KleinPod: Podcasting in Klein ISD

I was up at school for a few hours today, trying to work out the Audacity/Mbox issue with Derek, but it looks like this is going to take a little more research.  I’m just happy that we are finding this out now, and not when we have students in the classroom. We are also frustrated in our attempts to troubleshoot because we don’t have a microphone that is compatible with our technoogy. We have lots and lots of USB microphones, but there isn’t a single USB port on the mixer. Yes, it is high tech and professional (which was the goal), but is very limiting. At this point, I am very glad that we bought an extra mic. Note to self: Buy more mics.

Dr. A, the ESL and bilingual director for the district, was on campus today. I explained to him what it was we were doing on campus and invited him to have a look at the technology which led to a discussion of podcasting/vodcasting in the ESL classroom. Just by brainstorming with Dr. A today, I can see KleinPod becoming an intregral part of the ESL class. All four langauge arts skills are used in podcasting: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. How neat would it be for an ESL class to podcast their respective journeys? How powerful would it be for these podcasts to actually be used in English classes overseas?

Stacey, Peggy (my principal), and I brainstormed ideas for the pilot implementation today as well. I think I am really starting to see just how innovative this project is.

I love the smell of plastic wrap and new technology in the morning!

The only things we are still waiting on are the microphones, which we didn’t even end up needing today. This morning was an install day.

A bit of disappointing news – at first glance, it looked like Audacity and the Mbox are incompatible, but with further research, I think we can get it to work. We had just started troubleshooting right before we left campus for the day, but I think that I’ve found a solution. We are just going to have to test it out tomorrow when we get the equipment in front of us.

ProTools is the software that came with the hardware, and I have read some amazing reviews of the software. The only problem that I have with it is that we only have one license. That’s fine for now, but I envision every student having the ability to podcast, and we can’t do that with one license. So, at this point, it looks like we have three options:

1. Get Audacity to work.

2. Get DigiDesign to donate licenses for ProTools so we can use this on multiple computers,

3. Use ProTools with one podcasting workstation.

I think at this point the next step is to start networking with other successful educational podcast programs. I knw it sounds cliche’, but why reinvent the wheel?

It’s only the beginning of summer, yet I’m actually looking forward to getting back on campus tomorrow!

I got an e-mail today telling me that the grant equipment has come in! I’m going to go up to school tomorrow to unpack and get Derek to install all the software on my school laptop. There’s so much software and hardware involved that it’s mind boggling.

I must admit, I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I’m so relieved that we have so many people supporting us in this process, otherwise I’d be wondering what I’ve gotten myself into. I am finally about to make that jump from research to product. I think the hardest part will be reminding myself to slow down. I have to remember that this whole process will take much longer than what I am used to at home. Take iTunes, for instance. At home, I can just download to my heart’s content and use it immediately, but we need to make sure that it’s appropriately filtered for educational use and is compatible with all of the district’s other software. iTunes is the obvious example, but I am expecting many technological “surprises” once we get started.

At least I have the rest of the summer to find them.