Archives for May 2014

How to Create a Course Podcast Using Dropbox and JustCast in 5 Easy Steps

May 8, 2014 By Jason Rhode 4 Comments

I’ve been a long-time proponent of podcasting in education and I shared back in 2012 how to create a course podcast using Dropbox. The process I shared at that time, while free and workable, was still a bit cumbersome a presented a few minor technical hurdles that faculty needed to overcome in order when implementing. I recently learned of a new tool, JustCast, that removes the previous technical hurdles and makes podcasting using Dropbox super simple!

This 2-minute tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to create a podcast using Dropbox:

JustCast Tutorial

I decided to give JustCast a try myself. Below are the steps I took to setup a course podcast for my summer course, ETT 511: Advanced Instructional Media Design, in less than 5 minutes! Before following my steps below, you’ll need to first have a Dropbox account, which you can sign-up for free at dropbox.com.

Step 1: Sign-up for a Free Account

After I viewing the tutorial at justcast.herokuapp.com, I signed-up for a free account. In a matter of just a couple of clicks, I had approved the JustCast app in my Dropbox account. After logging in, my JustCast Shows page looked like this:

JustCast Shows

Step 2: Edit “example” Dropbox Folder Name

As part of the JustCast install process, it creates a folder called “justcast” in your “Apps” folder in your Dropbox folder. Within that “justcast” folder will be a subfolder called “example” that is meant to be the placeholder for your first podcast. I renamed that folder to the name of my course podcast, “ETT 511 – Summer 2014” so it appeared as follows:

renamed podcast folder

Step 3: Place .mp3 File in Podcast Folder

With my course podcast folder renamed to “ETT 511 – Summer 2014” I then simply dragged and dropped the .mp3 file for my first podcast episode into that folder within Dropbox on my computer, which then sync’d with my Dropbox in the cloud. Once sync’d, I could see that the audio file for my first episode was within my Dropbox/Apps/justcast/ETT 511 – Summer 2014/ folder
Podcast file
For each new episode to be added in the future, the new .mp3 file will simply need to be added to this folder.

Step 4: Edit Podcast Details

I then went ahead and edited my podcast show details in JustCast. Clicking the “Edit” button I added the following show details and attached a square graphic to be used as the thumbnail artwork for the podcast.
edit show details

After saving the edited show info, the podcast appeared in my list of shows as follows:
edited podcast show details

Step 5: Share Podcast RSS URL

The final step was to click the “RSS” button for my show to get the RSS feed for my course podcast, which is http://justcast.herokuapp.com/shows/371/audioposts.rss

podcast RSS feed

Students can copy/paste this URL into their own podcast app of choice, such as Downcast, Instacast, Apple’s Podcast app, or others to subscribe and be able to easily download & access all future course podcast episodes directly from their mobile device.

I’ve been very impressed thus far with JustCast, even though it is currently just beta. I plan to continue using it for my course podcast this summer and I’d encourage other educators looking for a simple and free podcasting solution to give it a try! The free plan currently limits to 100mb of uploading per month, with an unlimited monthly upload option for just $5/mo.

Have you tried JustCast and/or found these steps helpful? What has been your experience thus far with podcasting using Dropbox and JustCast? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Filed Under: Blog, Tutorials Tagged With: , ,

#ETT511 Course Videos – Summer 2014

May 8, 2014 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

As previously shared, I plan to incorporate a number of communication media options for students in ETT 511: Advanced Instructional Media Design. After the very popular implementation of video from my last online course, which I recently presented at the Sloan Consortium International Symposium on Emerging Technologies for Online Learning, I plan to incorporate video once again in my online course this summer, using YouTube’s built-in recording and captioning capabilities. While these videos will be embedded within the Blackboard course for my students, I’ve also setup an unlisted YouTube playlist that my students can subscribe to in order to easily access and view on their smart phones and/or tablets.

The beauty about a YouTube playlist is that the video with playlist can be easily embedded within any LMS or other web-based tool. Here’s an example of the video with playlist embedded:

Here’s an example of an alternative embedding option, just a single video without the playlist:

I plan to also experiment with audio versions of the videos, distributed as a podcast. More details to come in a future post about the workflow and process I’m exploring.

Filed Under: ETT 511, Teaching Tagged With:

Preparing for #ETT 511 – Summer 2014

May 8, 2014 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

ETT 511 banner
I’m looking forward to the opportunity to teach online this summer the course, ETT 511: Advanced Instructional Media Design, for Northern Illinois University’s Department of Educational Technology, Research & Assessment. Students enrolled in this course are a part of an online cohort pursuing a Master’s in Education in Instructional Technology with a K-12 Type 10 Technology Specialist Certification. It’s an honor for me to teach as part of this US News #1 Ranked Online Program.

During this accelerated (10 week) online course students will explore advanced design of mediated instruction as they engage in a wide variety of activities, designed to help them meet the following course objectives:

  1. Review current literature regarding message design principles in design and production of materials.
  2. Apply message design principles to the evaluation of existing instructional materials.
  3. Apply message design principles to the design and production of instructional materials in print, slide and video formats.

As I design and develop this online course, I plan to follow the best practices I’ve previously shared for designing exemplary courses in Blackboard and will be trying a few new features and techniques along the way. In addition to using the built-in interaction and collaborative features of Blackboard, I plan to incorporate blogging, videos, and podcasts as supplemental media options for my students in addition to course news and reminders via Remind101. I’ll also be tweeting using hashtag #ett511 and will be encouraging my students to do the same.

I’m also going to go out on a limb and share my experience and tips for incorporating these new techniques in Blackboard here on my blog, so stay tuned. My goal in doing so is to not only share my experiences for other faculty but also to give my students a behind-the-scenes look at how I’ve gone about incorporating the media elements into their course, should they so wish to use them as a model in the future.

Speaking of blogging…my students will be setting-up their own blogs in this course as they begin developing their own “digital footprint” while also gaining valuable experience communicating using a combination of media elements. In an attempt to model the possibilities for my students, I’ll be blogging for my students here and plan to preface all my course-specific posts with #ETT511. I may include other posts as well as I feel they may be appropriate.

If you are one of my students reading this…get ready, it’s going to be a great course!

Filed Under: Blog, ETT 511, Teaching Tagged With:

Google Announces New Learning Management System

May 7, 2014 By Jason Rhode Leave a Comment

Google Classroom“Classroom is a new, free tool coming to Google Apps for Education that helps teachers easily and quickly create and organize assignments, provide feedback, and communicate with their classes” (Source). “Classroom weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to help teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease…it lets students organize their work, complete and turn it in, and communicate directly with their teachers and peers” (Source).

The following video highlights the experiences of some of the teachers and students who provided feedback as Google developed Classroom.

Benefits for Classes

Easy to Set up

Teachers can add students directly or share a code with their class to join. It takes just minutes to set up.

Saves Time

The simple, paperless assignment workflow allows teachers to create, review, and grade assignments quickly, all in one place.

Improves Organization

Students can see all of their assignments on an assignments page, and all class materials are automatically filed into folders in Google Drive.

Enhances Communication

Classroom allows teachers to send announcements and questions instantly. Since students can post to the stream, they can help out their classmates.

Affordable and Secure

Like the rest of our Google Apps for Education services, Classroom contains no ads, never uses your content or student data for advertising purposes, and is free for schools.

For more info or to request an invite to Google Classroom, visit http://www.google.com/edu/classroom

While I agree with Joshua Kim that this announcement by Google focused on K-12 education has little direct impact immediately on higher education, providing an increasing number of elementary and secondary students access to LMS-type technologies has the potential to further grow the expectations of students when they arrive at the postsecondary level for faculty to effectively make use of online technologies in their teaching. And, any additional competition in the online educational technology space will only help spur future innovation.

What is your response to this latest announcement by Google? Are you planning on requesting an invite? Will there be interest by teachers at your school to try Google Classroom? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

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