Friday, October 12, 2007

When is a Cell Phone not a Cell Phone?

Tonight, I prepared for my workshop on podcasting and vodcasting at Heckscher Park tomorrow. After signing up for Gabcast, a website that allows people to use their cell phones to record and then publish audio recordings, I gave it a spin. Here is my first episode. What is this good for? On the spot recordings is one use. Whether it be for school, or to capture those little moments in life that are precious, but forgotten easily, here is a tool that is always within reach.


Gabcast! Heckscher Park Exhibit #1

5 comments:

Adam Dugger said...

VERY DEEP thoughts there Noel. I really like how Gabcast can truly be used "on the fly". The cafe looks awesome!

Mr. Stein said...

I'm really interested in getting my students to use gabcast. Do you think it is a problem to ask students to use their phones for a project?

Diana said...

I absolutely love the Gabcast! Thank you for presenting it to our team. I am trying to use it with my students now.

Noel Forte said...

Mike, the only thing that comes to mind is the fact that if students are "over their limit" on minutes, there will be a charge when they place the call. I don't know if parents would have an issue, maybe those that only want their kids to use the phone for emergencies, but how many of our kids have that constraint?
As a follow up on my implementation of gabcast.....I went on a field trip with a kindergarten class to Christopher Morley park for a "leaf walk." I brought along a digital recorder as a back up, in case my phone died or if I couldn't get a signal. Turns out, I used the digital recorder instead of the phone for the following reasons:
-it took at least a minute to dial the number, listen for the prompts for channel number and password, and then waiting for the beep. By the time it was ready to record, the moment was gone.
-I was trying to capture their reactions to things they were seeing and by the time I was ready, they had forgotten what they initially said.
-to use the digital recorder, I simply pressed one button and it was recording.

Mr. Stein said...

Thanks for the tip Noel. I just applies for a mini-grant to buy some digital voice recorders. I want to use them in my project for TEAM.