The Bleeding Edge... Then and Now

I have had the good fortune of working for a school district that has been forward thinking and in many cases on the bleeding edge. In fact, there have been a few times when I felt the need to turn around and see if anyone was following. (Ever had that feeling that you made a wrong turn? ) The good news is we always made the right choices.

One of our bleeding edge projects was the implantation of our Wireless laptop program. In this program, we deployed eight station laptop carts with a wireless access point, printer, projector, document camera and Smartboard to classrooms throughout the district. Today I look at a project like this and think it is a walk in the park. However, do not mistake that statement. The process for implementing such a project is important and the planning of that process is imperative.

After our second deployment throughout the district, my now retired boss Ladd Bausch and I felt the need to share our experience with other educators. With any project of this magnitude, we had a few challenges and we did not want to see others have to learn the hard way. It was at that point we decided to create a document, a planning guide if you will for deploying and implementing a wireless laptop projects. A few months later The Wireless Classroom & Deployment Planning Process was ready to publish and we offered the document to Dell. What do you know… They gladly accepted the document, posted it on the Dell web site. Over the next 18-months, Ladd and I did a series of presentations at local and national conferences presenting our document and our experiences with deployment of wireless laptops.

What got me started writing about this today? From time-to-time, one of us will search the web for the document to see if anyone is still using the document. Today Ladd sent me a note telling me the document was still on the web and sent me the links listed below. I have to say I was please to see our hard works referred to as a resource for others to use.

The other reason I am writing about this today is a desire to share this information again. While the technical information is a bit dated, the process is still tried and tested. If you are interested, this is a link to the PDF file on the Dell site.
http://www.dell4k12.com/offers/article_290.pdf?DGVCode=EM

Referenced on these sites:
http://etc.usf.edu/L4L/J-References.html
http://www.cde.state.co.us/edtech/wireless-laptops.asp
http://www.lindsayonline.net/links/handheld_resource.htm

GCast.com

Okay, this is just cool! After I posted the last entry (and finished watching the movie I was watching ). I signed up for a GCast.com account. Why, I had to give this a try.

I guess I should take a moment to tell you about how easy this was to do!

The process began by going to the web site. (http://www.gcast.com/) Next, I clicked through and yes, I even read the tutorial. Now most people would sign up for an account at this point but I was so excited, I thought I would Blog about. After posting an entry on both my Blog (http://shawnwheeler.blogspot.com/) and the Adventures in Podcasting site – Entry 42 (http://staffweb.peoriaud.k12.az.us/shawn_wheeler/podcast) I signed up for an account. This took all of 3 minutes and I was ready to go. Off to find the phone. After tracking down the phone, I dialed the toll free number, input my secret code and followed the audio prompts. After speaking into the phone, I was given the chance to listen to what I said or publish. I wanted the eTicket ride so I listened to my recording. Score, it sounded silly enough for me so I published the recording. Now I opened my web browser, navigated to my GCast site to listen to my podcast. (http://www.gcast.com/u/ShawnWheeler/main)

They even give you the source code to add the GCast podcast to several blogs.

I have to say this is pretty slick. Again, don’t take my word for it. Give it a try.

Oh, and if you want to listen to this podcast, here is the link to the MP3. (http://www.garageband.com/mp3/.C5SObSqE/01_Jun_1__2006_Phone_call.mp3)

Now this is just slick!

I am really starting to enjoy RSS feeds and thanks to a listing on the Teach42 blog (http://www.gcast.com) I have learned about another podcasting tool!

I would like to pass along the site GCast.com (http://www.gcast.com). GCast is run by the same folks that run Garageband.com and they are offering free podcast hosting!

But don’t buy it yet!!!! Its free!

They will even create your Podcast Channel (the RSS feed). But wait… It gets better! You can create you podcast through your phone (using a toll free number) OR upload your MP3 files from your computer.

But hey, don’t take my word for it… Go try it out.