The iMic I ordered from Griffin Technology arrived yesterday. Today I had my first chance to familiarize myself with it, and learned a few additional things along the way. Such as:

1. Soundflower was overriding my audio settings.
2. Linein from (Rogue Amoeba’s nice little product) was keeping my microphone from working.

Did I mention that I am a novice with the Macintosh? I’ve been using Windows/Intel PCs since 1985, but Macs and I are new friends. It seems like everytime I try and experiment (like podcasting) I learn 10 additional things I hadn’t planned on learning. Ah, good old discovery learning. For me, that means I keep discovering how much I need to learn!

Now that I have the stuff I need to begin podcasting, it’s time to start putting it together.

Take cover.

Once of the speakers at the Apple Digital Campus Leadership Conference was Cole Camplese, the Director of IST Solutions Institute at Penn State U. Mr. Camplese presented some very innovative uses of RSS and blogging for delivering academic content and supporting information. Read his article on using the iPod to change how you grade assignments.

Today I ordered Griffin Technology’s iMic USB Audio Interface to use with my G4 iBook. Why any computer manufacturer would not include a line in/mic input on any PC or laptop is beyond me. Kind of carries the minimilist design thing a bit too far.

I discovered (to my dismay) that the iBooks’s built-in microphone is less useful than I expected. I experimented with the built-in mic using GarageBand and the Soundstudio application that comes with OS 10.3. I actually had a better recording experience using Soundstudio. Then again, I have a lot to learn about recording, podcasting, and life in general.

I expect the iMic stuff to show up here in a couple of days. Once I have it hooked up I’ll put on my hardhat and start work on the next small step: making a decent voice recording.

While I wait for the arrival of the new hardware I plan to start work on a narrated presentation on podcasting. The purpose of this project is self-educational, as well as motivational. I’m the type of person who learns by doing. So I’m doing. I want to experiment with Impatica for Powerpoint. Impatica is an awesome tool for converting bulky PPT files into lean, mean flash presentations. I’ve used it at work this week to make major performance improvements for PPT presentations in some of the university’s online courses. However, this little project of mine will be my first shot at doing a narrated presentation. It should be interesting.

Now where did I put my hardhat?

As a new arrival in the realm of blogging and podcasting, I am extremely curious about finding effective ways to use of RSS for pushing instructional content and academic support content to students, online or on-campus. During the conference at U of Missouri, there were several presentations illustrating the potential of RSS in education.

The Apple Leadship conference covered a lot more than just podcasting.

You can connect to the Apple Digital Campus blog at:

http://edmarketing.apple.com/adcinstitute/wp-rss2.php

You can take a look at the conference Vodcasts (video podcasts) by pointing your aggregator at:

http://journalism.missouri.edu/podcast/adc-video.xml

The conference podcasts are available at:

http://journalism.missouri.edu/podcast/adc-audio.xml

Don’t you mean pedagogy? No.

Podagogy is a term that floated through my consciousness while washing dishes! Like there term “podcasting” (ipod + broadcasting), podagogy is a portmanteau, a combination of two words – podcasting and pedagogy.

Having just spent a week at the University of Missouri (Columbia) as a guest of their School of Journalism and Apple Inc., I’ve returned to work with a strong interest in the potential of podcasting to deliver instructional content. Surprisingly, the timing seems to be just about right.

Within a day of returning from the conference at U of Missouri, a faculty member approached me asking about the possibility of doing a podcast during a crosscultural trip with a group of Spring Arbor University students. I can’t say “the rest is history” yet, as we are pressing ahead to try and do Spring Arbor University’s first ever official podcast.

I’ll have more to say about this project (and our experiences) as time goes on. The crosscultural trip is scheduled for mid to late May of this year, so stay tuned.