Page 1 of 1 I wear a lot of different hats in my day job. As a member of the Educational Technology Team for Palm Beach County schools—one of the largest public school districts in the U.S.—I do all sorts of things from manage programs to conducting training and even doing the occasional web and graphic design work. But the most unusual aspect of my job is that I also get to be a television star.
OK, star might be a bit of a stretch, but I am the co-host of a weekly television show that is filmed in our school district's television studio. Each and every week during the school year we record Palm Breeze Cafe for broadcast to all 165 schools in our district as well as send the show out to local cable viewers. I actually get lots of people who stop me in my day-to-day business and say that they or members of their family have watched the show and how much they enjoy it. Just the other day in fact a young woman gushed that she couldn't wait to get home to tell her husband that she'd bumped into me at her school since they both watch the show.
Wow. Be still my beating ego.
Our show covers all sorts of educational topics where parents, students, and teachers can find instruction and learning opportunities. It's a cool job to have even if I only do it one day per week, but on that day I get to work with some terrific people, including my co-host Lee Keller and two fantastic teachers, Lee Kolbert and Jamey Akien. Between the four of us we cover a full range of topics every week such as great web sites for learning, social networking tools that allow individuals to build their own personal learning networks, and software that you might use at home or in the classroom. We have a great deal of latitude on the topics we cover and trust me, we use it.
But as cool as it is to serve our local community this way, from the start we've always published our show online through YouTube and other video sharing sites. Last year our own media server became available in the school district, and we publish there as well. To date we've heard from people all over the world that watch and enjoy the show. Our most-viewed show? It's the one we did a few years back explaining the way that blogs work and how they might be used in the classroom—a presentation that every teacher in Hawaii watched as part of a state-wide training. As of this writing we have 333 10-minute instructional videos on YouTube, with more added throughout the year.
As we began this season of Palm Breeze Cafe we introduced a new set and an even more lively style than what we've used in the past. But our mission remains the same: To show how computers can be used for learning, whether that takes place in a classroom or in your own.
Topics? Yeah, we got topics. Want to learn about the latest social networking or collaborative Web 2.0 tool? Lee Kolbert has become famous all over the educational world as an expert on those kinds of tools and talks each week about her latest discovery.
Jamey Akien is well, what can I say. Jamey is a force of nature. A middle school math teacher who brings us a great new web site every week where all sorts of learning can take place.
And Lee Keller and I have been perfecting our impersonation of The Tappet Brothers from Car Talk for the last few years and have a pretty good time showing how to make good PowerPoint presentations, how to use online office tools, and how to use all sorts of other tools and services.
There are number of options for viewing Palm Breeze Cafe. Of course, you can always visit the Palm Breeze Cafe YouTube channel and see the latest videos there.
Or perhaps you'd like to go the automatic route and subscribe to the iTunes RSS feed for Palm Breeze Cafe. (This link will open iTunes where you can complete your subscription.)
Finally, if you're viewing at a school or other location where YouTube content is blocked by a filter, you can still dig into all of our great video segments by accessing our internal video service. You can either subscribe to the RSS feed for Palm Breeze Cafe or if you prefer, embed the code for the complete feed from the show using the embed code below;
<embed src='http://vodcast.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/playlist.swf' width='340' height='380' allowfullscreen='true' wmode='transparent' flashvars='key=CH48D7EC87B9481&set=2H78S' />
My own personal favorite? It's not about Dreamweaver or Fireworks (although you'll find those videos too), but about Adobe Soundbooth CS4. In the video below you'll see not only how easy it is to edit soundtracks on a movie file with Soundbooth, but also see me get my groove on with Jamey. Who says this TV star thing isn't fun?
(Don't have YouTube access? You can see this video on our school district video service here.)
Palm Breeze Cafe is a weekly television show that is available online in multiple locations as either a video podcast (when downloaded through iTunes) or as a direct link within YouTube or on our school district video service. The mission of the show is to demonstrate how computers can be used for learning of all sorts and is freely provided by the School District of Palm Beach County Florida. Whether you're working as a teacher in the classroom, as a professional developer, or are just interested in learning more for your own personal use we hope you find great value and a good deal of fun in our weekly show.
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Keywords
television, instructional, teaching, learning, vodcast, Keller, Kolbert
