PodCamp EDU on-site report

Podcamp EDU, hosted by Vivian Vasquez & Andy Bilodeau was held on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at American University in Washington, DC. In contrast to the larger Podcamps in Boston, New York or Philadelphia, Podcamp EDU was a one day, one room, one track workshop with a single focus on education.

The speakers at Podcamp EDU were impressive and well informed, including Andy Carvin from NPR and PBS Learning.now, Stephanie Stockman from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; Vivian Vasquez, from American University and the Critical Literacy in Practice Podcast, Joel Mark Witt from Maryland Zoo.TV, Tammy Munson from the PodTalkDivas, Nick Guzman & Rebeca Logan, talking about Spanish language and social network podcasting, and even Gretchen Vogelzang from Mommycast.

The attendees were active participants, asking questions and contributing. Many of the attendees were educators in both k-12 and university environments, looking to see how they could integrate podcasting, video and multimedia into their classroom, both as project-based work for students and to help extend lessons beyond the written page. While educators often run into problems because school districts restrict access to common social networking sites like flickr, or blip.tv, ways to work around these restrictions were discussed.

Joel Mark Witt, from Maryland Zoo TV, did a fantastic presentation, starting out with a moving video from a professor at the University of Kansas, highlighting how university students already spend a huge amount of their time online every day using social networking tools. Joel then showed how they were using video podcasts to highlight interesting facts about animals at the zoo, and highlighting all the interactive web applications now available, centrally listed at http://www.go2web20.net/. (Be Careful- you may spend all day looking for the perfect tool at this site!)

Stephanie Stockman, from NASA’s Goddard Flight Center did a great presentation featuring all the podcasts NASA puts out as part of the education arm of each mission. NASA also has the responsibility for the earth-orbit and earth monitoring satellites, giving all of us information about how climate change is truly affecting our planet. It’s hard not to be impressed by a woman who is both passionate about education and is also a Rocket Scientist! Her handouts about astrobiology and CDs containing truly spectacular photos were simply awesome!

Vivian Vasquez, a professor at American University, and her husband, Andy Bilodeau, from the American Chemical Society, put together an event that met and surpassed all goals. They have recently started a new podcast together called 100% Kids, talking about how kids can change the world, one step at a time. (www.bazmakaz.com/100kids)

Vivian and Andy put together Podcamp EDU to help educators and those interested in education to spend some time exploring what new media tools and new technologies might afford the classroom experience. “Capitalizing on new media technologies in the classroom calls for a shift in perspective, a shift in thinking about the possible literacies that could be produced as a result of using these tools for teaching and learning”, said Vivian. She continued, “rather than thinking about ways of technologizing the curriculum, educators need to think about what new media technologies can afford the learning experience”.

“Podcamp is meant to educate- this one focuses on education, and it seemed a natural extension of what other Podcamps have done, ” added Andy. Podcamp EDU brought education to the fore, and taught all of us in attendance about how passionate teachers are about this medium. In closing, Vivian notes, “the children of today will be the ones to push the boundaries of new media use in the future so it made it made perfect sense for us to plan a podcamp that focuses specifically on education, teaching, and learning”.

on-site report by Whitney Hoffman, host of the LD Podcast