I’ve been looking into this topic and I have seen some other responses for this subject. What if we had some EduFire Podcasts? Each tutor or student could make one for each of their profiles just to explain a little more and make it a bit more popular! :)

This is just my idea. What do you guys think we could do with podcasts?

Well, the timing’s fortuitous because even without EduFire, I was planning to begin podcasts on my own. If I was to do podcasts using EduFire as a platform, all the better.

Let’s begin with some practicalities. How can a podcast be embedded in a tutor profile page or a class page? We can do that with YouTube videos currently.

@jeremiah I think Ron is about to post a class that will tell how to embed the podcast and other things in our tutor and profile pages… He’s one to watch here’s a link to his section click here
@austin – great idea… I look forward to yours and many other teachers here… It would be a good way for folk to see the tutors and get a feel for them and the subject and a great way for the tutors to give extra info or to create product from their presentations.

Thanks guys! That is a good question: How can a podcast be embedded in a tutor profile or class page? If anybody can answer this question, it would be greatly appreciated! :)

I think I may have the answer:

Download Audacity
Download the MP3 Plugin
Run Audacity and record your podcast
Export file to MP3
Register on Snapdrive.net for file sharing (or use your favorite site)
Upload your MP3 file
Click on details and select “create a streaming flash player”
Choose options and generate embedded HTML code
Cut and paste code into your tutor page.

Try this out and see if it works! :)

I think that’s a good idea. As of right now, I do feel more comfortable imbedding podcasts than shooting video. Audacity works just great on my netbook. I’m using Drop.io for hosting/sharing my audio files, but I’ll take a look at Snapdrive. If you really like multi-media blogging, there’s also posterous as a blogging host, with various options, both free and paid, public and private. There is a site called freetech4teachers.com that has reviewed a lot of podcast systems, as well as other things. I want to put the link up on the blogging group, but i don’t know how, or who to run links by.

Be careful when you look at adding podcast and such to your eduFire profile. I find the idea that I am forced to listen to a podcast sometimes irritating in a lot of ways. Perhaps add a link to your podcast so that the viewer can open it if they desire to hear it.

A link is best because you are basicly inviting viewers to watch or listen to your material rather than opening it automatically as most streaming flash players do. Remember, when it comes to your class pages and profile pages it is about you. Not neccessarilly the latest gadget that can impress. So create a link to where the file resides without automatically opening the file.

Another thing to consider is the idea that some people (myself included) often check our eduFire accounts in public areas such as Barnes & Noble and various coffee shops like Starbucks. It can be quite disturbing if these automatically open when someone is in a public place. And at times embarassing. Trust me, I once almost got arrested at a McDonalds over streaming video which automatically started on the wall of a social website I once was affiliated with.

I learned a very important lesson then and I hope you understand why I caution against this.

If you use Drop.io, it gives you a link. It doesn’t play unless you click on the link — then you’re directed to…. well, they call it a hotlink, and you click again before it actually plays.

That would be perfectly acceptable! But it would be nice if you could create your own image and use it as a link to your podcast. I know there is a way to learn how to make such an image…. let’s see, where did I see a free class that could teach me how to do that?

Good point, Ron! I was thinking about that, too. In fact, I was thinking about it when I said that I had some useful links to post on the blogging group, but I didn’t know how to put them up. (I only know how to put up links when I’m using a program like Google or InMotion that has a ‘hyperlink’ button.)

Ron’s class on that is Nov 7, right? Great stuff, but I need to learn this faster. I will attend when the class takes place, however.

As for the idea of a podcast that plays from merely opening the page…. errrr, wha? That’s not a good idea, no. I didn’t even dream that would be required. User choice is a fundamental principle here.

The fact is, I have no idea how many people look at my tutor profile in the first place. I don’t want to scare away the ones who do.

Jeremiah, you might want to visit www.freetech4teachers.com — it’s an education blog with new posts on a daily basis. Try searching the site under certain key words.
I so don’t know how to add HTML to a profile page (that’s Ron’s specialty), but in the mean time…. that Blogger blog that your profile links to — if you want it to start talking, giving demos,or telling stories from text links, you may message me. I think it’s Ron that has a post on this site somewhere about using HTML to add some text links to the body of the profile page; if you find that, then, armed with the other info, you may get your profile to talk from text links without the Blogger blog as an intermediary.

There is a little bit of confusion as to when I will be teaching my upcoming class on using HTML to spice up your eduFire Profile and Class pages. Although the class Jeremiah refers to on November 7th will deal with creating images that can be used, my upcoming class called TutorTek’s How to Wow Guide Using Simple HTML will be coming much sooner. I have not determined the actual date yet. However, expect it in the second week of October. Also, because Alaia is turning out to be such a wonderful friend on eduFire, I will try to make this class on a Tuesday to fit her schedule.

I need to make certain the exact date before I post this class, but it should be uploaded very shortly. Also, please be expecting something new and exciting starting late next week. It is something I think will interest many of you who want to take marketing your eduFire classes to a much higher level!

Wow! This topic has grown! :)

I totally agree that something that opens automatically once you go to the page is VERY IRRITATING!!! So, I know that that never works. Also Ron, your class looks awesome and I will sure be attending it! But, this podcast thing was just an idea that me and some of the other EduFireans had. Just thought we’d discuss…. :)

@ Austin… its a great topic… I’m gonna try some of the things that were posted here… but you know just a thought until Ron’s class is up and available… what about recording a video , separate the audio track out if you’re not comfortable with seeing yourself…. place a photo or photos instead and upload it to youtube and link from there using the html formatting help that is provided for us. That is going to touch a large audience who is just surfing and searching youtube as well and direct them to your eduFire profile… could serve as Stealth Marketing.
@ Ron… Thank you for thinking of me, I appreciate the consideration, however I’m not your only fan so make sure it for the highest good of all.I am looking forward to the next new and exciting thing you will have to share!

That’s a viable option, too. If you go to Dave’s profile, and click on ‘music’, you’ll get to his YouTube radio station; he’s got some of the songs he’s recorded set against a background of nature photos. I imagine he’s a resource on these matters, too. We’re all resources, because we have different styles as well as strengths.
I expect I’m very much in the minority in my attitude toward video. When I got my igoogle homepage, it came set a YouTube gadget; I figured out how to add and subtract Google gadgets pretty quickly because I didn’t want to look at that thing. I wasn’t going to be interested in the video-of-the-day, and I could think of far more appealing and useful (to me) gadgets than a large black box. But if the gadget had played music of my choosing, set against backgrounds of animals/nature, I would have thought, “Now there’s some impressive technology.”

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Fine work, Ron. How 2 Wow has just the right nuance. I purely got lucky in when I clicked back on this thread so I guess I’m the early bird that gets the worm this time, to use an idiom from my ESL classes. I was going to examine this topic exhaustively in the near future; well, I still am, but the more help, the better.

You sure are wedded to that orange and black color combination, too…. :)

Hi Karen!

You are somewhat wrong about Dave being a resource on these matters – actually Dave is an EXCELLENT choice in these matters!

I like to highlight exceptional tutors as I promote my classes here on eduFire. In my upcoming class, TutorTek’s How-to-Wow Guide Using Easy HTML I will be recommending Dave as my Tutor of Choice for getting specific, one-on-one tutoring on creating websites! Although there are several great HTML tutors available here on eduFire (our good friend Koichi being one of them) I have had an opportunity to read Dave’s comments on the forums and I KNOW Dave really understands HTML!

So I recommend everyone to join my class here on eduFire to dress up your profile and class pages! If you want to check out a structured class on creating web pages using simple HTML you might want to check out Koichi’s Class.

But if you are serious about learning website creation from a seasoned professional you can’t beat Dave!

I am asking a very petite favor — it’s one I will offer to others.
First, a bit of background on something: I haven’t lived in the same house with a television (except for the briefest periods) since high school. While I have very occasionally gone to movies with people I’m fond of, left to my own devices, I would go years and years without ever feeling an impulse to see one, and when I come across a blog that is populated with large boxes with arrows on them (YouTube-style) I tend to click the “next blog” button. That’s a bit hard for many folks to fathom. Partly, I think TV/movies/video are too passive for me, and partly I think it’s a learning preference issue. I enjoy passively listening, but not watching.
I love voice in every since of the word (voice as a writing trait, voice as oral interp, voice as music). The latter of those three things — that I don’t have the talent for. The first two are part of what drives me to be on this site, to participate in these forums. I’ve dropped in on a lot of people’s blogs this past week; can I get a few nice writerly/listenerly folks to drop in on mine, please? The one that is up now is not my teacher blog, though I do plan on replacing it again with my teacher blog before too long. If you do drop in on it, maybe give me until late tonight (US — Pacific time) or tomorrow morning (Tuesday). By that time, I will have a piece up with a short reference to Edufire and a tad more audio. (If the top entry still says “Netbook Attachment”, it’s not up yet.) My writer blog (as opposed to the teacher one) is set to not take comments on the entries. (I read messages, though.)
You folks are great.
@ Austin: There was a song your profile briefly played….and, well, if it’s a freely and openly available promotion song, my blog would like to play it (from a clickable text link). My blog is thinking about getting a new ‘link list’ of songs it likes.

Hi Karen,
I am seeing “Netbook Attachment”, so I guess I’m too early :).

I’d like to comment on two things from your post:
1) I do have have TV, when I did, I rarely watched it. Puts me to sleep. I enjoy an occasional movie though wouldn’t go too often, and the movie has to be really good.
2) Music on web pages: I leave right away if it comes on automatically. A pet peeve of mine, I just don’t want to be blasted by some music that I may not even like. I usually have a bunch of pages opened, and if they’re all blasting, it gives me a headache.

Thanks so much, Agnes. I do appreciate you’re looking in on that.
I think all of us agree on not wanting music to autoplay, though I did very much like one of the songs I discovered on this site, and I think that tutor might link to his music in a different format (particularly since he does teach a bit of music, I believe).
I just put up a post that’s actually not the one I indicated earlier that I’d put up. It does have a snippet of audio, but it’s a lighter, humorous piece, that I simply felt more comfortable with this evening. I don’t think I personally like it as well as one from a few evenings ago, but I felt like putting up a bit of humor (and making it clear it was humor). A few days ago, I almost wrote that I had to get my modem fixed because, while a podcast live and at-large from the U-District in Seattle might be entertaining, a class wouldn’t be. I was concerned that the attempt at humor might not be apparent!
One thing I like about Edufire…. Well, I am a certified teacher, and I’ve already stepped outside the areas I was specifically trained in by working older kids, and tutoring SAT, but I thought I might get a chance to step outside even a bit more; there are avocations that I would, at this point, simply be happy to share for free. (And of course I’m aware that too much ‘free’ is controversial and can cause harm — A little bit of free is, I think, a great thing.) And some of it’s on (or linked off) that blog. I am simultaneously proud of it, and shy of it. It’s not for everyone. So many things are a matter or taste — writing, music, video, art. And, as I noted in an earlier post, it can be a bit hard to put things out there.
As for that one song I referenced before, I imagine there are people who love it, and people who hate it; if the artist is doing it as a promo, I would like to link to it in a different form.

Hi everyone: Just a FYI a webpage that starts to blast me with music or chatter when I open it I will immediately close!!! I usually am listening to a lecture or something while I am surfing and if I come across something that looks interesting I want to CHOOSE to listen to it or watch it.
I am sorry I am going to miss Ron’s class but hopefully it will happen again or my life will slow down a bit so that I have more than one day a week to attend classes.
I think podcast are really great and I tend to load up my iphone every week with stuff to listed to while I commute or when I am doing design work. Why waste any time from learning,….right? I would love to create my own so that others could learn from me too.
@Ron – Is there any way to get that special report if you can’t attend the class.

There are multiple ways to put the same material up! If people want their songs (their own music that they created, or anything else it’s legal to post) it’s easy to put them up on Blogger. I am going to put up some links on the blogging group.
A lot of seem to be fans of educational podcast. Some of us may also be fans of making audio pod, in general. If there is anyone who loves to read — either their own material or public domain — that’s a part of what I’m personally talking about. There definitely is an education link: Putting up a lot of content can bring people to your blog or profile, and what I personally love to put up is audio: whole children’s books — classics, chapter-by-chapter — with lesson plans. Anybody who is interested in that sort of thing — I wish they’d see me. I know there are other people on the web doing it, (but I don’t know if they’re on Edufire).