Little Podcasting Question

Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -
Number of replies: 75

Just a quick question: In Moodle, I can set up most resources so that they generate RSS feeds, I think.  So I ought to be able to upload little audio bits in mp3 format to Moodle. My students could subscribe and get the audio at home, right? so this is essentially podcasting, but only to my students.

Or is this not correct?

-- Art

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Samuli Karevaara -
Lot's of "I think"sm here, but I think that Moodle only supports RSS feeds for the discussion forums. Here the feeds contain some basic info on the new posts etc. (Edit: I noticed that Glossary module options also mention RSS feeds. But for the resources, no)

Also, I don't think the RSS feeds go through any authentication method, so basically anyone can "listen" to the discussion forum RSS feeds, regardless of other "forced login" methods or such.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
Podcasting usually relies on so-called 'RSS enclosures', enabling clients like iPodder or iTunes to find the media files belongig to the RSS items. I don't think Moodle does yet create those when generating RSS ( `grep -rin enclosure moodle` yields no results smile), but this would be easy to do.
In fact I did the same for the S9Y weblogging tool, so that code could be easily recycled.
Hm, maybe I should have a look at /lib/rsslib.php tonight? wink
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -

> Hm, maybe I should have a look at /lib/rsslib.php tonight?

That would be very cool, Hannes!

Thanks,
Art

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Eloy Lafuente (stronk7) -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Hi,

it could be nice to publish audio bits from resources as podcasts! cool The RSS file format used is nearly (99%) identical to the generated by rsslib, only the envelope url should be added.

For specs of podcasts feeds: http://www.podcastingnews.com/articles/Understanding_RSS_Feeds.html

Anyway, the main problem under Moodle to make it to work is Moodle itself (well, not Moodle, wink but its file area security), where every uploaded file is protected from outside so, the podcast client won't be able to get the audio bits at all. sad

Only SITE (usually 1), if I'm not wrong, course is accessible without validation. mixed

Ciao smile

PD: Perhaps we could create a "public" area (dir) inside every course by hacking (relaxing) file.php a bit? Difficult? Security risk? It would allow universal (and simply) access to some files if the teacher want to do it (create the "public" directory and put contents inside). The "this area has universal access" warning should be showed always in the FileManager to remember it to the user, of course approve





Average of ratings: -
In reply to Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -

Eloy,

So, if that all came to pass, I could upload an mp3 file to the podcast file area and my students would be able to receive it via RSS, right?

But I could also just email the file to a goup of students who signed up to get it or post it to a forum, for example, and let them grab it from there, couldn't I?

-- Art

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by W Page -

Hello All!!

Eloy & Art!  What about general MP3 players or HandHelds to download to.  Are you also taking this into account as well as iPods?

I have not utilized a HandHeld to listen to a Podcasts as of yet, but, I can really see the usefulness of it.  Students could listen to it on public transportation, a car and while at work. 

I do know that it is possible to have an RSS feed to  HandHelds for Moodle forums, so, if the MP3's are in forum posts, I guess they could be listened to.  I am not sure however.  My HandHeld is acting up so if anyone could check it out that would be helpful.

WP1

Average of ratings: -
In reply to W Page

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -

Wow... This is pretty exciting stuff!

I wish I could program. sad

-- Art

Average of ratings: -
In reply to W Page

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Bob Boufford -

WP1,

When "podcasting" is discussed, it actually takes into account any device that is capable of playing "podcasts" as MP3 audio files. This includes desktop computers, "mp3 players", CD players, mobile phones with MP3 play capability and handhelds with MP3 play capability (Windows Mobile 2003/PocketPC and later versions of the Palm OS).

To answer you specific question on handhelds, I regularly use my Windows Mobile 2003 handheld to listen to podcasts. And if vodcasting (video podcasting) ever takes off, my handheld also has the capability to view video files. A colleague uses his Palm Tungsten regularly to listing to MP3 music files and podcasts.

Cheers,

Bob

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Eloy Lafuente (stronk7)

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Michael Penney -
Hmm, Janne's netpublish module does something like this 'publid directory' idea with the 'outpublish' directory: things 'published' there are world accessible.

It might also be something doable with MyFiles, with a 'share with everyone' function for a frontpage or "MyMoodle" MyFiles installation.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Peter Richardson -
I hope this is a good place to post this corallary podcast question. 

I have successfully loaded the SAGE reader into FireFox and used it to get mp3 feeds from a forum with rss enabled, but have failed to do so through the iTunes Music Store podcasts.  Apparently iTunes expects some information that the Moodle rss feed does not provide. I can't even get the text that is part of the forum post.

Can anyone offer any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
iTunes expects actual podcasts (RSS+MP3), not just basic RSS text feeds ...
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
Yes, as said, you'd have to generate the enclosures - which is no problem at all. I'll do it, I promise. Really smile Maybe I can even implement some of the other details of the iTunes spec, did any of you guys have a look at that?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Peter Richardson -
Hannes,

I am new to the podcast thing.  If you don't mind, what does "generate the enclosures" mean in layman's terms?

Thanks

Peter
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by W Page -

Hi Peter!

Thanks for asking that question.  I am beginning to get a little lost in this conversation myself.

WP1

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
Oh, that's something pretty trivial, it just means that you need to add another tag to the RSS/XML file which shows a podcasting client (iPodder, iTunes, liferea, ..) where to find the media file/stream (usually an MP3 file) belonging to an RSS news item.
This looks as simple as this:
    <enclosure url="
" type="audio/mpeg"/>

However, what I wanted to tell you is that I just implemented this, you can download the patches from http://opensource.mediagonal.ch/moodle/patches/podcasting/
I don't have a public Moodle installatione at the moment, so there's no demo - if you want to see it in action just go ahead an patch your Moodle smile

If you have any further questions or some ideas about implementing some more advanced podcasting-related RSS features (or about the authentication issue mentioned before..) please let me know!

Would anybody like to see this go into the main distribution?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Peter Richardson -
Hannes,

Thanks for your hard work on this.  At the risk of sounding ignorant, can you offer a bit more instruction on the implementation of the patch?  Where in the file should the patch go?  Does it replace existing code or is it all new?  etc.

Any help you might offer would be most appreciated.

Peter
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
No hard work at all, pure leisure wink

The patches were produced using the `diff` utility, so you can just use `patch`, its counterpart, to apply them. If you want to patch by hand, you can do this as well:  You only have to understand the unified diff format - line numbers between "@" signs, "+" stands for a line added, "-" for a removed one.  All standard, nothing special smile

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by A. T. Wyatt -

Absolutely.  I can think of a number of applications.  Not the least is to have a way for athletes to take lectures on the road!  I vote for including it in the main distribution as soon as it is ready.

atw

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Sigurdur Jonsson -
I'm experimenting with this and yes I would like to see it go into the main distribution. I would also like to see more advanced podcasting features implemented - and of course the authentication issue is very important.

Just one thing...

When I create a feed after having applied your patch I get this message when validating the feed:

This feed does not validate.

line 28, column 0: Missing enclosure attribute: length [help]


regards,
S.Fjalar


Average of ratings: -
In reply to Sigurdur Jonsson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
Thanks a bunch for your feedback.
In fact I do have the code for determining the value of that attribute, but took it out mainly because of that auth. issue - if there was a clearly defined place where media files to be accessible from outside are supposed to be found in the filesystem, things would be much easier. Otherwhise the code gets pretty ugly pretty fast smile
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
Hi folks (especially Julian),

Spent some time this weekend in order to test the possibility of podcast + http-auth. On the Moodle-side there's no problem (implemented, works fine in every browser), but the podcasting clients, including iTunes, are just too limited - so forget "real" authentication.
So I see two ways now: Either produce one RSS feed per user, where username and password are attached to each link to a media file. Ugly, but would work. The other way I see is  using the resources module instead of the forum for podcasting: There the teacher can chose to use a file from a non-protected directory (I guess), and everything works fine - but without authentication.

Do you see any other possibilities? Do you want the code for http-auth to play around with?

The length attribute in the feed works now for sound files attached to a forum message - that was easy.

Thanks for your support,
Hannes


Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Mark Stevens -
Hannes,

Thanks for your work smile  This is a very cool and useful feature... especially for teaching languages.  I would love to see it part of the standard release.  Has a bug been filed for it?

Eloy, so this will work with the front page/course 1?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by James Phillips -
This would be a great way of sending out listening exercises to the mobile phones of language students. 
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -

Hannes,

I would LOVE to see this go into the main distrobution. My seniors could then create little Podcasts in simple, easy German for my freshmen. That would be so cool!

-- Art

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Steven Geggie -

I definitely think this should be part of the next distribution.  Since I don't know how to patch, can you please post the full php files that were altered?

Thanks!!!

Steve

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Steven Geggie

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Darren Smith -
I definitely think this should be part of the next distribution

I agree. I think this has more educational value than, say, blogs which are slated for 1.6 - and don't get me wrong, i think blogs are great. I am currently helping my students create a student 'radio' station podcast which has wide educational value amongst the community but I also intend to explore podcasts for revision, missed lectures, accomdating blind users, the audio learning style and language learners to name a few of the top of my head.

I have just skimmed this thread now but it seems a lot of clever and important people seem to be saying that this would be easy to do  - which isn't a suprise as the rss bit and iTuens bit is easy to code by hand so having both of these in Moodle would be out of this world.

Please please please please please for 1.6?

If you are feeling really generous you could allow students to publish their own via their profile / mymoodle. Now *that* would be way cool and a valuable educational addition for all.

Thoughts?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Julian Ridden -
I am running the latest 1.6 and went to insert the code into rsslib..and its allready there!. Looks like we can look forward to this in 1.6 :D
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Chardelle Busch -
Picture of Core developers
I agree this will be a great addition to Moodle.  I can't wait to try it out--Julian, when 1.6 comes out, will you please update us on how to implement this.

In the meantime, for anyone interested, I ran across a very nice manual for creating mp3's (and podcasting) with OSS such as Audacity.  Here
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Jason Edwards -
Hi Hannes,

I have applied the patches, created an RSS feed from the URL, and opening iTunes, I am able to open and subscribe to the feed, and the subscription is saved in iTunes. And that works great, than you.

However, how do I create a link that automatically opens up iTunes and plays the podcast, and subscribes to it? Is there a way to do that?

Thanks again for your work on this,

Jason
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question-A LITTLE HELP PLEASE

by Bhupinder Singh -

Hi HAnnes,

First let me congratulate you on your add on and solution.

Next I am newbe and seek your help.

I have successfully installed the podcast module.

How do I add  the patch and oparationalize.

Sorry if this sounds simple but I am a functional guy with less of Tech Experience hence the help call????

GARRY

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -

Hello, All,

If anyone gets a chance, please let me know if this looks about right (or if I have messed it up)?

By the way, what is this bit: < ttl >1< /ttl > ?

Thanks,
Art

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
Art,

TTL stands for "Time-To-Live", the number of days the RSS is supposed to be valid/cacheable.
AFAIR the lenght attribute should contain the size of the media file in bytes, your value seems to be something else?

Hannes

PS: Improved patch with fixed length attribute follows..
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -
Thanks, Hannes,

So this [length="67,789" ] is wrong, isn't it? Maybeit should just be 67789? (It is just me counting to five, so it would be a small number.)

Thanks,
Art
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Julian Ridden -

I have implemented this podcasting patch on the Playpen.

Click here to see it in action.

You will need of course an application (like iTunes) capable of playing Podcasts.

This feature is simple to implement and has a wide variety of uses. A couple of the most obvious of these are:

  • Language Teaching
  • Online audio lectures
  • Audio Samples for music teaching

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Mark Stevens -
Julian,

I just tested your deployment with iTunes and it works great.  This is a very exciting development and I hope it can make it into the main distribution.  As always, thanks for everyone's work on this.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Fawaz Shareef -

Hello all,

I have managed to setup my forum to create rss feed and have applied the patches for podcasting. Now I have one problem.

I am able to download podcasts from forums on the main site which does not require any log in. But as soon as I try to download podcasts from forums within courses it does not allow me to do it. What we need is to have forums within each course and the students to be able to download podcasts from this forum.

I am using iTunes to download these..

Thanks

Fawaz

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Matt Crosslin -
I think someone touched on this, but what if we also made the podcasting function to allow students to use it.  Students could submit music recitals, speeches, or mock-radio broadcastsof their own.  Other students could then download these performances and give peer feedback.

To take this idea even further, I wonder if there is way to have the recording and mixing process happen totally inside of Moodle.  This may just be a wild dream, but think of the possibilities if the student just had to plug the microphone or instrument or whatever up to the computer, log in to Moodle, and do the rest from there.

Besides form just being cool, it would also allow for greater control by the instructor.  Music students would be required to give certain audio clues as they record, so that they couldn't "fake" the performance.  Or instructors could give students a pre-set number of attempts.

The teacher would then have a class Podcast subscription that allows them to download and critique what has been uploaded.  Or assign critique partners, and your group members would be subscribed to your podcast.

Or even if you had the ability to do something like Garageband online.  I know some musicians do this already, so think if you could do that with Moodle.  Compose an original song with your classmates online, asynchroniously.

Or, maybe, create "Audio Discussion Boards" that allow you to post your thoughts verbally.  You subscribe to the RSS feed and hear the response clips as they are added.  Or maybe create a script that allows Moodle to "compile" all of the audio into one stream, so you can hear them all at once.  If you have something to add, hit Respond To This Feed somewhere on Moodle, speak your mind into the microphone, and then hit Add to The Feed.  This could eliminate alot of the misunderstandings that happen online when a person misreads a post and takes it as an insult.  Or maybe it would add to it....

Then, if Moodle adds Vodcasting, you could add even more possibilities.  Theater students practicing acting techniques, video speech presentations, asynchronious movie creation, peer movie critiques, Video Discussion Boards (talk about removing all barriers to online learning), etc all with the push of one Subscribe button.

And, THEN, if we could incorporate the Sims video game into Moodle.....
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Drew Buddie -

I'm not sure if this is a relevant response, but when I saw the word 'critique',  I instantly thought of this - a great piece of Open Source software created by Steve O'Hear.  He's a really TOP bloke. And in additon, check out the film he's made including this brilliant clip of Steve Wozniak!

Oh, and re your post about The Sims and Moodle - p'raps you haven't heard of Ian Usher's and my award-winning prototype that did just that!!!!!!  Still on the drawing board, but with TONS of potential.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Drew Buddie

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Matt Crosslin -
Wow - I forgot to preface my response by saying that I am new here and I haven't had a chance to look around as much as I like.  But that prototype sounds incredible.  Is there some place to go to hear more about it?  That does have TONS of potential.

So, is this some type of desktop program that connects through a Moodle-based website?  I've always pondered the possibilities of expanding an LMS/CMS onto the desktop, taking advantage of other programs, games, documents, etc.  Or is everything web-based?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Drew Buddie -
You can find more (very little info) here - scroll to RED JAMS KAMPUS.  Ian and I could tell you alittle more and we did a presentation on this at the MoodleMoot in Oxford this year.  We have great plans for it, but need the time and space to make our ideas grow legs.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Matt Crosslin

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Ray Lawrence -
Is this any good for your vision?

http://www.myvirtualband.com/
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Ray Lawrence

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Matt Crosslin -
That does look like a good site.  The idea of adding to something that someone else has already created would work great for the Audio Discussion Board idea.

I noticed that the site says you need the recording software.  I wonder if there is a way to remove this step - to create a web-based recording/editing page.  Something that could be catered to specific educational demands.

For example, you are listening to an Audio Discussion.  You want to reply to a specific sentence.  In some discussion boards, you can "quote" the orginal post, or at least highlight, copy, and paste.  How would you do that in an audio recording?  Well, design the recording page to have certain buttons.  Press "Rewind" and get to the right spot.  Press "Record Quote" and listen until the quote you want ends.  Then press "Stop Quote."  Then press "Record Response."  As you are talking, you would say some thing like "When you said this:", press the "Play Back Quote" button, and then after the qhote is over, press the "Stop Quote Play Back" button, and continue your response.  Then click submit, and it all gets compiled at the end of the mp3, maybe with a little computer voice tag that says "So and so responded at 3:01 pm on Saturday Nov.22", and then the RSS feed gets updated automatically.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Julian Ridden

Re: Moodle Podcasting Demo

by Ger Tielemans -
Surprise..
Julian, if I put your podcast.xml link in Avant browser, instead of iTunes, (Windows) I got this view. I wonder if there are also PodCast plug-ins for Firefox. (But I prefer to have it as an "in-line filter" in Moodle usabel in a Block? or as a module?)
Attachment surf2051.gif
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by dave cormier -
Thanks for all the work guys,

We finally got this working and left a record of the steps we took in the shownotes here . There's also a description at 11:30 of the radio show.


Average of ratings: -
In reply to dave cormier

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Hannes Gassert -
Thanks  Dave for the publicity smile Just listened to your show, that was fun indeed - although I have to add that of course this patch is painful to install for non-developers, after all this is not even an alpha release of something, this is just a patch for fellow hackers to play around with! smile

So, let's talk about improving this.. besides making the hack a bit more robust I see two main issues - for both I which I don't have a solution at all:
  • Authentication: Public feed, protected files - after all the files you upload to Moodle are only to be seen by registred users.. but the limits of the podcasting clients make this rather hard..
  • Metadata: Things get interesting if you can add metadata to your media files, like what Apple defines in their iTunes RSS extensions. The problem here is how to create and edit that metadata.. not too easy either.
So... any ideas?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by dave cormier -
It's a great start Hannes. The only reason i went to such lengths to explain the difficulty is that people email us and ask... "hey why can't i set this up", and don't realize the difference between a pre-alpha and a hippopotamous.(there's a big difference btw, come to think of it, the only real similarity is their disposition) I'd love to be able to help you with the rest... unfortunately not my department.

cheers.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -
Thank you for sticking with this, Hannes. It is clearly going to be a very useful addition to Moodle.

-- Art
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Just H -
Hi all

Has anyone come across a solution to the authentication issue yet?

I have no idea whatsoever about podcasting but have been asked to set it up so that the general public can subscribe and an area for members only. I have noticed while doing research some sites have paid subscription feeds so I'm guessing there is way.

Look forward to any developments along these lines within Moodle.

Regards
H
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Just H

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Peter Richardson -
I am excited about the talk of enhanced podcasting from within MOODLE. 

In the meantime, I have found a very simple piece of Open Source Software called LoudBlog (I don't think it has been mentioned here).  I use it for podcasting, but have not tried to integrate it into Moodle.  It is public access in terms of listening, but passworded, of course, for posting. The web site for Loudblog is http://www.loudblog.de

I currently run both Loudblog and Moodle on the same server and, so far, have used to to broadcast a weekly tipcast to my faculty.  They listen through iTunes.  If you want to see it in action, go to online.rutgersprep.org/lblog
Average of ratings: Coolest thing ever! (1)
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Just H -
I set up a demo Loudblog about a month ago but did't get a chance to really play with it ("real" work intruded). It did seem quite simple to use with a nice interface but, from memory, I don't think it had a login/members only area which is what I was looking for.

Thanks for mentioning Loudblog and reminding me to have a play again when I get a chance smile
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Mark Stevens -
Thank you so much for the reference.  Loudblog is way cool.  We must integrate this into Moodle, and with full capability for students to create their own and group projects.  Who can I pay to do this? smile
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Mark Stevens

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Leon Cych -
Yes Loudblog is brilliant - it could be a verbal WIki - a portfolio - a viva mechanism - loads of stuff. Gerrit is the person to pay I suppose - he might be interested - it would be a brilliant module enhancement.

Leon Cych
Average of ratings: Very cool (1)
In reply to Leon Cych

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Mark Stevens -
Leon,

I mentioned your previous Loudblog post in the Language Teachers' course:  http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=16993#162504
You get full credit for being the first to mention Loudblog on Moodle smile  I wrote to  Gerrit about possible integration with Moodle immediately after I installed it smile

 It's also got me thinking about the blog-forum discussion... individual-social...
Butttons for:
"Podcast This!" to reference it to a personal Podcast
"Share This!" or "Socialize This!" or "Connect This!" if you want to reference a personal podcast to a group.
More metadata?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Mark Stevens

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Leon Cych -
Definitely more metadata if you want to link it to google/earth/maps, geoblogging, flicker, videoegg, tagsonomy mashups for projects - I am shortly going to get involved in a project with young kids to this effect and really would welcome development, consolidation and integration in this respect...

;)

Leon
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Leon Cych

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Mark Stevens -
Gerrit said he doesn't do freelance work and wasn't really a programmer... (I wish I could not program like him).  I talked to some others about integration, and they thought it might be a bit Frankenstienish because it duplicates a lot of the code in MoodleBlog.  I understand these issues, but (there's always a but) does MoodleLoudblog have to be a monster?  Can't we just take all of the podcast wrapping for the .mp3  and keep it looking very Moodlish?  Wasn't there work on the RSS block to do this too?
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Darren Smith -
Thanks for that! Exactly what I am looking for.

Something like this in moodle would be great. We have a moodle course for our podcast which some students run but I am going to have to jump out of moodle for podcasting for it to do what we want (and I don't want to) so am moving over to loudblog as we speak. Superb.

Thanks again and I hope important moodle people can have a look at it and see if they can integrate it's features.

Darren
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Darren Smith

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Art Lader -
Well, for now we can set up a Loudblog and subscribe to the podcasts via RSS, right?

What a great find, by the way. Thank you for posting it, Peter!

-- Art
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Peter Richardson -
Art,

Yes, subscribing via RSS is correct.cool  You will see the little RSS button over on the right.

I have instructed my people to subscribe through iTunes (Advanced => Subscribe to Podcast) which is, of course, available for both Mac and PC.  This will also automatically drop the cast to their iPod when they plug it in.

Happy casting.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Loudblog

by A. T. Wyatt -
Did you see this?
http://www.whosaid.org/cast/

This is a site made with loudblog.  A great idea for educators.

Ditto on thanks for letting us know about it!  I think this looks terrific.

atw
Average of ratings: -
In reply to A. T. Wyatt

Re: Loudblog

by Amy Bellinger -
Duh!

I found this among my referrers. Haven't been here for a while, since I've changed jobs slightly. I don't know why I didn't think of using the RSS block as a connector and making the whosaid.org site in Moodle. As it is now I have a separate dcboard for forums when it could have been all integrated.

If anyone has questions about configuring Loudblog, give me a holler. I've gone through some painful machinations that you might be able to avoid.  In general I love it.

Amy Bellinger
http://whosaid.org
http://learnandteachonline.com
http://www.nsc.org
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question - .m4a format

by Thorwald Westmaas -

HOw to I get my Windows Media player to recognize .the .m4a format?

I other cases I've seen streaming to start right away.

Thorwald

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter Richardson

Re: Little Podcasting Question - .m4a format

by Thorwald Westmaas -

HOw to I get my Windows Media player to recognize .the .m4a format?

I other cases I've seen streaming to start right away.  When I download it first and then t ry to run it with WMP, it doesn't recognize the format.

Thorwald

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Thorwald Westmaas

Re: Little Podcasting Question - .m4a format

by Leon Cych -
Try http://www.free-codecs.com/download/3ivx.htm 
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Leon Cych

Re: Little Podcasting Question - .m4a format

by Thorwald Westmaas -

Thanks Leon,

I imagined it would be something like that.

Of course, from a business/user point of view, a podcast that requires this kind of user intervention won't be very popular.

Thorwald

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Thorwald Westmaas

Re: Little Podcasting Question - .m4a format

by Chardelle Busch -
Picture of Core developers
Another resource regarding using podcasting in education and training.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Hannes Gassert

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Dale Jones -
Late to the game I know, but now at the END of the Christmas holidays at last I have time to try podcasting in Moodle.  Absolutely superb Hannes, I love it, and many thanks for your solution.  One thing I might add to the docs (and credit to EdTechTalk for their explanation of how to use "patch") as it foxed me for a while, is that admin/cron.php needs to be run to generate the feed.  I was trying this on a dummy installation without cron running, and was scratching my head as to why it wasn't working.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Re: Little Podcasting Question

by Matt Crosslin -
I've been thinking about this podcasting issue.  It seems that there are no podcast readers that can "sign in" to a secure feed like what you would get when storing one internally in Moodle.  But as I think about it, maybe we shouldn't try to make Moodle do podcasts.  Maybe we should "Moodalize" podcasts.

I am just throwing out ideas here, but here is my thinking behind this.  Moodle is designed to be interactive, guided learning.  Podcasts are designed to be independent.  Shouldn't we want students to use podcasts in an interactive, guided method?

If you load a podcast reader into Moodle, then it can read the secure mp3 files uploaded into Moodle.  Then, if you build a lesson around the reader, you can have students listening to a guided lesson that gets updated like a podcast can.  I've attached a sample lesson that uses a Flash Podcast player.  You will need to, first, make the adjustments to your RSS feeds so that they can handle podcasting as noted in this thread.  You will want to go through all of the steps listed, so that your podcast mp3 files will actually stay inside of Moodle's password protection.  Then you will need to copy the full link to the Podcast xml file and paste it into the "podcast.html" file.  You will also need to edit the content of the file to reflect the actual lesson.  Then you will need to upload the files as they are into your classes My files area.  Then you will need to create a resource link to the "podcast.html" file.

The Flash used in this file is a little buggy (you have to refresh it once the RSS feed is updated), and this set-up is very simple.  And students have to be signed in to the class for it to work.  But it is set up this way because it is a start on some other ideas I have.

If we could take the Discussion set-up, and copy it, and then rename/redo some things in it so that it is strictly an RSS function.  Then we could use the unread post function to alert people to new podcasts that they need to listen to.  A Block could be created that displays new podcast entries (this would also be a great function for Discussion forums in general).

Then, we could create an RSS activity that has several functions.  One would use something like Quoteplay to allow listeners to comment on parts of the podcast.  This program allows users to "tag" a certain section of an mp3 file.  Then we could add a comments section to the RSS activity, and allow listeners to insert the URL that Quoteplay generates and type in their comments/feedback on that quote.  We could even allow several quotes.

Then we could add something that acts like a notepad and uses the html editor so that listeners can take notes.  This is something that I think needs to be added to Moodle in general.  Something that allows the user to take notes and then publish it to Word or PDF or whatever.

This podcasting feature could also have three levels - a feed for the class, a feed for each instructor, or a feed for each student.  That way, students could post feedback on the instructors podcast, or on each others podcasts.  Or students could create a podcast, and the teacher can comment on it (or other students).  If we use the Discussion set-up, anyone can easily upload an mp3 and add it to their RSS feed, complete with comments.  They would just need to know how to make the mp3, which could be included as a default lesson.

This could be used for music classes (students could record their practice session or orginal composistion), debate classes, or by any classes that could use regular audio content.  And if pocast is expanded into Vodcasting, there are even more possibilities (theater classes, advertisign classes, etc).

We could also use PHP's XML parsing ability to even make the listening page more user-friendly.  PHP could split up the XML and give the user the option to play the most recent feed in-browser, or download to their computer.  The comments part of the XML feed could be used to add additional information and or assignment information.

These are just some ideas.
Average of ratings: Very cool (1)
In reply to Art Lader

回應: Little Podcasting Question

by Chan TszYin -

Hello everybody! Happy new year ! I hope you all happy in this year - 2006 !

Chan Tsz Yin

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Art Lader

Hannes Gasserts Podcasting Mods Question

by David Banach -
Has anyone here installed Hans Gasserts Podcasting mods to add enclosures to the RSS feeds.
http://opensource.mediagonal.ch/moodle/patches/podcasting/


I've installed the mods and they work fine to generate rss feeds for my podcasts that work well with the rss readers in Thunderbird, for example.
But both Yahoo and Itunes won't accept the RSS feeds.

Has anyone gotten Moodle to generate RSS feeds with enclosures that these sites will take?
Average of ratings: -