Archive for the ‘podcasts’ tag
Education Podcasts Meme: Warlick, Fryer-McLeod, a Young Writer, and an Impassioned Secular Humanist
Scott McLeod from Dangerously Irrelevant tagged me with this interesting meme, so here are the rules, followed by the last five educational podcasts I listened to and/or watched:
Meme guidelines
- Choose five of your favorite education podcasts. Any kind of education podcast is okay - students, teachers, administrators, professors, etc. - feel free to pick ones that you’ve made yourself! Try and pick specific podcasts, not podcast feeds.
- Tag others for the meme. Feel free to participate even if you haven’t been ‘tagged.’
- Please use a Technorati tag of educationpodcast or podcasteducation.
- Please add your selections to the Moving Forward podcasts wiki page (and create categories as needed) so that others can benefit too!
My Last Five Podcasts or Videopodcasts:
1. David Warlick’s K12 Online Preconference Keynote, 2007: More on that in a later post, as a follow-up to this immediate take-aways post (just a k12 chatroom copy-paste) from a few days ago. You can also read the conversation about the keynote in the comments to the K12 page linked above.
2. David Warlick’s K12 Online Keynote, 2006: I loved watching last year’s keynote right before watching this year’s. I’m so new to the edublogosphere (only 10 months old), I didn’t know about last year’s event. Doesn’t matter: I went back in time 12 months and caught myself up on the K12 website.
3. Jessica Yun’s “audiobook” of “Roots,” her published 1001 Flat World Tales story: (from last year’s first edition - more to come from new schools and writers at the end of this school year, and every school year following). Jessica was 15 when she wrote this story, and podcasted it. She tells her stories as well as she writes them. Watch out for this one - she’s got a future as a writer, if she wants it. (And check out her blog, and tell her to get back to writing. Actually, she won’t have a choice: we’re launching our re-tooled schoolwide student blogging program in two weeks.)
4. Wesley Fryer interviewing Scott McLeod: Podcast 151: Dr. Scott McLeod on Administrator Idea-Sharing on Blogs, [etc], and Educating Others for the Transition to 21st Century Schools: on school 2.0 and school administrators 1.0: I sent this one to my admin. Wonder if they listened to it. Interesting on many levels, from Scott’s perspective on ivory tower educator-leaders’ oblivion and/or resistance to the edublogosphere’s vibrant and up-to-date discourse, to Scott’s own thoughts about the growing - but by no means new - irrelevance and inconsequentiality of much peer-reviewed academic publishing. (Lucky you, Scott: I’m not making this up. A free plug 
)
5. Robert Green Ingersoll: “Improved Man”: (Ingersoll podcasts channel on iTunes): Ingersoll was a late 19th century secular humanist - a better word than that strange “atheist” word (am I also an “a-horoscopist”?) who wrote powerfully and elegantly about all the ways in which religion is most often a tragically misguided attempt to “be and do good.” It’s frustrating to think that America and much of the rest of the world have only gone backwards in their heroic “March into the Middle Ages” since Ingersoll wrote his passionate, erudite, and “radically sane” critiques and visions a century and a quarter ago. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Friedrich Nietzsche readers really should subscribe to these podcasts. My favorite educational quote from Ingersoll:
“Schools should be today’s churches, and teachers, today’s preachers.”
He wrote this around 1890, and today I’m watching America’s Intelligent Design proponents attempting to expand their virulent attacks on science and reason around the globe - including here in Korean international schools. So I can’t say I’m hopeful about the future of reason in education. It seems America - the majority of its people and its disastrous political leadership - is intent on praying for an end to Global Warming (or indifferent to it, since heaven is the real world anyway), while at the same time continuing to ignore or attack science - and good, hardworking, life-saving, true miracle-working scientists.
It’s not easy, and certainly not fun, risking alienating my religious readers out there. But a commitment to science, enlightenment, education, and the fate of our planet make me feel it’s a duty. As a former Baptist and lifelong student of religious texts and religious history (see my LibraryThing widget in sidebar), I feel more qualified than most to confidently take on that duty. I’m just trying to do good by my own lights, not tradition’s.
More on Ingersoll from James Carr’s Ingersoll Podcasts page on Podcast Directory - a magnificent resource, with dozens of Ingersoll’s works, which Carr delivers with sterling quality:
Robert Green Ingersoll was an eloquent spokesman for free thinking, reason, and science in 19th century America. His intelligence, logic, humor, and clear thinking still speaks to us today. This podcast will include readings from his speeches and writings. Robert Ingersoll has an important place in American history, although, due to the weakness and politicization of our educational system, most of us have never heard of him. [emphasis added]
I tag (and apologize to, if inopportune):
Darren Kuropatwa (nice to talk to Darren for the first time in Warlick’s Fireside Chat)
Stephen Downes
Wesley Fryer
Will Richardson
Kim Cofino
Vicki Davis
Clarence Fisher
Doug Noon
Graham Wegner
Scott, this meme is a good idea. I’ll be checking out that wiki for human-filtered podcasts by the minds I admire the most. Thanks for the opportunity.
Technorati Tags: educationpodcast, podcasteducation, k12online, k12online07
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Update on Live Skype Invitation: around 1930 hours GMT+9
We expect my presentation to start around 7.30 p.m. That would make it:
- Thursday 11 a.m. in London
- Thursday 12.30 a.m. (ouch) in Hawaii (sorry, Chris! I owe you! Or you can send me a YackPack voice message?)
- Thursday 4.30 a.m. (carrumba) in Denver (Karl, how about a YackPack message?)
- Thursday 5.30 p.m. in Bangkok
- Thursday 8.30 p.m. in NSW, Australia
- Thursday 6.30 a.m. in New Jersey
- Hey Vivek in India - you game?
The actual Skype talk itself would probably come about 15 minutes later, but I’ll give you a heads-up call at the times above. Please confirm I got your times right?
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"Double-Time: FLY!" Call for Live Skype / Google Earth Guests for Parent Presentation
Arapahoe HS (Denver - Karl Fisch’s Digs)
I’ve been quiet this week because life hasn’t been. We’re in our first week of school as a 1:1 Apple Laptop school; I’m in my first week as Tech Coordinator / AP Literature teacher; our IT Manager is in his first week managing the Apple Servers at school (poor guy); I’ve been wasting time doing “schooly” homework for that blasted UCLA online AP workshop; and tomorrow night (GMT +9 in Seoul, Thursday 16 AUG 07), we’re giving . . . .
A “Why 1:1?” Parent Presentation. You’re Invited (If….)
Here’s the plan: after the principal gives his speech, and Apple Asia’s representative gives his, I’ve got a half-hour or so to give a presentation.
I’m going to steal Patrick Higgins’ idea and employ that old English teacher’s advice to “show, don’t tell” our parents this new world. Patrick hosted Carolyn Foote, Konrad Glogowski, and me in a staff PD blogging workshop / podcast last month on Skype, and he deserves the flattery of my theft of his idea.
So I’ve made a Google Earth “fly around the world” tour of schools and educators in my network. Each of those educators has agreed to show the parents our Cool New World by joining me in a live Skype conference call for a quick, 5 minute “hello” and “expert voices” interview based on the simple (?!) question, “What can a 1:1 school offer your child that traditional schools can’t?”
Since the presentation will be in our beautiful school theater-auditorium, I’ve created a Google Earth tour of each Skype-guest’s school to project on our Big Screen on stage. Skype will share that screen with Google Earth, and so will GarageBand. The plan is to go round-robin to allow each guest to give his/her 60 seconds or less of “expert testimony,” and “fly” on Google Earth to his/her school as each speaker speaks.
I’ve already enlisted the following people from the following places:
- Kim Cofino from International School Bangkok
- Westley Field from Australia
- Chris Watson from Punahou High School, Honolulu
- Karl Fisch from Arapaho High School, Littleton/Denver, Colorado
- Patrick Higgins from Sparta High School, Sparta, New Jersey
I’d like to add New Zealand, Japan, Canada, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia!
So if you read this in time (by 0800 GMT on Thursday, 16 August - just add or subtract the +/- digit of your time zone’s GMT) to leave a reply with your Skype username (or add me to your contacts: I’m cburell) and school name and address (or, better, co-ordinates), come on in. It’s easy enough for me to add your school to the Google Earth World Tour. (And yes, that’s the clumsiest sentence I’ve ever written. Okay, I’m lying: it’s typical. Sorry.)
The entire presentation will be filmed and video-podcasted. I’d love to have all interested parties - especially long-time “lurkers” on this blog (yes, Doug Belshaw, I’m talking about you 
join in. It’s “getting to know you” with a purpose. (If you prefer, you can email me at clayburell [at] gmail [dot] com.)
Video or only audio chat - no problem. Just drop in and help us have some fun.
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With Konrad and Carolyn in Patrick’s Classroom Blogging Workshop (Podcast)
Patrick Higgins Shows the Love (Nice poster skills!)So I’m hanging out with Mac last night, late, in Korea, doing homework for my (sorry) pretty uninspiring UCLA online workshop, and then Mac said: Brrrrriiing.
It was Patrick Higgins (of the excellent Chalkdust) in New Jersey, on Skype. He was giving the second day of his workshop to interested teachers in his school, and had invited Konrad Glogowski (Canada grade 8 teacher and writer of his Blog of Proximal Develpment), Carolyn Foote (librarian in Texas and writer of her Not So Distant Future blog) and, apparently desperate for a third guest, this writer of the B.S. blog in Korea.
(I thought it was going to be a video, so I put on a shirt for the occasion. It wasn’t, though. All that energy - standing up, buttoning down - wasted….)
Because we all read each other regularly, we all knew each others’ minds somewhat, though we’d never heard each others’ voices. It was nice to connect this way, in real time.
Patrick set it up nicely. His faculty had questions, and we all gave our two cents.
The subjects? Classroom blogging and edublogs as professional development.
It was strange, fun, and stimulating. As Konrad said, we three guests were really learning alongside the teachers in Patrick’s space. And, oh yeah - it was free. I wish I could say the same for that USD $500 UCLA workshop, but can’t, honestly.
(Check out Patrick’s prof dev wikis - Connective Writing and New Teacher Geek Day - worth a look. Especially for the goofy photos!)
Here it is (and thanks for a good time, Patrick. It’s an excellent way to connect teachers in workshops instead of talking at them about connecting):
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Ben on Leaving the Classroom to Become an Edtech Specialist
Ben Wilkoff Podcast: “The Most Change for the Most Kids” Annotated
- Ben’s dealing with the same conflict I am: He’s leaving the classroom to become a Tech Integration Specialist in his district next year. He articulates the hardship of that decision in much the same terms I was planning to write about.
I at least have the consolation of “keeping” two AP Lit sections for the year, and a writing workshop for the second semester. Maybe I’ll be able to implement some of the things there that I’ve been talking about here. Implement. Do. I hope so, because I don’t expect much success in trying to get other adults to do them instead (and shouldn’t expect that).
Anyway, it’s 10 minutes worth listening to. Ben’s asking for input on how he can still reach the young people without being a teacher, or needing to rely on other teachers - very resonant for me - so I hope some of you will give him suggestions there.
Because it’s a good question. When we leave the classroom, how do we ensure we’ll make more of a difference? A difference not to other web 2.0 infatuated adults, not to Ning networks, not to NECC conferences, not to the edublogosphere, but a difference in the lives of the next generation?
- post by cburell
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