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I am reading about these Mac successes at streaming and grabbing in Wales, UK on holiday. When I return to Germany in about two weeks' time, I shall continue to fight forthe honour of PCs - and my honour in particular. So far I have met with total failure.

Dennis

Hi everyone, After today's discussion, on Proficiency Badges, and chatting with Jeff and Dave, I am pleased to present some proof of concept Webcast Proficiency Badges. There is still some work to be done on them, but these give the general idea.

You could use them on your website/blog/wiki, make crests and sew them on your jacket, tattoos (not real ones, the ones you use water on), buttons, badges...the uses are endless...

Any comments, suggestions, feedback etc, is greatly appreciated.

(This was posted using new Drupal audio module)

Webcast Academy Meeting 1.2.5
September 10

Agenda

- Proficiency 'Badges' and Certification, Intern Portfolios  
   Webcast Components - Streamer, Host, Director, Editor, Publisher, others?
- Shoutcast (self-streaming, stream info, streamripper)
- A Webcast Academy Client?
- Webcastathon Planning
- Book of Webcasting
- Live Video (webcam & desktop) Academy Video Room
      Plug in link below the video window
     Needed Software NSV (Nullsoft Streaming Video) Tools
        Shoutcast Forums - Video Section

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Thanks to Brad and Jason last night, I was able finally to get to kick the host. A virtual kick the can!
At first I planned to just listen. So I brought my USB logitech headphone/mic . This works great for just listening. However, when I went to take over the broadcast things failed.
So, I picked up my Logitech USB mic, and headphones(ipod),then with a restart was able to use Nicecast, hijack the broadcast,SKYPE and archive so you will hear a little bit about our conversation.
Moving along!
It is great to work with a small group of people when troubleshooting.
Oh, I am using Mac intel Macbook, when I first was invited to join the skype conversation, I crashed. I am using Skype 1.4.0.49, not up to the beta!

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Brad Hicks hosted Webcast Academy #4b for Macintosh users. cheryloakes and I joined Brad in the conversation. I had my first full succcess, hijacking the Skype call in Nicecast and taking over the stream. Also successfully recorded the Skype call using the ecamm Call Recorder. Thanks for all the help Brad.

Change Log (This blog is being edited till completion):
a. 10 Sept, 2006 - Modified 3.1.4 to 3.1.8 (Error in Oddcast version)
b. Added solution2

Webcasting with Oddcast:
The installation of Oddcast 3.1.8 from oddsock.org proceeded fine, however I had some issues when streaming. I was able to resolve some issues, and am working on the rest.

Issues:
1. Could not find MP3 encoder
2. Could not record and save locally
3. Oddcast seems to be streaming audio from wave-out-mix even if I tell it to stream only from mic or line-in

Solutions:
1. The MP3 encoder was not visible because I did not select LAME encoder when installing Oddcast. By default it selects the Ogg Vorbis encoders but the LAME (for MP3), and AAC encoders have to be selected manually. I had to reinstall Oddcast with LAME selected, after which it worked fine.

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Teaching in Rural and Remote Locations series This is the second in the teaching in rural and remote locations series. My guest was Paul Reid, a teacher at Paraburdoo Primary School.

About Paul from the Digital Chalkie website: Interesting things of note might be that I love computers and have done so for many years. Currently I live and teach in Paraburdoo (a small Pilbara iron-ore mining town where most people earn 4 times as much I do). I once ran an international film festival in a bomb shelter in southern Japan.

This webcast originally went to air on Saturday 26th of August 2006.

Download mp3 (27MB, 59min)

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Hello,

Today is Ganapati Visarjan in India. Thought I'd share this with all international participants on Webcast Academy.

Ganesh is the god of good fortune. During Ganesh festival the idol of Lord Ganesh is bought into many homes and worshipped for 10 days, and on the 11th day the idol is immersed in water.

This is the Kasaba Peth Ganapati Mandal in Pune, and one of the oldest (113 years old) in the country.

This is a snippet from Wikipedia that explains the symbolism of the Ganesh idol. Every element of the body of Ganesha has its own value and its own significance:

The elephant head indicates fidelity, intelligence and discriminative power;

The fact that he has a single tusk (the other being broken off) indicates Ganesha’s ability to overcome all forms of dualism;

The wide ears denote wisdom, ability to listen to people who seek help and to reflect on spiritual truths. They signify the importance of listening in order to assimilate ideas. Ears are used to gain knowledge. The large ears indicate that when God is known, all knowledge is known;

the curved trunk indicates the intellectual potentialities which manifest themselves in the faculty of discrimination between real and unreal;

on the forehead, the Trishula (weapon of Shiva, similar to Trident) is depicted, symbolising time (past, present and future) and Ganesha's mastery over it;

Ganesha’s pot belly contains infinite universes. It signifies the bounty of nature and equanimity, the ability of Ganesha to swallow the sorrows of the Universe and protect the world;

the position of his legs (one resting on the ground and one raised) indicate the importance of living and participating in the material world as well as in the spiritual world, the ability to live in the world without being of the world.

The four arms of Ganesha represent the four inner attributes of the subtle body, that is: mind (Manas), intellect (Buddhi), ego (Ahamkara), and conditioned conscience (Chitta). Lord Ganesha represents the pure consciousness - the Atman - which enables these four attributes to function in us;

• The hand waving an axe, is a symbol of the retrenchment of all desires, bearers of pain and suffering. With this axe Ganesha can both strike and repel obstacles. The axe is also to prod man to the path of righteousness and truth;
• The second hand holds a whip, symbol of the force that ties the devout person to the eternal beatitude of God. The whip conveys that worldly attachments and desires should be rid of;
• The third hand, turned towards the devotee, is in a pose of blessing, refuge and protection (abhaya);
• the fourth hand holds a lotus flower (padma), and it symbolizes the highest goal of human evolution, the sweetness of the realised inner self.

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My standard “rig” for webcasting is as follows: Hardware: iMac G4 desktop with 1Gb RAM, Logitech USB desktop Mic Software: Nicecast (for broadcasting and recording), Audacity and Garageband (editing), Skype (conference calls), iTunes (music broadcasting via Nicecast) The above rig is what I have found the most dependable to date. Even though my Mac has fairly good system specs, I find that it still tends to struggle when running Skype and Nicecast simultaneously. Using the web-based Skypecast facility definitely helps to reduce the load on system resources.

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Last week I posed some questions about the Academy through the lense of the Masters unit I'm currently taking. A couple of the community members were kind enough to respond to that post and links to their responses can be found here and here. So given that I put the questions out there in the first place it's only appropriate that I give my perspective.

• What is the common vision of members of the Academy community?

The Academy website defines the following goals for its activities:

• Increasing the number of people who are capable of producing live, interactive webcasts

• applying the open source community approach to skill development

• creating a place that formally recognizes proficiency, excellence, and innovation in these new media skills

The members of the community come together from many different countries, education systems and levels of education. So it is, in some ways, quite amazing that the people who have involved themselves manage to find a common ground. The thing that strikes me about the people that I have met through the Academy is that they are all prepared to be open to making new connections with other people. They are prepared to share their knowledge and also want to learn from others. They are prepared to go more out of their way to help their fellow community members. The community members are prepared to enter into open discussions that bring forward new things to learn and issues to be considered. My perspective is that the community members share a vision of a community where they can learn about how to apply new technologies to their own lives and the lives of their students. The community is growing into one where professional knowledge and experience is shared via the webcast shows that are developed as members proceed through the Academy training. As more people participate in, and complete the training, the community grows; so to does the audience as new webcasters introduce members of their other networks to their webcasting activities.

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 I just finished a new  Nicecast Screencast.

I tried a new version of screencasting. I made the camera follow the cursor. Just experimenting with SnapZPro X. The Nicecast tutorial I created before had some incorrect set up instructions in them so I am working on a new version. This now replaces the video shown in the Book of Webcasting. I kept the same URL address so if you used the last one as a link or reference, it will now show the new video.

Let me know if this style video makes you too dizzy! It is "kinda rapid"! ~Lee

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Curious if anyone has had experience with streaming solutions for the Macintosh. We discussed this a little bit during last night's webcast workshop (#3b). In particular, I found this: Welcome to Darwin Streaming Server, the open source version of Apple's QuickTime Streaming Server technology that allows you to send streaming media to clients across the Internet using the industry standard RTP and RTSP protocols. http://developer.apple.com/opensource/server/streaming/index.html Seems to also play nice with Windows and Linux, according to the description.

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 Webcast Academy Meeting
Sept. 3, 2006
Download mp3 (18.4MB, 40:11)

A Webcast Academy meeting for Class of 1.1 and 1.2 interns to check in and see 'where we're at'.  Topics included:

- Interncasts for 1.2'ers
- Posting, streaming, and other tech issues
- 1.1'ers certifications and graduation
- upcoming webcastathons and this season's webcast schedule
- any other questions or issues interns would like to address

Chat Transcript Below

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For really long URLs use tiny url! You probably heard of it but here it is again in case you hadn't!  Lee

Yeah! Finally had my first success with Nicecast tonight. I was able to cast into Sandbox B. Seems so easy in hindsight. Cormier promises it gets easier. I believe him. :)

Over recent weeks I have been considering the phenomenon of professional learning communities as a major theme for the Masters unit I'm currently undertaking. I have been considering the readings for this unit in the context of the community that has built up around the Webcast Academy, and more recently Education Bridges. The following quote from Haberman (2004, p.52), raises some questions to reflect on with regard to the Academy: 'A group is a learning community when members share a common vision that learning is the primary purpose for their association and the ultimate value to preserve in their worplace and that learning outcomes are the primary criteria for evaluating the success of their work.'

• What is the common vision of members of the Academy community?
• What are the learning outcomes that are the basis for evaluating the success of work undertaken in the Academy?
• How do we evaluate the success of the Academy's work?
• What personal motivations do individual community members have for being involved?

Some of these questions are answered through the way that the webcasting training and requirements have been structured to date. However, I would be interested to get some responses to these questions from members of the Webcast Academy community. Haberman, M. (2004). Can star teachers create learning communities? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 52-56.

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Hey folks. Just thought i would point to this one. As many of us are self hosting, this cpanel skypecast might be useful https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=... September 2nd. 16:45 Eastern.

Hi Everyone,

Been away and busy for the last little while, so i am a little behind on the WCA course of study.  I recorded the following today during the Webcast Academy check-in.  I hope Doug and Dave don't mind, as its their thoughts on when to mute Skypecast / Conference participants.  I did a little editing, shortened it and added an intro at the front.

Next up is streaming live?

cheers paul...

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Brad Hicks talked me through my first webcast today. I was able to record 20 minutes of audio using Skype and Nicecast archiving set-up. We used Sandbox A. I also experimented with hijacking iTunes. I was happy with the recording though I will need to be careful that my audio is not recording at a higher level than incoming audio in the Skype source.

I find that Audacity uses a lot of system resources so I was happy to be able to record/archive the audio within Nicecast. I used AIFF as a lossless recording but would like to test AAC and MP3 at another stage.

Thanks go out again for to Brad for giving up some of his Sunday afternoon to talk me through the use of Nicecast.

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I just described my continuing failure to stream. I tried uploading screenshots of the steps I take, but the server simply took too long to upload and I aborted the attempt.

Am I the ONLY PC intern trying and failing?

I'm determined to succeed, but determination hasn't got me very far up to now.

Does anyone know UNYTE? It's a program, Skype related, that allows consenting adults to take over each other's computers. Would anyone like to take over mine and get me streaming?

Dennis