Teach42

I’ve talked about this a few times during my podcast, but last night I actually got things rolling. I created a free blog on Blogger which I dubbed IceCasting. Andy Carvin took the basic idea of podcasting from a mobile phone and fleshed it out into something which he dubbed Mobcasting. Yes, it does stand for Mobile Podcasting, but it also references the idea of Smartmobs. Wikipedia defines a Smart Mob as a group that “contrary to the usual connotations of a mob, behaves intelligently or efficiently because of its exponentially-increasing network links.” Andy has used Mobcasting to organize people attending a specific event, and provide them with a forum for sharing their experiences both in print and via voice. A fantastic example of this is his Mobcasting site for The Gates @ Central Park. He allows people to email in posts for the blog and also provides them with a phone number where they can leave voicemail messages that will be posted on the blog as audio entries.

This site is basically what I am using as the basis for my IceCasting site. This week is the annual Illinois Computing Educators conference, otherwise known as ICE. I love this conference because despite it being a ‘local’ conference, they always have some incredible sessions and a pretty hefty vendor area. The collaboration that occurs there recharges my batteries and provides me with plenty of new ideas to explore. I’ve found that there’s something about a conference atmosphere that brings out the best in educators. People learn about new tools, see what other teachers are doing in the classroom and recommit themselves to trying new things at their own school. However, a few weeks later people often lose that ‘conference high’ and those same ideas get shelved as reality sets in. IceCasting is an experiment in capturing the positive energy of the conference in a manner that people can tap into again, even after the spark seems to have been lost.

The website is IceCasting.blogspot.com and it is no more than a basic free blog from Blogger. However, I have set it up so that people can post to it by sending an email to a specific address listed in the upper right hand corner of the site. There is also a phone number listed there with instructions detailing how people can leave an audio comment on the site. The idea is, throughout the conference as people get inspired they can leave messages that will be available for people to retrieve on the site. As people drive home and reflect upon the day’s events, they can leave a voice message detailing what they found interesting, sessions that they got something positive out of and tools that they intend to take back to their own classrooms. By sharing them in this way, other people who attend the conference can hear these reflections and perhaps discover a session they might have missed, a vendor they walked past or an idea that they would otherwise have never heard about. People who can’t attend the conference can tune in to these commentaries and take part in the conference without being there physically.

Most importantly though, in my mind, it provides a record of people’s experiences at ICE. A month from now, when the conference ‘high’ has worn off, you can revisit the site and listen to people who were jazzed up about the same things you were. You can even re-listen to your own comments to try to recapture what you were so excited about as you left the conference. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my notes never seem to recapture the feeling that I get when I’m leaving a really good workshop. They may document what occurred, but they don’t give me the same flavor, the same energy that I was experiencing at the time. However, a voice can capture that enthusiasm and can help to rekindle it months later.

I hope that people will give this a shot. I consider it a ‘beta’ of sorts, my first attempt at MobCasting. Hopefully it will work out, but the great thing about blogging and podcasting is that even if it doesn’t work, I’m not out thousands of dollars. The only thing that I’ve invested is my time, and I never consider experimenting with something new a waste of my time. I think there’s a ton of potential for podcasting, especially for documenting and sharing conference experiences. The most effective way that I know of to explore potential is to simply try things out and see what works and what doesn’t. Feel free to check out the site and if you’re attending the conference, I hope you participate!