Edublogs Tutorials

Hi all

Happy new year to you all and welcome to this next adventure.

I came across Talkshoe some time back but I was jarred into action when Steve Hargadon invited me and others to join him in a talkcast. This is quite simple an open broadcast, like internet radio, but with the opportunity for others to simply listen, or to take a step in and contribute. The latter requires that you have a Talkshoe account but it is all free as usual.

How to talk

You can join in by text chat or by audio via Skype, VOIP or dial in on your phone or cell. Having listened in on Steve’s, it would appear that there were lots of difficulties with feedback and mic levels.

I used Talkshoe’s own internet phone system Shoephone and it worked without doing anything at all - very easy and free, like Skype.

I always use a headset microphone to speak into and I leave the earpiece lead out of my PC and have the sound come through the speakers

Oh yes. Talkshoe also allows you to record and publish your discussion and to have it listed in iTunes as a podcast so archiving a discussion couldn’t be easier

How could this apply to the classroom?

Collaborative projects

Visiting speakers shared out with other schools

Discussion on visits that more than one school/class have taken part in

As usual, I am stepping well outside my comfort zone and technical abilities to investigate the uses of this tool. If you would like to join me on Saturday, please do

Remember you can

a) lurk

b) text chat

c) be brave and join me

in the case of all of you being A’s, I will just talk about the technology and my recent journey. If you would like to join in, we’ll have a chat about Edublogs and the innovative ways you are using it.

How It Works

Well despite my best efforts, Saturday’s talkcast was a bit of a failure. I did rehersals and they went fine but the live event was dismal. I managed to get a pre-recorded intro in, but with poor quality, and the live talk and what could have been some discussion seemed not to be functioning. I have a suspicion that at some point, my mic was muted out and I’d missed it as I was reading from a set of notes.

Apologies to

Pdonaghy, Clickspice – alias Alec Dorling who were there but I couldn’t get to them. I did get a message, but by the time I’d seen it, pd had gone. Sorry for being a poor host

Ho hum. Not to worry - Ill be having another go next week at the same time - I’ll keep you posted

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