Podcasting Made Easy

Would you like to record a class for an absent student, or a review session before a big test, or instructons for students when you are out?

Go to GCast and set up an account. Then, if you have a blue-tooth earpiece for your cellphone, you can dial a number and record your class over the phone! Then you can go to GCast’s website and link to it on your blog or upload it, as I did here on my blog as an experiment. (Just click on the arrow to play.)

(BTW, you don’t need an earpiece; I just figured it would be difficult to teach with a cellphone pressed to your ear for 45 minutes. If you have a speakerphone option, that might work too, although most of them sound like you’re talking from the bottom of a large tin barrel.)

Inserting them into your blog is a big tricky and requires a work-around, which I will document in a later post with a little video.

Burning ISO CDs and The Open Education Disc Project

What, pray tell, is an ISO CD? To be honest, I had never even heard of this before this summer, and have had need of it several times in the last 2 months. (Note: If you have a slow internet connection (DSL or (gasp!) dial-up) this is not for you. ISO files are usually 600 – 700 MB.)

ISO files are actually images of complete CDs burned as one whole image, instead of separate files. If you’re on a Windows PC, you need a special program to handle it. I assume that your computer can burn regular CDs.

If you already have a program you like for burning CDs (Roxio, Nero, etc.) then you just need a utility that can handle this. ISO Recorder is just the ticket. After it is installed, right-click a downloaded ISO file and click Copy Image to CD and it does its thing.

If you are lacking a CD burning program, check out IMGBurn. It can handle burning CDs, DVDs (if you have a DVD recorder) and ISOs.

As to why you might want to burn an ISO disc, head over to The Open Education Disc Project and download (again, only if you have a fast connection!) the Open Education Disc. It’s a one-stop collection of every piece of open-source software you could possibly want as a teacher/student.

Any Stern teachers wanting a copy can just ask me, and I will be happy to burn you a copy, especially if your internet connection is less than blazing.

Inserting Youtube video into your blogpost

This is for Rebecca.
I found a video tutorial on Youtube that is a little out of date. You can watch it if you want. But it’s actually simpler now than when the video was made.

Unlike the video, you do NOT have to go into Users and change your profile anymore.

When you find a video you like on Youtube, copy (ctrl+c) the embed code (click here for screenshot).

Log in to your blog. When you go into “Write,” in the top right of your post box (click here for screenshot) there are two tabs – “Visual” (which is the default) and HTML. Click HTML, and paste (ctrl+V) the code in, save and publish.

One thing the video is quite correct on – you can never click back to Visual to edit your post. If you do, you will lose the Embed Code from Youtube and have to go back and do it again. So keep your video posts in HTML.