The day has finally arrived to start the podcasting research project. Seeing the surprise on the faces of all the students in the class who received an iPod to use for the semester was priceless. I really appreciate Professor Crater’s help in keeping the “secret”, which helped avoid having lots of folks enroll just to get access to an iPod. Fortunately, surprise was complete – and it was cool to observe.
I will be very interested to see how much help and support the students will require (if any) using their iPod Nanos, setting up iTunes, etc.

I know the time is going to fly by, but I can’t wait to collect and analyze data at the end of the semester.

As the Spring semester gets ready to kickoff, I am making final preparations for a new podcasting research project. I have to say that I have had a lot of help from a lot of wonderful people. What’s more, the University is supporting the research by loaning a large number of iPod Nanos to the project. It is truly a blessing to have such support from one’s university, and assistance from so many kind people.

Tomorrow I meet with the first group of students to describe the project goals and distribute the iPods. I expect to have a lot of fun in the process. I won’t meet with the second group of students till next week.

I expect the first few weeks of the semester to be pretty demanding in terms of support for students and faculty. But after that I expect things well level out. The research project will run the whole semester and hopefully provide the data I need for my dissertation. Then again, the end of the semester is a long ways away at this moment.

One of my goals is to chronicle the experience of the podcasting project. Below is a photo of the iPods being used in the project. Christy Radall, one of my colleagues, took the time to stack, arrange and shoot the interesting pile of iPods. Click the thumbnail for a larger version.

As you can see, I haven’t posted for quite a while. It isn’t as if there have been no interesting articles on podcasting, or related events. Truth is, finishing up course work, preparing for the comprehensive exams, and work left me with little time (and energy) to post new items.
The good news is my wife and I (we are both pursuing doctoral studies online, through Regent University) have completed our doctoral course work and passed the comprehensive exams (woo hoo!). This represents a major milestone for us. Next step: dissertation proposal defense.