Podcasting via Email? Yay!

While preparing for a workshop and a webinar on audio tools, I happen to run across Posterous and was immediately intrigued.  This blog tool lets you easily post via your email and even cross-post simultaneously to a number of other sites, including Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, Blogger, WordPress, and more.   And, while those are really cool features, what really got my attention was the ability to podcast via email.

I’ve taught a lot of podcast workshops and I’m always looking for new tools that make it easier to become a podcaster without having to learn a lot of the technical stuff.  Posterous is that new tool.  Imagine it – create your mp3 audio file, email it to your blog, and voila! You’re a podcaster. Posterous takes care of the rest – putting your file into your blog so that it can be listened to there and also having a feed automatically generated so people can subscribe to it in iTunes.

If you’ve been waiting for a simpler way to podcast, then give Posterous a try.  And, while you’re at it, check out how easy it is to use the other features of this blogging tool: you can send ppt, doc, pdf, jpg, avi, mpg files and more to your blog just by sending an email with an attachment. They’ll be put in a format that can be read online and even downloaded and shared with others.  You’ll be amazed at the simplicity and usefulness of this cool blogging tool.

Getting things done…with audio.

Recently, I spent some time reviewing technology for a webinar on audio productivity tools that I was presenting.  The goal was to find some tools that somehow helped with productivity and had an audio component.  I found several:

Dixero – a great little RSS text-to-audio podcast tool. This simple tool provides a way for you to create playlists of your favorite text-based RSS feeds which are then converted to an audio podcast.  In terms of productivity – now I can listen to my favorite updates while I walk or commute.

File2WS – easily share files on the web for viewing or download.  Many teachers I know like to make text, images, audio, and video files available for listening to or viewing on the web but don’t really want to deal with the hassle of figuring out how get these things in a blog, wiki, or other service.  This service takes care of that – freeing up your time to do other things.

Posterous – blog posting of text, images, audio, and video using just email with attachments.  This service does so much more, but just the convenience of emailing posts and having attachments automatically converted for web viewing is awesome.

Dial2Do -  use your phone to send email, SMS, IM, record notes, calendar items, t0-do lists, post to Twitter, FriendFeed, and various blogs PLUS listen to RSS feeds.  The possibilities (and ease) of this tool made it the hands-down favorite during the webinar.  Please do yourself a favor and check out this tool.

I hope you find at least one of these tools useful!  If you do try them out, let me know how it went.

Threaded Audio Discussions

Discussions are great educational activities. There’s nothing like a rousing discussion to help students learn about different perspectives on a topic, reflect on their learning, and just generally share information and build community. However, not all students really like the text-based threaded discussions we normally use in our classes: some students are uncomfortable writing for an audience and some just don’t find all that text very appealing.

Fortunately, some new web services out there allow you to easily create threaded VOICE discussions. These services are similar to text-based discussion forums, but instead of typing your post or your reply, you record it! And then, instead of reading all those posts, you simply listen – either at the site or in your favorite RSS Reader (my current favorite is Google Reader because it handles text, audio, and video feeds).

Of course, if you’ve been reading any of the posts in this blog, you know I have a preference for Web 2.0 services rather than software that you have to download. So, I was very happy to find Vaestro. This online service lets you listen to and participate in hundreds of different conversations going on in the Vaestro community… all without even creating an account or downloading anything to your computer! You can also create your own channels, forums, and discussion topics and administer them just as you would any text-based forum. So, go check it out. I think you’ll like it. Or, watch my vaestro overview, administration, and moderation tutorials. They’re not perfect, but they do get the point across.

When I have used this tool more, I will post a more extensive review.

File Conversion Tools

In an online teaching environment, it almost seems inevitable that we all get a few files each course that are in a format we can’t open. When this happens, we either have to spend precious time explaining to students how to save their file in a format we can use or learning how to download and install various plug-ins that might make the file more accessible to us. Neither is really an acceptable solution. Fortunately, there are a few online sites that provide us with better options: ZamZar and YouConvertIt.

Common Features
Both ZamZar and YouConvertIt are free web-based services. That means, among other things, that you do not need to download any software to your computer to use these services. Both also allow you to upload and convert up to five files at one time and then send the links to the converted files to any email address. Finally, both services provide conversions for a variety of text, image, audio, and video file formats. Of course, while they offer similar features, each service has some differences – differences that will impact your choice of which to use.

User Experience
Interface – both services have simple, 3-step processes that will have even the most novice computer user converting files in no time! Of the two, I think that ZamZar’s interface is more pleasing, but YouConvertIt’s interface seems less confusing when you are trying to upload more than one document to convert.

Convenience – ZamZar and YouConvertIt convert uploaded files fairly quickly – However, ZamZar had similar conversion times for all file types while YouConvertIt was quicker for audio, similar in time requirements for video, and much slower for text documents. Both also send a link to any email address you specify and the download process is quite simple. However, YouConvertIt keeps your converted files for 7 days while ZamZar only keeps them for 1 day. If you don’t check your email that often, the 7 day window is much more convenient.

Quality – The quality of the PDF and HTML conversions of a word document was similar for both services. Also similar was the quality of their .mp3 files when converted from a .wav format. However, when I uploaded a 24MB QuickTime (.mov) video file for conversion to a flash video file (.flv), ZamZar returned a very nice 1.6MB flash file while the YouConvertIt file was over 100MB and gave me errors. A second attempt with YouConvertIt yielded the same results.

Formats – Both services have a number of file formats that they can handle for conversion. However, each has some niche conversions that the other doesn’t. For example, YouConvertIt handles many StarOffice formats while ZamZar handles MS Office 2007 formats.

Recommendations
Both services are comparable so the choice is not clear cut. For basic text and audio conversion, either will work. If, however, you need the convenience of a 7-day download window, go with YouConvertIt. On the other hand, if you plan to be converting video into FLV or you need to convert MS Office 2007 files, then ZamZar seems the better bet.

Mobile Reminders

I’ve been looking for a quick, easy, instantaneous way of getting info out to my learners. You know the deal – reminders about those upcoming assignment deadlines, encouraging words for deeper social presence, etc.

Since almost everyone has cell phones, I concentrated on mobile technology for my search. I found two possible tools to help: Joopz and AbbyMe. Each has their pros and cons (like all tech).

Joopz
This tool allows you to send and receive SMS messages (text messages on your phone) from a web browser. The messages can be sent immediately or scheduled in advance (woohoo!) and sent to individuals or up to groups of 10. The free version of this service lets you send 50 SMS a month. See Joopz for more info.

AbbyMe
This tool makes it possible for you to send phone calls from a web browser. The calls can be sent immediately or scheduled in advance and they can be sent to individuals or groups (no limit that I can tell). You type in your message and it gets converted to voice on the receiving end. See AbbyMe for more info.

Comparisons
Both of these tools were so easy to use – from account creation to sending the messages (I sent practice messages to myself). One concern I have is that not every person on the planet has an SMS capable phone – that would mean using AbbyMe instead. On the other hand, some folks (especially the 20something crowd) have unlimited SMS but only a handful of cell phone minutes at their disposal. So, for that crowd, Joopz would be better. I do like that you can have Joopz forward SMS responses to your phone if you’re away from your browser. That two-way capability does increase social presence… On the other hand, you can include media files with your message in the AbbyMe service. Neither require the learner to create a new account or sign up for anything.

I think I’ll give both of them a try and see what happens. Of course, I’ll get permission first from each of them. It’s probably not a good thing to send SMS to folks without asking since they have to pay for them.

Digital resource collections, anyone?

There’s certainly no lack of resources on the web, yet keeping those resources organized and easily accessible can be quite challenging. That’s where “start pages” come in. They’re great for helping you collect all those resources into one web page – a start page – that you can easily access. In short, you spend less time visiting myriad pages of resources and more time actually listening to or reading the resources you’ve previously collected.

Of course, there are plenty of options available if you are looking for a start page. Notable options in this category are NetVibes and PageFlakes. And, of course, there is iGoogle. They all provide easy, convenient ways to collect resources and they have some great special widgets to pull in info from other services. However, I was looking for something a bit…different. Those others are great but, well, they all seem quite the same – very squarish and columnar. Yet, there is one start page tool that I’ve found that is different – Protopage.

I like Protopage because it’s stylish. It doesn’t have that square feeling and you can organize content in tidy columns or in messy disarray all over the page. Plus, all the color choices are quite nice. Of course, I know that’s not the point of these tools, but – I am pretty sure that the more fun and personality you can put into your start pages, the more likely you probably are to use them. And, if you are interested in sharing them with others, then all the nice ‘personality’ features certainly will get your page noticed and remembered.

Because I really like to test out tools in relation to other similar tools, I created not only a Protopage, but also NetVibe and Pageflakes pages. Compare them for yourself by visiting: my Technology in Higher Ed protopage, my Higher Education, Technology, & Teaching netvibes page or my Higher Education, Technology, and Teaching/Learning pageflakes page. The primary difference among the three, beyond what I’ve already stated, is that Protopage and Pageflakes seem to be much easier to share with others without a password (especially if you have set up multiple tabs). So if you intend to use one of these start pages to promote your collection to many others, use prototype or pageflakes. If you find the secret to sharing netvibes easily, please let me know. This is only a first look afterall and I’m bound to miss something.

While I have a bit stronger preference for Protopage, any of the start page tools mentioned would be good choices for someone wishing to make collections of digital resources. Faculty would truly find this a useful tool for collecting resources for their own research or even class materials resources for their students. Students certainly can also benefit from the tool – collecting the resources they use for those course projects, for example.

So, go on out and start your own page. You might find that you save yourself some time and stay more up to date with your favorite resources.