A couple of years ago, I was attending a technology conference where I heard someone speaking about Wikis, Blogs, and Podcasts.  I knew what a blog was, but had not heard of the other two terms.  The speaker made them sound very interesting and I knew that I wanted to learn more about them.  I can now say that I have experimented with all three. 

You are currently reading my experiment in using a blog for the library.  Blog is short for Web Log and it is just like a journal.  We do a lot of journal writing in our elementary school but that occurs primarily in spiral notebooks.  A blog is a journal that is online for anyone to read.  You wouldn’t want to put your deepest, darkest secrets on a public blog but there is a fun aspect of knowing that other people will read what you write.

A wiki is a type of website that allows different people to make changes or add content to the site.  A regular webpage requires you to use a software program (like Composer or Frontpage) to create your page then upload your page to a server on the internet.  A wiki page has an edit button right there on the page.  When you click on the edit button, the page changes and looks much like a page in Word.  You type what you want to say or make changes to what has already been written, then click publish.  The page instantly goes back to being a webpage.  You don’t need any special software.  I’ve just started a wiki for the library as a place to post book reviews, poetry, and creative writing by students and teachers.  If you have something that you want to post on the wiki, let me know and I’ll help you.  To view the wiki, click this link.

My latest experiment has been the hardest but most exciting of the three to learn about- podcasting.  The term podcast is a combination of ipod and broadcast.  There are podcasts available on almost any topic .  The best place to find podcasts is through the podcast directory of the itunes store.  Although many people download podcasts to their ipod or other mp3 player, you don’t have to have an ipod to listen to podcasts on your computer.

Creating podcasts is really very easy if you have the right equipment.  Mrs. Miller and I went to a technology workshop this summer where we learned how to create a podcast using Garage Band on a Mac Book computer.  The problem is that we don’t have access to a Mac Book computer.  So I did some internet research and found a free software program called Audacity that handles the audio part of the podcast.  I created a very simple podcast that you can listen to here.  What I really want to do is learn how to create a video podcast.  I think I have figured out how to do this using Windows Movie Maker.  I hope to have one posted in the very near future.