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! ;)