Thoughts on culture, education, and having been a Canadian in the US
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Staying under the radar, or trying to….

After a great time and successful presentation at the EdMedia 2007 conference in Vancouver and a few days off with family in beautiful Montreal, I’m back at the office today and focusing on making July my most productive month in a long time. So, I’ll be blogging less frequently than usual (I hope) and keeping my eyes on the clock and my growing book manuscript.

That said, it’s always hard to turn down opportunities that tie in with my teaching and research interests. The morning after my return to Montreal last week, I had a chance to stop by Charlie Rathbone‘s great grad course on “Current Directions in Curriculum and Instruction” (you can check out the course wiki here). I was there to talk to the students about my use of blogs and podcasts in my teaching and I was impressed by the students’ comments and questions on these topics.

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One of the things I talked about was the importance of modeling the use of these technologies. It helps tremendously when trying to persuade others of what great tools blogs and podcasts can be if they can see you using these media at the same time. Little did I know that Charlie himself was planning to create a podcast about my visit there. What a great example of how we might think about using podcasts in the classroom!



Take a quick listen to the resulting podcast, created simply by passing around an iPod equipped with an iTalk microphone and a bit of post-production by Charlie using Garageband. I think I’m going to have to try this with my upcoming freshman seminar, English 005: From Pucks to Parliament: Exploring Canada’s Cultural Landscape.