Is Podcasting for Me?
There's been a lot of buzz about podcasting in the last year or two, and many faculty members are wondering whether it's something worth exploring. The NCAT is pleased to present a series of three short podcasts on – what else? – podcasting! It's the Metapodcast.
We cover the basics of what's possible, and let you figure out whether it might be appropriate for use with your classes. View the podcasts here.
To find out how others are using podcasting for educational purposes, visit the iTunes Music Store and follow the Podcasts link. Then look for the Education category and browse.
Second Life
The concept of virtual reality has its pros and cons; its proponents and detractors. One of the key concepts for both groups is the idea of social interaction in virtual space. If you are interested in exploring this issue (or other issues relating to virtuality), you might consider Second Life. Second Life is a massively multiplayer virtual environment developed by Linden Labs. The New Media Consortium, of which St. Lawrence is a member, has built a virtual campus in Second Life that is accessible only to NMC member institutions, and contains a variety of spaces for the interaction of groups of various sizes. This screenshot shows a group of people attending a virtual conference poster session on the NMC campus. Each character is the representation (avatar) of an individual sitting at a computer somewhere in the world. Visit SL or NMC to learn more.
SketchUp
Three-dimensional modeling tools have always been fairly difficult to master; working in three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen is somewhat awkward, after all. Enter SketchUp, an easy-to-use 3D modeling package that is designed primarily for modeling physical spaces. Google recently purchased SketchUp, and is giving away a "lite" version for free. The full version, which retails for $495, adds tools to create animations and more sophisticated ways of creating organic shapes. The educator and student licensing for the full version is pretty generous; check it out here.
The image at left is a three dimensional scale model of the NCAT facility here at St. Lawrence. We were able to make this model in about 6 hours with no previous SketchUp experience.
