Saturday, February 12, 2005

End of Week 4

I've been such a derelict this week.

On the one had, I was looking for an excuse to play with mp3 files. Finally made my first one and it's not bad.

One thing I find troubling is that almost everybody else used proprietary HTML <EMBED> tags so I can't listen to their MP3s. I wonder if they realize it...

Aparently they didn't.

Standards (and the ways in which Internet Explorer subverts them) can be an nasty problem. I've been a thorn in the side by insisting on trying everything in Linux on a Firefox browser, I know, but it's one of the best ways to find those things that will cause problems in cross-platform environments.

I've spent part of this Sunday afternoon listening to audio clips (I have to do a lil work but I *can* extract the links from the source code and plug them into my audio player). Every day Sarolta does something else cool. I loved listening to the story about the hotel. And thanks, Nancy, for making a link I could click on to load it. It was a relief.

The real value for audio in education will be as podcast, I think. Being able to subscribe to audio feeds and download them over night -- or even during the day while I'm engaged in my office. The challenge will be in creating audio that's not lecture. Rob Reynolds over on Xplana Radio (http://www.xplanaxine.com) is one of my favorite educational podcasters because he makes really short essays and posts them in audio and print. It's nice to be able to load my MP3 player and take them on my morning commute.

In Week 5 we should have fun. . . I'll share my own ePortfolio ...

5 comments:

Nancy A. McKeand said...

Well, assuming you can't listen to my audio, I guess I would definitely have to say that I, at least, didn't realize it. (I just had my husband check on his Linux machine, and he couldn't listen to mine, so I am sure you wouldn't have been able to open it either.) So I apologize to you. And thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Bee said...

Just like Nancy, I was not aware the embedded code could not be read by some. Thanks for pointing it out. Perhaps you would like to post a message to the list on this issue and add it to the compatibility issues in the wiki.

On a different level, if I made I text file for the mp3, would you be able to receive the streamed version?

Ale W said...

I'd also like to know what I should do so that the audio is available to everyone so will keep reading your posts, Nathan.

Lesley said...

Hi Nate, I'm going to try to post some audio today if hassles at work allow me. I read your wiki explanation but to be honest, I'm still not clear on how to do this in an unembedded way. Could you tell me REALLY clearly. Just imagine you're explaining it to a three-year-old :-))

Sarolta said...

Dear Nathan,
Thanks for you help with my photoblog entry. I keep having difficulties with the blogs too (I'm a Mozilla user and I just hate the fact that I have to use Internet Explorer to see images - even your lovely black and white photo). I hope the photoblog will work now with your Firefox.
I too would be very grateful if you could tell us how to incorporate MP3 files better. I checked your audblog's page source. Is this the way to do it? Sorry for my ignorance.