Cephalopodcast

Listen to the Earthcast 08 PSA (mp3)
Watch the Earthcast 08 PSA (YoutTube)

This is just a quick reminder about the upcoming Earth Day webcast on 22 April 2008. My hour of programming will be about ocean conservation and starts at 10:00 p.m. GMT (that’s 6:00 p.m. Eastern, 3:00 p.m. Pacific).

I will be joined by three fellow ocean enthusiasts and science bloggers, including Dr. Karen James, director of science for the The HMS Beagle Project. The Beagle Project is an international effort to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday by building a sailing replica of his ship and retracing his 1831-1836 voyage of discovery. Also joining me will be Kevin Zelnio, author of The Other 95% Web site and co-blogger at Deep-Sea News. Kevin’s scientific training is in invertebrate zoology and marine ecology at Penn State University where he studies the ecology of deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities. And rounding out the panel will be Rick MacPherson, Director of Conservation Programs with the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) and author of the Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets blog. CORAL is a member-supported, non-profit organization, dedicated to protecting the health of coral reefs by integrating ecosystem management, sustainable tourism, and community partnerships.

I hope you can join us in the discussion. And my thanks go out to worldbridges.net for hosting and coordinating these events.

• More info: edtechtalk.com/earthcast08
• Blog Around the Clock: Interview with Dr. Karen James
• Blog Around the Clock: Interview with Kevin Zelnio
• Blog Around the Clock: Interview with Rick MacPherson

YouTube | TeacherTube

Earthcast 2008 PSA (video) by Jason Robertshaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Earthcast 2008 Web badge by Jason Robertshaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Webcast Around the Earth Day 2008

Earth Day is coming up on April 22 and the fine folks over at the Worldbridges.net community are celebrating by hosting a 24 hour webcast focused on the environment. Earthcast 2008 will feature live, interactive programs from educators, students and other citizens of the planet starting at midnight GMT.

The Other 71%

I am planning on covering one of the hours with a program focused on the other 71% of our planet’s surface. Guests for the program include Dr. Karen James from the Beagle Project and Kevin Zelnio of Deep-Sea News and The Other 95%. I also have feelers out to a few other ocean bloggers. If you know of anyone else who would like to join the conversation, let me know. More details on how to participate will be posted here in the coming days. Stay tuned.

What: This is intended to be a 24 hour long conversation about the health of our planet. We hope to have participants from around the world moderate an day long conversation. Potential guests could include local leaders, student environmental advocates, scientists/engineers, politicians, grassroots leaders, etc.

When: Tuesday, April 22nd 2008. We will follow the 24 hour GMT day (we’ll use the time in Greenwich, England as the standard for planning the time blocks).

Why: The goal is to help our participants (both listeners and moderators) form a more global perspective on the issue of sustainability and the health of the earth.

• Enviroscims: Earth Day 2008 24 Hour Webcastathon!
• Earthcast 2008 flyer (PDF)
• Dr. Karen James, The Beagle Project
• Kevin Zelnio, Deep-Sea News and The Other 95%

UPDATE: Rick MacPherson from Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets is now also on the ticket.

During Skype, podcast and webcast sessions, I needed a way to let other folks know that the microphone was hot. I wanted a minitature on-air light flashing so they’d know they could be overheard. But where could I find such a device?

I considered all kinds of crazy schemes, from wiring up LEDs to sacrificing my moribund Palm Tungsten T3. But then it hit me. I already had an auxillary 320×240 LCD screen sitting right next to me in the form of my 5G iPod with video. Why not use the photo slideshow feature in that? So here are the steps to making your own miniature on-air light for podcasting, etc.

1. Download the following graphics (available under Creative Commons license). You can customize them or make something similar on your own.
   
2. Open up iPhoto and create File>New Album. Call it ONAIR or something similar. Alternatively, you could skip iPhoto and create a folder for the images. ITunes accepts either solution.
3. Upload the graphics and move them into the new album/folder.
4. Connect your iPod and under the Photos tab in iTunes, select the new album/folder for synchronization.
5. Then under the iPod itself, select Photos>Slideshow Settings.
6. I changed the following settings:
   Timer Per Slide: 2 sec
   Repeat: On
   Shuffle Photos: Off
   Transistions: Dissolve
7. Back out one click to the Photos submenu, highlight the ONAIR album and press play. You should now have your own miniature on-air sign to warn your mates that the microphone is hot.
8. Adjust the backlight timer to keep the images bright.

Other Uses

This might also be useful in public areas or when recording at conferences. You could create additional graphics with an advert for the show or details about the current recording session.

You could also sychronize it with an audio file, set it up remotely and send out a warning message. The TV out option also allows you to display it large.

This technique has an additional psychological effect for me. When the on-air light is lit, I know it is time to record. Now I just need an elegant way to display my iPod so people can see it.

• iPod: Viewing a slideshow
• Brenthaven Flip Case for 30GB iPod

The Exploratorium is a museum in San Francisco, CA and was founded in 1969 by noted physicist and educator Dr. Frank Oppenheimer. They have an extensive website with many, many pages exploring hundreds of different topics. They also have competition called the Iron Science Teacher which is webcast live. The next event is on August 11, 2006 at 12:00pm PST/3:00pm EST/7:00pm GMT.

Parodying the cult Japanese TV program, Iron Chef, the Exploratorium’s Iron Science Teacher competition showcases Bay Area science teachers as they devise demonstrations around a particular ingredient—an everyday item such as a plastic bag, a milk carton, or a nail. In a fast-paced atmosphere where showmanship and creativity reign, science teachers are given ten minutes to concoct a science activity that can be used in the classroom.

Unfortunately, you need RealPlayer in order to see the webcast.

• Iron Science Teacher competition
• Iron Science Teacher competitions are archived here according to where their secret ingredient was found. After watching the Webcasts, cook up some activities of your own.
• See also: The Exploratorium eclipse exhibit in Second Life

Sea turtle webcast on Friday, 07/14/2006

This sounds very interesting:

On the night of July 14, 2006 , Megotta, Inc., with the cooperation and supervision of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation/Sea Turtle Survival League, will broadcast the first-ever live web cast of a nesting sea turtle in the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge.

From their website, it looks like Megotta, Inc. is located on the Florida Space Coast and is developing a business giving individuals and groups the technology needed to share educational and ecological content. It was started by graduates from Florida Tech and as part of its mission, they launched their MeGotta Careâ„¢ program. Initially they are working with local groups supporting marine ecology. Sounds pretty neat.

• What: Megotta.com sea turtle webcast
• When: Friday, July 14, 2006 at 6:30pmPDT/9:30pmEDT/1:30amGMT

Additional sea turtle links

• Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission sea turtle FAQ
• Sea Turtle.org, an extensive and comprehensive website dedicated to sea turtle conservation and research.
• Caribbean Conservation Corporation and Sea Turtle Survival League

There are a lot of good reasons to start a blog. Mine is not necessarily one of them. I started on the ‘Net back in the old Prodigy era (circa 1993). I was initially loath to communicate authentically online, taking pains to preserve my anonymity. But nowadays I realize that Google and other spiderbots are inexorably gathering information about us anyway. It’s an illusion to think there aren’t already little pieces of us scattered across sundry servers. So rather than let chance or my minor participation in conferences or listservs determine how I was indexed, I decided to start staking a claim to my own unreal estate and start blogging.

The nice thing about coming out of this shell is that I get to participate in the participatory Web and produce the Cephalopodcast podcast. It also has allowed me to (virtually) meet some very fine folks. In particular, I’ve been hanging around the educators and webcasters at Worldbridges.net. Some of them have also been venturing into the MMO¹ world of Second Life. Naturally enough, they have been webcasting and podcasting these explorations. And you can now see the latest adventures at Virtualbridges.net.

The first entry is a Second Life Tour of the Spaceflight Museum that I particpated in recently.

The International Spaceflight Museum is a museum in the virtual world of Second Life. It hosts exhibits and events about spacecraft, rockets, and space travel. The museum is located on the island sim Spaceport Alpha.

The organization that manages and develops the museum is the Spaceflight Museum Planning Group, a group of Second Life residents from around the world who share an interest in spaceflight.

So if you want to see practical examples of the educational potential of MMOs, check out the videos at Virtualbridges.net.

UPDATE: I’ve been made a manager at Virtualbridges.net, so I will be helping out with the posting there. The next jaunt into Second Life will be this Sunday, July 9, 5:30pmPDT/8:30pmEDT/12:30amGMT. Feel free to join us as we take a tour of Second Life’s Public Library and the Info Island sim.

• Details: Virtualbridges.net Tour of SL Info Island
• SLURL: Second Life’s Public Library and the Info Island sim