Cole W. Camplese

ETS Talk is Back!

For the second week in a row we have produced an ETS Talk. After several weeks of talking about it we decided it was time to get back on the podcasting bus ... that and the fact that we are close to crossing over the 50,000 downloads to ETS Talk from our iTunes U space sort of motivated us.

Last week we had my 13 year old niece in the studio asking about teen use of technology ... it really blew our minds listening to her. A good show. So good in fact that it pushed us to go back into the studio (my office) and deliver ETS Talk 57 this week. We spent lots of time talking about all sorts of things, but one thing we really focused on was how to think about measuring new IT services for success. It seems like with the kinds of things we are doing, simply counting people isn't enough. More and more we struggle to rethink what it means to illustrate success. At any rate, you can go to our iTunes U space and give number 57 a listen. I'd love to hear any thoughts.

ETS Talk 35

This afternoon the ETS Talk Crew sat down and produced ETS Talk 35. Sort of a milestone ... we spend the better part of 45 minutes talking about Digital Commons and the examples cming out of the project, some RSS thinking that has been going on around the office, and think out loud a bit about FaceBook and some of the growing angst related to it. Always fun to get a new episode out the door. Jump over to Podcasts at Penn State to grab this week's ETS Talk.

ETS Talk 32

After my post last week about creating opportunities for Digital Expression we spent time discussing it on ETS Talk. Number 32 is now available ... if you have any thoughts for us, either drop us an email or leave me a comment.

Nothing about the iPhone

I thought I would check in just to say that this post has nothing to do with the iPhone. I just wanted to point out that we will try to do an ETS Talk this week ... Summer is a crazy time and it makes it hard to keep things moving as consistently as the other times of the year. I've actually been getting more feedback about the podcast while it has been "off the air" the last three weeks ... lots of people asking when the next one would come. I even had one listener ask me to stop saying only 8 people are listening. She said it made her feel like one of a handful of pathetic people -- sorry about that! At any rate, we will try to drop an ETS Talk this week, so stay tuned!

Show Notes

For the first time in my podcasting career -- it spans several years now BTW ;-) -- I have added show notes to the entry. Funny, it is the one thing iTunes U doesn't give us. At any rate, take a listen to ETS Talk 27 and let me know what you think ... about the show and the notes.

ETS Talk on the Directory

Every Friday Allan Gyorke, Chris Millet, Brad Kozlek, and I get together to just talk. We record these conversations and call them ETS Talk ... our little weekly podcast is really just an opportunity to take an hour every week to think out loud. We've recorded 27 of these which is actually sort of amazing given the schedules we all keep. It is honestly a highlight of my week.

How sweet was it to learn tonight that ETS Talk is featured on the new iTunes U directory from within the iTunes Store. Not sure we are worthy given the company we are keeping in the featured section ... hmm, let's see, yeah we're next to Coach K's Leadership Conference, an entry from the MIT Open Courseware initiative, and a few other notables. So, if you want to listen to four guys (with the occassional guest) talk about our perspectives on teaching and learning with technology and other stuff, jump on over and take a listen!

Game On!

By my own admission, I am not much of a gamer. Back in the day when I was a kid I would play text based games by Infocom on my 128K Mac ... after that, I've stayed away from computer games for the most part-- small amounts of time here and there, but serious addictions. Sure, I've had game consoles, but other than my Wii I haven't gotten the fever like most of my friends have since way back in the day. We've been doing a lot stuff in Second Life, but like we said in ETS Talk 25, SL isn't a game.

The last couple of weeks I have been into a game though -- not a million dollar production, but a simple little Flash game called, Desktop Tower Defense. I was at my sister's tonight for a picnic and all the guys were talking about it. Let me say it is good. Two things make it perfect in my mind ... the first is the simple game play. Those of us raised on the simplicity of the Atari 2600 know that one button is enough. The second thing that makes it really interesting is the social component. They make it really easy to set up a group and play against your friends. Just really smart stuff.

Looks like people are noticing. I came across a nice little post over at Giga Om that nails it. We need to be thinking about games in education, but we cannot ignore the simple options out there. Things don't have to be over the top to work. Desktop Tower Defense is the proof.

23 Things and ETS Talk

A tip of the hat to Veronica Diaz from Maricopa on this little find ... the 23 Things open course designed and delivered from Glendale Community College in Arizona. Not much to say here, but fantastic. It is an open, self-paced eLearning course that guides learners through 23 things they should know about Web 2.0.

It got Brad Kozlek and I talking quite a bit about it today and we think this and our follow up thoughts will be featured this week on ETS Talk. Speaking of ETS Talk, I came across a very nice post about our little podcast show from Mike Briggs at Sun. Blows my mind that people are listening!

ETS Talk 17 is Available

I feel like all I do at the end of every week is post news of the latest ETS Talk all over my available websites. I post it to the Podcasts at Penn State site, PSU on iTunes U, the ETS Blog, and here at my personal blog. I think this week I'll even post it over at my PSU Blog (that is running on the new PSU Blog Platform we talk about in the episode) as well just to keep the content flowing. It begs the question of where is the best place to link this stuff? I get good stats from Apple on what is being downloaded out of iTunes U but it is increasingly difficult to know where people are getting the ETS Talk Podcast from. At the end of the day I may have too many places sitting out there on the Internets.

At any rate, the ETS Talk Gang welcomes Jeff Swain this week to talk about building online communities. Jeff manages the ANGEL Community Hub for us here at ETS and has done a wonderful job getting it off the ground and growing it. For some reason we end up calling Jeff and the podcast, "the total package" ... not really sure why. We also get a chance to listen to and respond to a phone message by Chris Long about blogging in the classroom. At the end of the show we spend a little time talking about how long the University should maintain content for students and what we should be thinking about to help preserve online content over the long haul.

Direct Link to Podcast | iTunes U

ETS Talk 16 with D ' Arcy Norman

This week Cole, Allan, and Brad have the pleasure of hosting D'Arcy Norman from the University of Calgary in the 210F Studio ... well, he comes in via iChat AV, but that's close enough. D'Arcy is an international Edu Blogger Rock Star who spends most of his time creating opportunities to engage those in educational contexts with emerging technologies. We spend most of the show talking about how to get strategic about selecting technologies that can have an impact on the educational process and how we look at scaling them. Clearly we are all still talking Twitter, but the new item this week is Yahoo Pipes. We hop you enjoy!

Podcast on iTunes U | Direct Link to Podcast