The Higher Ed Podcast

I launched The Higher Ed Podcast (HEP) is week. Ever since the Podcast and Portable Media Expo last October I've been contemplating the conception of this podcast. There seems to be tons of material for K-12 teachers but very little for higher education instructors. Maybe it's because college professors seem to be reluctant to embrace new technologies?
I hope with this podcast to make it a little easier for instructors to use these new tools to reach their students and possible new audiences.
If you're a teacher, or know a teacher then this may be the podcast for you.

Podshow and Sirius Part Ways

As of May 1st Sirius satellite radio will no longer be broadcasting Podshow content, officially ending there contract. Their is much speculation and confusion among podcasters as why this may be happening. Many of the Podshow podcasters were not informed of the split until days after the decision was made.

Desperate Husbands 11 is Out!

After a long and hard battle with the Libsyn servers I was finally victorious and was able to upload the most recent episode of Desperate Husbands. I've really like Libsyn as a web host but for some reason they were having trouble yesterday accepting files.
In this episode of DH I talk about the Easter Break visit of my in-laws and some tips in working with extended family members. Doug from Geek Acres also stops by the studio (via voicemail) and updates us about his flower scheme and how will it worked. Next Doug will be plotting to take over the Pod-o-sphere.
The next episode will be a Mothers Day Special.

To listen to Desperate Husbands from this site, click here.

Being PAID for something you love

I'm getting tired of the worn out debate over monetizing podcast. There will always be podcasts who want to get paid for podcasting and podcasters who podcast as a hobby. Undoubtedly the hobbyist will always out-number the paid professionals. Below is my two cents on this debate. I originally posted this at Mark Blevis' blog in response to some negative comments he received over an excellent posting about "How to Make Money Podcasting." Feel free to agree or disagree with me, I don't care, but I do think it's time we hang up this old argument for good.

If you get paid for something you love, something that you would do anyway (and I'm not talking about podcasting now) would it still be "just a job?"
In my essence I am a teacher, I will always be a teacher, no matter what my current job is. It doesn't matter if I'm being paid or not, I have to teach. Some part of me is not fulfilled if I'm not teaching. With that said, and boy was it whiny, shouldn't I be "allow" to be paid for something I'm good at? Should loving something you do or doing something that starts as a hobby, automatically exclude you from being paid?
I don't hear debates about monetizing teaching, or auto mechanics. Something that starts as a hobby can become a part-time or full-time job or even a career.
What makes a "job" a "job" isn't that you are getting paid, it's a profession that you don't love or even like. It's just something to pay the bills. A career or calling is something that you love that you would do even if you were not paid for it. If there are podcasters out there who can make money at this why penalize them if they choose to monetize? Again, we don't expect teachers to teach for free or computer programmers to write code for free, so why do we expect podcasters to podcast for free?!?!?

Tag! You're It!

I made it, I'm now part of the in-crowd; I've been tagged. Tagged? You say, like with a dart?!? Blogging tag is a "game" where a blogger will come up with a question and write about it and then encourage others to write about the same topic by "tagging" them in their blog entry.
The newest game to hit the blogging community, at least for the blogs I read, is to name your 7 favorite songs. After a few of my favorite blogs started playing this game, one of them being Bob Goyetche, I started to feel a little left out. Then out of the blue Karen of Mrs. B's Patriot World Podcast twittered me to check out her personal blog and there I found my golden ticket, my invite to play!!!!

Being the analytical person I am (yeah, right) I pulled up iTunes and looked at the play count index. After throwing out the songs my kids listen to, like "Jumpin'" and Tim McGraw's "My Little Girl" I came up with my list of favorite songs. Most are podsafe and family friendly:

Good Morning Bubble Gum by The Harvey Girls
Runaway by The Adam Woodall Band
In My Life by Allison Crowe
Bring Me Down by Jupiter and Teardrop
At the laundr-O-mat by Samantha Murphy
A Little Bit More by Uncle Seth
Overflow by the shapes


Now, I have the honor of tagging three people to play. At first I mischievously thought about tagging colleague and newbie blogger Sharon Burton, but thought better of it. She needs to get her feet wet first. Though do surf over to her blog and leave a comment. Let her know that Charlie sent you. ;)
After much thought (seriously) I have tagged Mark Blevis, Shelly Brisbin and Kat.
And to do my part in keeping this chain alive I'm listing the tag chain and you should too:  Aidan Hatch, Chris Brogan , Chris Penn and Karen Cardoza.

Did I leave anything out? Let me know. Now go out a tag people......

American Idol and iTunes as a Learning Tool

One of my family's guilty pleasures is watching American Idol. I'm not sure why we watch it besides that watching it helps us keep up with the workplace conversions. Though the wife and I do enjoying hearing older tunes and songs that we grew up with and Idol does tend to focus on this type of music. Kids enjoy hearing the singing.
This weekend after some pleading, the kids and I spent some time on iTunes listening to 30 second segments of Diana Ross songs. The kids where so energetic about it, wanting to buy most of Ross's music. After I gave in and purchased several songs the house, and neighborhood, was filled with singing from those two. I think I heard "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" several hundred times.
Say what you will, but without sources like Idol and iTunes my children would have missed out on being exposed to some really great older music and I would have never thought of going through iTunes with the two of them. We're on iTunes all the time but not focusing on older music. If they had not asked me look up Diana Ross I would have never thought to use iTunes to expose them to wonderful and under played music.
Next weekend we will dive into Bob Dylan. Bob and AJ 81 gave me that one. We'll see how it goes...

Podcasters Across Borders

I signed up this week for the Podcasters Across Borders conference and Podcamp. Why would a Texan want to attend a conference in Kingston, Ontario? Why not?!? I get a chance to increase my podcasting knowledge, meet lots of great people, promote my podcasts and best of all I'm speaking on a panel too. At PAB I will have the unique opportunity to network with podcasters from both sides of the fence and hopefully gain something from their different perspectives. If you're free the weekend of June 23rd and 24th why don't you attend?

The In-Laws are Coming!!!!

The in-laws fly in today and while I love them very much (I really do) I'm a little nervous... I want everything to be perfect; for them to enjoy themselves and for my wife to be calm and relax while they are here. Now that's not too much to ask for is it??!? ;)

Podcast Peers Awards

The winners of the second bi-annual Podcast Peers Awards has been announced and I won two! Both Mostly News and Desperate Husbands won in their perspective categories. All I can say is "wow!"
Thanks to everyone who voted for my podcasts, it humbles me to know that other podcasters think enough of my shows to 1. nominate them and 2. vote for them. I am very touched.

Twittering

I'm been assimilated into the world of twitter. Thanks to the encouragement of Jen, Doug and Andy. I decided to check out this new form of web-base communication over the weekend. All I can say now is that I'm addicted!
The best way I've found to describe twitter is that it's similar to a party line on your Instant Messenger system. Dozens, if not hundreds, of your best Internet friends tell you what they are through out the day and get to hear about your day. It's like reading dozens of 20 word romance novels all day long.
CC Chapman recently wrote about the ways industry can use twitter to reach new audiences but he didn't touch on the educational aspects of twittering. As many of you know I teach both traditional, on-campus, courses as well was online classes and I use a variety of tools to communicate with my students such as chat, discussion boards, email and the good 'ol phone. With twitter I can combine several technologies into one and work more effectively. Instead of stopping what I'm doing; check email, then the discussion boards, maybe post an announcement to a particular class, check voicemail, I can fire up Google Talk and when a student needs to contact me he or she can send me a quick question through the twitter system and the message will pop up on my desktop. The only drawback I can see is that my students will need to create a twitter account and possible set it up with a IM client to achieve the best results. Also I will still need to post information on the other technologies I use for my classes so that I can reach all of my students and I think I need to accounts, one for my students and work and then another for my personal life. But for a quick and dirty means of communication I think twitter will work well.
If anybody wants to twitter me, create an account and add ccadenhead to your friends list. Be warned twittering is addictive! ;)

Peanut Butter!!!

I just heard that there has been a recall of peanut butter because of possible Salmonella contamination. It's the Peter Pan and Great Value brand names, at least according to the FDA. Check to make sure your peanut butter jars don't have the lot number beginning with "2111", I had to throw away 2 LARGE jars this morning. Peanut butter is very important in the Cadenhead household. Is nothing sacred?!?!

Today's My Birthday!

Yeap, 37 years ago today I was hatched, I mean born. For the past several years I have had a little personal custom of buying myself a birthday gift, usual something I wanted but didn't receive as a gift. Yes, I know I'm shallow. In 2004 I purchased my photo iPod as a gift to myself and last year it was a new pair of hiking boots. This year I thought I would buy myself something a little different. I don't know where the idea came from, probably a podcast, but I decided to give a charitable donation instead of getting some trinket for myself.

After some thought regarding the organization I wanted to donate to I decided on Escape Pod. Yes, maybe it was another superficial decision, I mean Steve Eley is not curing cancer over there. But our family already gives money to groups like Rails-to-Trails and our local children's hospital. Being a science fiction nut I have really enjoyed the stories I've heard on Escape Pod and I respect what Steve is doing, for literature, with his podcast. Besides giving has it's own rewards, such as a warm feeling inside. See I'm not so depthless after all. ;)

My Life as a Soundtrack

Because I'm a sheep and like to jump on the band wagon (pardon all the metaphors) I decided to participate in CC Chapman's blog-tag game of "your life as a soundtrack." Besides it was fun. The rules, which are pretty simple, and my results are below. Have fun and if you give it a try let me know.

How to Play:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question below, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the nextbutton
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool …

My Soundtrack:

Opening Credits:
People Ain't No Good - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

First Day At School:
Walk Away - Sarah Fimm

Falling In Love:
Paperback Writer - The Beatles

Breaking Up:
Miss Independent - Kelly Clarkson

Prom:
Velocity - Sarah Fimm

Mental Breakdown:
Better Life - Common Ground

Flashbacks:
Life for Rent - Dido

Getting Back Together:
She's Got a Way - Billy Joel

Wedding Scene:
Another Postcard - Barenaked Ladies

Final Battle:
Me vs. the World - Halo Friendlies

Death Scene:
Between - Vienna Teng

Funeral Song:
Accidentally in Love - Counting Crows

End Credits:
Oblivious - Fisher

Finale:
All Soul's Night - Loreena McKennitt

The Art of Disclosure

There has been some discussion at the Yahoo Podcasting Forums about the degree to which podcasters should disclosure certain information, like sponsorship and network affiliations. The arguments have been quite persuasive for all schools of thought, which got me to think about how much information podcasters share with their listeners when it's too much.
Podcasting has, at least, one unique quality going for it and that's a special rapport between the podcast host and the podcast listener. Though podcasting I have made friends with people from AZ to Canada, who 6 months ago where complete strangers. It's a wonderful feeling being able to discuss topics ranging from pop culture to politics with these new peers.
This familiarity does have a dark side though. It is possible to tell too much information and to possibly spoil a budding friendship.
I stepped over a line, an imaginary and invisible line, when I asked another podcast a question regarding there show. I tried to pose the question as respectfully and as honestly as possible but the other party didn't see it that way when they replied to my question with a multiple point retort of how wrong I was.
I had assumed that this other podcaster and I were friends and that they would understand that I was asking a question for clarification and not out of nastiness. My familiarity with them was assumed and I thought there was more to this association then there really was.
Podcasting has made great strides in giving individuals a voice and by bringing people, of all nationalities, together. But when one party assumes too much it's bound to get dirty and mean.

Resolutions and Predictions

I'm not very good with resolutions and I'm even worse with predictions so instead of going there let me just say that I hope this message finds y'all well on the beginning of this new year. I've enjoyed getting to know each of you this past year and I look forward to continuing our friendship in the year to come. If you happen to be online drop me a line to say hi, I'm usually on. ;) May your hopes and dreams come true this new year.