Item #21 in the Learning 2.0/23 Things training focuses on podcasts. I'm quite the fan of both audio podcasts and video podcasts, also known as vodcasts or vlogs.
At the Microcomputers in Education (MEC) conference in March 2005, I attended a session about podcasting conducted by ASU's Guy Mullins. I returned to Palomino Library and told Krissy, my colleague and future TACkies leader, that podcasting was a technology to watch. When iTunes debuted a podcast directory in June 2005, we went to our supervisor, Ted, and asked him to find a way to get the gear we'd need to start podcasting.
Ted located the funding, we bought the gear, and in late October 2006 the DMHS PodSquad, an informal student group that meets in the library after school, recorded and edited their first podcasts. The PodSquad is listed in the iTunes Store's Podcast Directory.
We've learned that podcasting is easier to do on Macintosh computers, although Audacity, a free Open Source audio editing program, is cross platform. We've learned that the fancy USB mics we bought aren't as convenient as either the portable Edirol R-01 MP3 recorder with a 2 GB SD card or the inexpensive Belkin Stereo TuneTalk mics that plug into student iPods. We've taught students all about broadcasting and copyright and Creative Commons licenses.
After two years of extracurricular podcasting, I've lined up funding that will buy a mobile Mac lab so we finally can do, among other nifty Learning 2.0 activities, curricular podcasting. We plan on recording podcasts of conversations our DMHS Spanish students will be having with English students in Chile -- if the technology there will support it.
In the past, I have recorded podcasts of conference presentations and posted them on this blog.
But it's not just about recording, editing, and posting podcasts. I'm an avid listener (and viewer)!
Sorry to veer away from the directions, but I use the iTunes Podcast Directory to track down new ones. Here are SOME of the podcasts I download either regularly or intermittently:
This American Life -- I enjoy this whimsical radio program but usually miss it when it airs on Saturday afternoon. Yes, podcasts of radio shows are rather TiVOesque, but this is a perfect for public radio junkies who can't always catch the shows.
The Writer's Almanac -- Garrison Keillor's daily podcast covers today in literary history and includes a poem that is usually short, accessible, and enjoyable.
Future Tense is another American Public Media production billed as a "daily journal of the digital age."
The Tech Chicks podcast is a bit amateurish but these two tech teachers help me find great ed tech sites and services that I occasionally blog about on my Information Goddess blog.
TED Talks -- "inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers" -- really amp up my brain. They provide some of the best content out there because the speakers are all very accomplished in their respective fields and do have "ideas worth spreading." I think the audio version of this podcast has been discontinued, but the vodcast is alive and kicking.
Library Geeks -- This is one of the intermittent podcasts I download. It's not regularly updated and it's too long in my opinion. However, "library geeks" I respect such as Gary Price and Jessamyn West are interviewed so I cherry pick the episodes. I learned about Zotero from a Library Geek podcast.
RocketBoom -- Watching this wacky program on my video iPod Nano in bed just before I doze off is one of life's guilty pleasures.
DMHS PodSquad -- OK, I might be a bit biased about this one!
Other podcasts I enjoy include Slate V, Unwired, The Thomas Jefferson Hour, NPR's Story Corps, etc. Although I have a video iPod nano now, the audio podcasts are especially appealing to me because I can download them and listen while I'm doing something else!
Showing posts with label podcasts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label podcasts. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Multimedia Search
Presented by Ran Hock, Online Strategies
Ran formerly worked for DIALOG. He now has his own business to teach people how to use the Internet more effectively and efficiently. He says that he’s trained more than 14,000 people in over 30 countries.
Trivia: His son is the lead singer in a rock group, the Explosion.
Ran spoke in sound bites!
Some Facts/Observations
Use different tools to search for different types of media.
Use more than one engine. This is always good advice for searching.
Indexing is a problem, but in some cases it’s getting better.
Search qualifiers are often quite limited.
Use the Big Services -- Google, Yahoo!, Ask, Live, Exalead, and AOL.
Trends in the Big Engines
Integration of multimedia results with regular Web search results.
Google’s Universal Search - a bold step backwards. Altavista did it in 2002, only without images. Universal search has maps, images.
Ask.com does a better job of integrating images, and includes news images.
Yahoo! provides images with results.
Exalead does great job of integrating images in results. Links to multimedia on right side.
Image Search Engines
Indexing problem: For most images, there are few words on web pages that are definitely descriptive of the image.
Tagging could theoretically help. But not for a billion images, not with any consistency, not without high spam risks.
When searching, start with not more than two search terms.
Major Image Search Sites
Google has high numbers, but often low relevance.
Yahoo has lower numbers, but often offers higher relevance. Includes audio in addition to images and video.
Ask.com often has very low numbers and very high relevance.
LiveSearch frequently has low numbers. Its relevancy varied.
Exalead often has low numbers; relevancy varies.
Picsearch has lower numbers, but often higher relevance.
For all, there often is very little overlap among the first 10-20 items retrieved.
Search Features
Google - content type (any, news, faces), size, file type, coloration, site/domain, safe searching
Yahoo- size, coloration, site/domain, safe search
Ask - suggestions, size, file type, coloration, related video
Live Search - size, link to video, safe search
Exalead - size, file type, coloration, layout
Picsearch - size, images-animations, coloration
Coloration searching can be useful for locating line drawings.
Limit to .gov domain to find images in the public domain.
Images - Searching Flickr
Can search everyone’s photos, your photos, groups, Flickr members, or by location.
Can browse by month, category (groups from multiple photographers, sets from individual photographers)
Can search for group names
Advanced Search, Click on Search box to get to advanced search page, where you can limit results to Creative Commons-licensed photos. (This is how I locate photos for the DMHS PodSquad podcasts and for my instructional presentations and handouts. It's time for all of us to learn about Creative Commons licensing!)
Searching for Audio
Audio found on web pages is what is usually retrieved -- i.e., podcasts and music
Audio from Web Pages - Search Engines
- Old Timers - Altavista and AllTheWeb (identical results since both owned by Yahoo. These two have better results than Yahoo! Audio Search, however.)
- Yahoo! Audio Search
- Exalead
- AOL Audio Search (music only)
- Internet Archive
Yahoo! Audio Search
Over 50 million audio files
Search by subject, artist, album, etc.
Options to limit by materials, such as podcasts, the web, and online music stores
Refine by song title, artist name, album title, and lyrics
Exalead Audio Search
Do a regular web search and narrow it to audio.
Results are nicely organized.
Internet Archive
200,000 audio recordings, mostly music
44,000 recordings of live concerts and tons of old-time radio programs are available.
Open Source Audio, primarily Creative Commons material, is provided.
Can narrow search by 12 categories
Searching for Podcasts
Yahoo! Audio Search - incorporates capability of greatly enhanced metadata using RSS enclosures
Do an audio search and narrow results to Podcasts
Podscope - speech-to-text using voice detection software. Must look for synonyms sometimes. Example: MRSA vs. staph
Everyzing - speech to text
Podcast.net over 10,000 podcasts
Searching for Music
Sites to search include iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.
Video Searching
More and more searchability due to tech. apps. such as voice recognition and enhanced metadata using RSS enclosures
Both big and specialty search engines
Google, Yahoo!, Live, Exalead, AOL are big players. Google, Yahoo! and AOL allow you to upload your own video.
Google Video
Archived TV programs, educational videos, and personal productions
Viewing some videos may require a fee. However, this may be going away because Google is offering refunds.
All content is stored on either Google Video or YouTube. No videos are retrieved from other sites.
Google is backing away from transcripts.
Advanced search for language, duration, domain, genre
Yahoo! Video
Gathers video by crawling and from metadata provided directly by suppliers.
Advanced search offers format, size, duration, domain, and safe search.
AOL Video
Some content is offered for purchase.
Contains legitimate clips from news services.
Can narrow results by popularity, ratings, and most recent.
YouTube
Searchability - terms automatically ANDed, can use OR and a minus sign for NOT
Title, description, and tags are searched
Can narrow by categories.
TVEyes
Radio and TV search - real-time monitoring
Aimed at the corporate world, which wants to know what media is saying about their companies.
Fee-based but some free initial searching is available.
Indexes audio feeds.
Shadow TV
Fee-based TV monitoring/ news clipping service
Monitors over 120 stations including all major US networks and cable stations.
Closed captioning is searchable and readable.
Has a 4-yr. archive
Search by keyword and some Boolean operators.
BlinkxTV
This free service searches primarily TV with some radio.
Has 18 million hours of video.
Creates transcripts.
Can search keywords and use Boolean operators.
Can rank results by date/relevance.
Conceptual searching
Has “wallet” feature that allow you to embed a search on your web page.
Advanced search offers exact phrase and ability to restrict by content providers.
Summary
Be aware of the range of tools.
Using more than one tool will pay.
Look for search quality to improve as new technologies are implemented.
www.onstrat.com/mmsearch.html has links to all sites covered during presentation.
ran@onstrat.com
www.onstrat.com
Ran formerly worked for DIALOG. He now has his own business to teach people how to use the Internet more effectively and efficiently. He says that he’s trained more than 14,000 people in over 30 countries.
Trivia: His son is the lead singer in a rock group, the Explosion.
Ran spoke in sound bites!
Some Facts/Observations
Use different tools to search for different types of media.
Use more than one engine. This is always good advice for searching.
Indexing is a problem, but in some cases it’s getting better.
Search qualifiers are often quite limited.
Use the Big Services -- Google, Yahoo!, Ask, Live, Exalead, and AOL.
Trends in the Big Engines
Integration of multimedia results with regular Web search results.
Google’s Universal Search - a bold step backwards. Altavista did it in 2002, only without images. Universal search has maps, images.
Ask.com does a better job of integrating images, and includes news images.
Yahoo! provides images with results.
Exalead does great job of integrating images in results. Links to multimedia on right side.
Image Search Engines
Indexing problem: For most images, there are few words on web pages that are definitely descriptive of the image.
Tagging could theoretically help. But not for a billion images, not with any consistency, not without high spam risks.
When searching, start with not more than two search terms.
Major Image Search Sites
Google has high numbers, but often low relevance.
Yahoo has lower numbers, but often offers higher relevance. Includes audio in addition to images and video.
Ask.com often has very low numbers and very high relevance.
LiveSearch frequently has low numbers. Its relevancy varied.
Exalead often has low numbers; relevancy varies.
Picsearch has lower numbers, but often higher relevance.
For all, there often is very little overlap among the first 10-20 items retrieved.
Search Features
Google - content type (any, news, faces), size, file type, coloration, site/domain, safe searching
Yahoo- size, coloration, site/domain, safe search
Ask - suggestions, size, file type, coloration, related video
Live Search - size, link to video, safe search
Exalead - size, file type, coloration, layout
Picsearch - size, images-animations, coloration
Coloration searching can be useful for locating line drawings.
Limit to .gov domain to find images in the public domain.
Images - Searching Flickr
Can search everyone’s photos, your photos, groups, Flickr members, or by location.
Can browse by month, category (groups from multiple photographers, sets from individual photographers)
Can search for group names
Advanced Search, Click on Search box to get to advanced search page, where you can limit results to Creative Commons-licensed photos. (This is how I locate photos for the DMHS PodSquad podcasts and for my instructional presentations and handouts. It's time for all of us to learn about Creative Commons licensing!)
Searching for Audio
Audio found on web pages is what is usually retrieved -- i.e., podcasts and music
Audio from Web Pages - Search Engines
- Old Timers - Altavista and AllTheWeb (identical results since both owned by Yahoo. These two have better results than Yahoo! Audio Search, however.)
- Yahoo! Audio Search
- Exalead
- AOL Audio Search (music only)
- Internet Archive
Yahoo! Audio Search
Over 50 million audio files
Search by subject, artist, album, etc.
Options to limit by materials, such as podcasts, the web, and online music stores
Refine by song title, artist name, album title, and lyrics
Exalead Audio Search
Do a regular web search and narrow it to audio.
Results are nicely organized.
Internet Archive
200,000 audio recordings, mostly music
44,000 recordings of live concerts and tons of old-time radio programs are available.
Open Source Audio, primarily Creative Commons material, is provided.
Can narrow search by 12 categories
Searching for Podcasts
Yahoo! Audio Search - incorporates capability of greatly enhanced metadata using RSS enclosures
Do an audio search and narrow results to Podcasts
Podscope - speech-to-text using voice detection software. Must look for synonyms sometimes. Example: MRSA vs. staph
Everyzing - speech to text
Podcast.net over 10,000 podcasts
Searching for Music
Sites to search include iTunes, eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.
Video Searching
More and more searchability due to tech. apps. such as voice recognition and enhanced metadata using RSS enclosures
Both big and specialty search engines
Google, Yahoo!, Live, Exalead, AOL are big players. Google, Yahoo! and AOL allow you to upload your own video.
Google Video
Archived TV programs, educational videos, and personal productions
Viewing some videos may require a fee. However, this may be going away because Google is offering refunds.
All content is stored on either Google Video or YouTube. No videos are retrieved from other sites.
Google is backing away from transcripts.
Advanced search for language, duration, domain, genre
Yahoo! Video
Gathers video by crawling and from metadata provided directly by suppliers.
Advanced search offers format, size, duration, domain, and safe search.
AOL Video
Some content is offered for purchase.
Contains legitimate clips from news services.
Can narrow results by popularity, ratings, and most recent.
YouTube
Searchability - terms automatically ANDed, can use OR and a minus sign for NOT
Title, description, and tags are searched
Can narrow by categories.
TVEyes
Radio and TV search - real-time monitoring
Aimed at the corporate world, which wants to know what media is saying about their companies.
Fee-based but some free initial searching is available.
Indexes audio feeds.
Shadow TV
Fee-based TV monitoring/ news clipping service
Monitors over 120 stations including all major US networks and cable stations.
Closed captioning is searchable and readable.
Has a 4-yr. archive
Search by keyword and some Boolean operators.
BlinkxTV
This free service searches primarily TV with some radio.
Has 18 million hours of video.
Creates transcripts.
Can search keywords and use Boolean operators.
Can rank results by date/relevance.
Conceptual searching
Has “wallet” feature that allow you to embed a search on your web page.
Advanced search offers exact phrase and ability to restrict by content providers.
Summary
Be aware of the range of tools.
Using more than one tool will pay.
Look for search quality to improve as new technologies are implemented.
www.onstrat.com/mmsearch.html has links to all sites covered during presentation.
ran@onstrat.com
www.onstrat.com
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