It’s been a while, and although it looks like things aren’t happening on the podcasting front , you couldn’t be more wrong. We are moving ahead with all of our testing, producing, etc. in conjunction with a handful of podcasting pilots that are starting on campus. I can’t really say much about the pilots, since it’s not my story to tell.

Here are MY updates:

Podcasting using Roller (this blog software!) – This will be a portion of a DMP Taster session on Wednesday October 18th! Come to find out about blogging and podcasting using the Roller software. See the DMP Workshop Registration page for more details. This session will be led by myself (Stephanie Goetz) and DMP Instructional Designer Restiani Andriati.

iTunes U – a group of Rye folks met with the Apple Canada rep to get the ball rolling. Does this mean we’ll definitely be getting iTunes U at Ryerson? Not necessarily. It’s certainly not up to me. Papers to be read have been passed, some decisions need to be made by those ‘in the know’… Should be an interesting time. I would like to see us bring iTunes U in – I’m sure it’s no perfect system, but it has many of the bones to become one (from what I’ve read, since I haven’t seen much of anything).

Podcasting using Blackboard – more testing with this option was done by the DMP, and a few things came out.

1. We need to find an easy way for users to generate the XML, since this option assumes you already have your XML. We’re looking into building our own simple XML generator for people to use.
2. There was a problem subscribing to podcasts posted in the BBCC… on all computers but mine! I realized that these other machines, not being avid Blackboard users themselves, did not have the ‘root certificate’ installed on them, while my machine did. Went to this page: http://www.ryerson.ca/courses/Common/CompSettings/browser_setting_instructions.html#Certificate, downloaded the Security Certificate and all was golden. This will be added to my set of instructions before we start any real pilots of this process.

Almost ready to podcast – Over the last few months, I’ve been preparing some video tutorials of Blackboard with the intention of eventually creating a podcast. Why didn’t I just start a podcast right away? Well, I wanted to make sure I had enough content to actually call it a ‘podcast’ (a single media file does not a podcast make) AND I wanted it to be delivered on a production system. We were only testing Roller over the summer — it is now in production, and soon my podcast will be unveiled. I’m just working on a few last ‘intro’ podcasts, and some minor technical details. Very exciting for me!

We’ve been testing some blog software called ‘Roller’ (mentioned here a few times already). In preparation for our move into production with Roller, I’ve started a new ‘How to use Roller’ blog, which is currently a vehicle for some video tutorials.

Here is a link to the blog: http://weblogs.ryerson.ca/roller/page/usingroller

Subscribe to the “How to Use Roller” blog’s podcast by pasting this URL into iTunes:
http://weblogs.ryerson.ca/roller/rss/usingroller

WHY DO WE CARE?
Aside from offering info on how to start using Roller to blog, I’ve also covered using Roller to deliver your podcasts.

** NOTE: As of August 1, 2006. the video tutorials are fairly rough, with horrendous sound. I will be posting new ones at some point.

Now to re-investigate iTunes U. ( http://www.apple.com/education/solutions/itunes_u/)

I’m really curious to see the interface, but I think you need to get into an agreement to try it out. If it’s as easy to use as they say, maybe it’s worth running a pilot. I need to find some faculty interested in exploring this with me, though. There’s no point in running a pilot with just myself.

I took a peek at what Stanford has on iTunes U (the stuff they make public – I believe they have a whole separate iTunes U entity that is password-protected) and it was pretty interesting. A little hard to navigate at first (I didn’t really know what I was looking for), but really easy to access. I think I was streaming the files, since I didn’t download any of them. I didn’t actually *subscribe* to anything, although I could have.

To get into a school’s iTunes U, you need to click on a web link. You can’t simply search the Music Store for the school. The school’s iTunes U replaces the music store (so you’re accessing it through the iTunes Music Store link in iTunes), but you can easily return to the real Music Store by clicking the little house icon in the breadcrumb at the top.

I suppose it helps that they have quite a lot of content on there – music, concerts, videos, mini documentaries, etc.

Question: What format are all of these in? I know they can be downloaded to an iPod, but what about other portable players? This seems to be the big controversy… the formatting prevents other players, from what I hear. I have heard the audio is encoded into AAC, and the video is MP4 – but I’ll have to double check that. (Note: Supposedly you aren’t stuck to those formats – anything iTunes can play, you can publish) This is what makes people the most wary – that it is apparently a venue for Apple to sell more iPods to students. Not a bad tradeoff, I think (considering what little information I have).

I’m really interested in looking into this more. I would like to try a couple of Podcast pilots – one on iTunes U, one with Roller. In the end, which will instructors find easiest to use? Which will students find easiest to use? Will either group find podcasting useful at all?

Schools on iTunes:

• Stanford http://itunes.stanford.edu/
• Berkeley http://itunes.berkeley.edu/
• Fuqua @ Duke http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/itunes/
• Ross School of Business http://www.bus.umich.edu/Technology/iTunes/

A Few Opinions:

• National Post article: No more classes, no more books?
• http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=6071
• http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/02/01/74855_06OPstrategic_1.html
• http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/01/15.html#a1371
• http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2006/02/22.html
• http://tama.edublogs.org/2006/01/30/itunes-u-the-saga-continues/ (includes an interesting bit that says iTunes U is NOT stuck in AAC, you can publish in MP3)