBook for education? Probably Not!
Another Bad PC Experience Is there any other kind?
Alan November Presentation
See You in a Few!

TEM Podcast #11-April 22,2005

On this weeks podcast, late as it is... Cobb County Thread on MDN Elementary Film Festival Award Winners What Tiger means to Education I appreciate those that are listening to the cast. Please leave feedback as comments here, or send emails to either kdumont@mac.com or theeducationalmac@gmail.com. See You in a Few! Kelly

The Educational Mac Podcast #10

TEM Podcast #10 April 13, 2005 Film Festival http://t4.jordan.k12.ut.us Cobb County-Free Registration Required http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/0405/13laptop.html USEiT http://www.bc.edu/research/intasc/studies/USEIT/description.shtml iPods in Schools http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/education_expert_wants_to_ban_ipods_in_schools/ http://onthecuttingedge.blogspot.com / Preparation for Ed Tech http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/proper_preparation_for_educational_tech_is_vital/ Personal Experience with Apple Education Finish Up on Marc Prensky Article http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part2.pdf

The Late Show

The show is going to be late this week, possibly not until Saturday. I am working on a huge project for work and that is taking even my podcasting time. See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #9

TEM Podcast #9 March 30, 2005

1. Theme Music by Zane
2. I'm a Grandpa, Again! http://www.theeducationalmac.com/Kaden.html
3. Mad at Classroom Connect
4. More Cobb County Woes http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/0305/29laptop.html
5. Gary Stager Article http://www.districtadministration.com/page.cfm?p=1060
6. ARD Seminar Online http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/dtmgmt/apple/index.html?s=203
7. Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/default.asp http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/digitalnatives/index.htm http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1011 http://www.nestafuturelab.org/viewpoint/art26.htm http://www.360east.com/index.php?p=98 http://brainfrieze.net/comments.php?id=158_0_1_0_C

Announcing Kaden Staker

Announcing the arrival of my grandson, Kaden ? Staker (middle name still to be determined). Born March 28, 2005 @ 9:03 pm. Kaden arrived at 7 lbs. 12 oz. and is 21 in. long. He has grandpa's nose (hopefully without the hayfever), and long fingers. He should be throwing curveballs by the end of summer.

The Educational Mac Podcast #8

TEM-Podcast #8 March 24, 2005
Cobb County Delays Vote http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/03/24.2.shtml http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/cobb/0305/23laptop.html Henrico Observations http://liveinvite.com/macsimumnews/ Digital Storytelling Book–Digitales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories by Bernajean Porter http://www.digitales.us Digital Natives vs Digital Immigrants http://www.twitchspeed.com/site/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.htm http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/digitalnatives/index.htm http://www.nestafuturelab.org/viewpoint/art26.htm http://www.360east.com/index.php?p=98
Next week, my take on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants See You in a Few!

Bit's 'n Pieces

Once again it seems as if time has passed me as if I were a tortoise in the freeway median. All things rushing by me in different directions and I feel like pulling my head back into my shell.

It sometimes amazes me at what a little help can do to invigorate teachers. Our curriculum technology team has spent a lot of time training teachers in a new online test prep that is available in Utah. It is called UTIPS. I have probably done 20 trainings on UTIPS so far and it is amazing to watch teachers attitudes perk up as they see what they can do and how easily they can do it. I had one group come in ready to burn the principal in effigy for making them come to another professional development. By the time they left they were ready to buy him dinner. If you have something that teachers really feel can help them, they are so grateful. But then, it seems we as educators get so little, that I guess it doesn't take much.

Okay, a little something Mac related for the weekend. If you use and love Garageband like I do then you probably are looking for more loops to use. Macjams is offering a free mini pack of some of their loops. You have to register at their site, but then you can download the pack. You can also create a song using the new loops and submit it to a contest they are holding. Prizes include an iPod Mini and USB Keyboards and what educator couldn't use those.

On another note, as I watch the the feedburner stats for the podcast it keeps going up. I appreciate those who are listening and recommending the cast to others. Thanks!

See You in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #7

TEM Podcast #7

March 16, 2005

I.      Mac Schools being threatened

http://www.apple.com/education/whyapple/

II.    Apple Learning Interchange

http://ali.apple.com/

III.   iChat in schools

http://ali.apple.com/ali_sites/ali/exhibits/1001367/

http://www.isighted.com/

IV.   Conference Recorder

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/conferencerecorder/

 

 

 

TEM Podcast #6

The Educational Mac Podcast #6–March 9, 2005
Click here for .mp3 file

Show Notes for March 9, 2005

Henrico iBook Program–Here are links to several articles and opinion about the extension of the program.
Mac 360
Mac Daily News
The Mac Observer
Macsimum News–Macismum Newscast will have a report on Henrico on their Friday broadcast.

iPods Loaned from NY Library
Wired News

Macs in Jeopardy–Statements wanted

Gary Stager on iPods and Mac Mini's in Education

See You in a Few!

 

TEM Podcast #5 and Movin' on Up

Podcast #5 is finaly up, although almost 24 hours later than I had hoped. I did not do this just either. I have had too little sleep and too much cold the last day and a half. This episode contains the 2nd part of joint podcast between Kathy Webb and myself. Kathy was kind enough to invite me to co-present a session on podcasting at our state educational technology conference. Kathy's set up is amazing. What you will hear in this is a short series of conversations that attendees to the session came up with. They chose what to speak about and then bravely stepped to the microphone. Kathy cleaned this up with SoundSoap which I need to look at a bit closer. Anyway, enjoy and I will be back with part 1 of this session on Wednesday along with some other items of interest.
On another note, the official site for The Educational Mac is up and running.I still have a few bugs to work out, especially with the rss feeds, but you can get the show directly from the site for now. I will get everything straightened out by Wednesday.
See You in a Few!

It doesn't matter where it went, it is gone!

Time sure flies when you aren't paying attention to it. No podcast tonight. Illness and lack of preparation have taken their toll. There will be a special podcast up by Monday though. I am helping a friend and colleague do a Podcast presentation at our state educational technology conference as I mentioned the other day. I don't know what we will come up with, but I will have it up by Monday. See You in a Few! Kelly

Where does the time go?

I was just laying around thinking about nothing in particular. I am dog tired after putting in two 12 hour days in a row and should be fast asleep. I am having trouble falling asleep however, so I decided to try a little mind clearing writing. At some point I hope this has some tie to Macs in education. If not please forgive me.

One of the things that I was thinking about while not going to sleep was how I have not really posted here recently except for the podcast announcements. I really want to get into a regular schedule. Speaking of the podcast, I hope you have the opportunity to listen to show #4 and the interview with Bill Palmer. Even though Bill is looking at Macs in education through the rear view mirror he still has a lot of good thoughts to contribute.

I posted on MacUsingEducators last week about a project I have been working on. I also talked about it in show #3. I have been teaching a district professional development class on iLife. I have outlines posted on the website that my team develops and maintains. You can see the outlines here. I really can't wait to get some time to work on the video clips to go with the outlines. I got hung up with Snapz Pro, but I think I have found a good replacement thanks to Steve Denbo at Teach42.com. Speaking of Steve, I reahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giflly have to plug his podcast again. His is one of the most insightful that I listen to on a regular basis. Steve has turned me on to more great 'casts than any list at iPodder or Lemon. One of the things I need to put on The Educational Mac show notes page is a list of what I am listening to.

The next 10 days are going to be crazy busy for me, culminating in the experience that is UCET. UCET is the Utah Coalition for Education Technology. It is the Utah ISTE affiliate. I serve on the executive board of the organization and our annual conference is next week. We will have a great keynote provided by Bernajean Porter on Digital Storytelling. We have 2 NASA scientists and 2 NASA education specialists coming to give presentations. We will have a total of nearly 100 sessions presented by over 70 presenters. We will have about 900 total educators in attendance. We will have over 30 sponsors and/or vendors. The amazing thing about this conference is that we pull it of with an elected and appointed board of about 15 people who along with 4 or 5 others volunteer their time to pull the conference off.

I don't mention this to brag, although I do want to state how proud I am to be a part of this organization. I also want to express my appreciation to those people I serve with for their dedicated service to the organization. Did I forget to mention that Apple is one of our key sponsors. There I knew I could tie this back into The Educational Mac somehow.

I also mention the conference because a great friend and colleague of mine is giving a presentation on podcasting. My guess is that most anyone who attends this session will not even know what a podcast is when they walk in. However, by the time they walk out, they will have been involved in putting a podcast together. I am going to help with the presentation and we will have those attending give comments and this will make up the basis for The Educational Mac Podcast Show #6. I am really looking forward to this happening although I am not sure what we will end up with, but make sure you look for it on or about March 5th.

Okay, I think I have talked myself out at this point. I can probably rest more easily having at least exercised my fingers for a few minutes.

See you in a Few!

The Educational Mac Podcast #4

On tonight's show, an interview with Bill Palmer, and not a whole lot else. I ended up putting the show together very late Wed. night, Thurs. morning so apologies if things aren't as clean as they could be. See You in a Few! Kelly

The Educational Mac Podcast #3

Here is the 3rd installment of The Educational Mac Podcast (Feb. 16, 2005). I really rambled this time. I had a hard time feeling like I had enough last week and this week I felt like the Energizer Bunny. So this one clocks in at about 25 minutes.
Topics include an iLife class tutorial I am working on, educational uses for iPods, the Cobb County School District laptop program, an age old debate that we have in our district and I suspect you do as well, and finally a few words about state and national educational technology organizations.
I have managed to get the rss feed working so you can subscribe one of two ways. 1 - Regular Feed or Feedburner Feed. As always comment are welcome at kdumont@mac.com. See You in a Few!

TEM Podcast #2

Here is The Educational Mac Podcast #2. Google's new map tool, intro music, no viruses, and more. Get it here http://www.xmission.com/~sabretth/TEM/TEM.html. See You in a Few!

Worms Underground and All Around

Man I love my Mac. The tech repair and support staff in our district has had a tough week this week. They have been doing nothing but trying to clean up the latest round of worms on PCs in our district.
Just in the building I work in one man spent 2 days trying to eradicate them from the premises. What a joke! All that effort and expertise wasted and the problem still isn't solved. We have about 90 facilities in our district. There are PCs in about 1/2 of them. There is probably an installed base of about 6,000 PC's in those schools and offices. With about 6 tech staff to work on it... well you do the math. It's not that they were all infected, well it seems like they just about all were.
Most of my work is done on the elementary level in the district. Fortunately, our elementaries are about 99% Mac. Needless to say the elementaries saw very little need for help this week. What is amazing to me is how the PC lovers continue to rave about how much better their platform choice is. Okay, they can't use their machines, but it sure is better.
It just seems to me that in this day and age there is no rational reason to put PCs in our K-12 schools. So much wasted time. Well it looks like the worms won this one. By next week we will be declared pretty much worm free in the district, at least until the next one.
I'm going to save my favorite anecdote from this week for the next podcast. I hope to complete it tomorrow. Until then...

Okay, Here We Go

Okay, you can't exactly call it a podcast yet, but here what will hopefully become one when it grows up. You can download or listen here. I introduce myself and what I want to do with the podcast. I also talk for a moment about something actually Mac and education related. Oh, and I say um and uhh, a lot. Well, give it a try anyway and let me know what you think. Send feedback to kdumont@mac.com.

A New Beginning

I started a blog called MacEd musings over a year and a half ago. It saw about 5 entries, the latest being nearly a year ago. At that time, I was interested in seeing what blogging was all about and what relevance it has to K-12 education. Well, here I go again. I am hoping this will not be the 9th false start of this project. I started a blog called MacEd musings over a year and a half ago. It saw about 5 entries, the latest being nearly a year ago. At that time, I was interested in seeing what blogging was all about and what relevance it has to K-12 education. I am still not sure about the answer to my relevance question. I am following several educational blogs and even listening to a couple of educational podcasts. I am intrigued, still I wonder about the relevance of it all in education. I do believe that we should do all we can to get students to write more and I think blogging can give them the incentive to do that. In my job I work with about 20 schools. In those 20 schools there are well over 20,000 students grades K-12. I am positive that some of those especially in grades 7-12 are blogging on their own. Why not channel some of that into the classroom. There are some legal and moral issues the need to be addressed, but I thing it could be a very positive thing. For me personally though blogging is a good thing. I never used to write. I didn't really like to write, but I have discovered that I really like writing in the blogging format. It allows me to get my thoughts and ideas down in a way I haven't been able to in a long time. I have even been writing for a website, Mac Using Educators . Anyway, this new blog is not about blogging. See I am a supporter of Macs in education. This blog will be about using Macs in K-12 education. I work with PC's when I have to and can find my way around, but I don't like to. PC's offer mostly inelegant solutions to most tasks. I am going to begin this new blog with an example. In October I taught a digital video inservice in my district. I had taught an iMovie inservice for several years. I had good attendance and a great time teaching the class, however I was asked to expand the class and include Windows Movie Maker (MM) as well. Like a dolt, I told myself that it couldn't be that hard. So I expanded the iMovie class into a Digital Video class and taught it cross-platform. I spent a month working with MM and really not enjoying it, but felt comfortable enough to teach the class. I had 16 participants in the class and tried to persuade as many as possible to use the Macs in our training lab as opposed to the PCs. It ended up pretty evenly split though. I decided that this would be okay and would give me some good personal data about both programs. I got the data alright. After 5 weeks all 8 of the participants who chose to work on the Macs had their projects completed and most even burned to DVD. On the PC side only 1 of the participants was finished after the 5 weeks. One of the PC people dropped out citing the difficulty of using Movie Maker (but refused to move to the Mac). Of the remaining 6, I spent a minimum of an extra 4 hours each. With one person I probably spent an extra 14 hours. The elegance and ease of using iMovie was never more vivid to me. Of the 7 completed PC projects 5 of them ended up using iMovie to do some clean-up work on their movies as well as using iDVD to make DVD's. One person I worked with ended up exporting her movie out of MM onto tape, then importing it into iMovie and completely re-editing it in about 1/4 of the time it took her on the PC. The biggest thing that amused me was trying to move projects. Have you ever tried to move a MM project from one PC to another. Moving the MM file itself is no problem, but try finding and moving the collections that make up the project. It is more than a joke. In fact with my limited Windows knowledge and experience it was impossible. Why doesn't MS get it. What does it take to move an iMovie project? You find the project folder and move it with an external HD, burn it onto a DVD, transfer it over the network, whatever. When it gets to the new destination, you open up the movie file an off you go. This example is the epitome of the elegance that is the Apple way of doing things. It works, it works right, it works all of the time. Is Apple perfect in the way they do things, no, but in education it seems they make it work much better and easier for students and teachers than anyone does for PCs. My goal is to update this blog 2-3 times a week. I am also looking into doing a companion podcast. If I do the podcast I will post the shownotes here as well. I will try at least 3-4 podcasts and then decide whether to continue.