The microphones

After being told that contradictory stories about the shipping status of the missing microphones, Peggy finally got to the bottom of the story: they are both back ordered.

Not “shipping first thing tomorrow”, not “delivered”, but “back ordered”.

I’m relieved, but I’m also a little skeptical – “back ordered” seems a little too convenient after the number of inquiry calls that have been made. I even checked the web page of each mic and nowhere on the page does it say that the item is back ordered.

 Hopefully they’ll be in soon.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good: After days of pounding heads, searching help forums on-line, and even (gasp) watching the tutorial video, Derek and Micheal discovered one of our problems: we had the speakers connected to the computer and not the M Box. Problem fixed and everything seems to be working just fine now. Monday’s goal will be how to save a file with a workable extension (we can’t seem to save them as wav’s or mp3’s) and the best way to publish them.

The Bad: We still have not gotten our microphones. I called the company again and was told that the items were delivered. After a little more investigating, it turns out that they weren’t. Or, if they were, they weren’t labeled appropriately. What bothers me the most is after I got off the phone the second time with the company, I realized that I was given conflicting information/

6/23 – I called about the mics. One mic was being shipping first thing tomorrow morning (6/24) and I did not hear back about the second mic (I think they called the school’s main number which is being answered during the summer).

The next time I called, “Eric” looked up the tracking number and said that they were both delivered on the same day: 6/13.

Wait, what?

Is this the same mic that wasn’t even getting shipped until the 24th?

The other bothersome thing about the company is that they open at 9:00 Pacific time, so that means that I have to wait until 11:00 *my* time before I can get an answer.

I think we are all getting a little anxious now, and Peggy has decided to call the company herself.

The Ugly: I have a few pictures that I’d like to post, but I keep forgetting to download them from the camera. I also have a few sample videos from the camcorder as well, but I am not even going to mess with that until I feel comfortable with the audio.

Stacey’s working on lesson plans, which is good, because at this point, I think I’d go overboard with pre-learning and vocabulary (probably just because I’m feeling a little insecure and intimidated, but I am confident that I’ll be ready to go by the end of the month).

I had another meeting with Peggy and Julie yesterday, and I left in such good spirits. I really didn’t know what to expect when I realized that I’d need to be in such close communication with the front office. Would our goals conflict? Would this be considered a priority? Would they see this project as innovative as I think it is?

After yesterday’s meeting, all fears have been calmed. It was so invigorating watching them get excited about the project! Of course I’m excited, but it’s validating when other people can see the possibilities as well. It’s amazing to see all of the ideas that other people have that I would have never even imagined. It’s incredible.

Unpacking and Installing

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!