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Today, as promised, Kris Smith posted the second half of our wide-ranging talk from last Friday. See his podcast Croncast: Amy and her friend Kris Ep. 2. (Right-click on the “podcast” link on that page to download the MP3 audio file. Oh, and what’s a podcast?)

Today’s show starts with a discussion of women in podcasting – or rather the current lack thereof, definitely on the creator side and probably on the audience side. I was fairly pointed in my observations on this topic, so I wouldn’t be surprised if some people take issue with what I said. Well, as always, if you question or object to anything I have to say, e-mail me or comment below (or on Croncast) and we can discuss it.

In the second part of this conversation, Kris and I explored the potential overlap of podcasting and e-learning or distance learning.

Here are some links, side notes, and stuff I forgot to mention…

1. Gratitude: Kris, thank you so very much for the advice, assistance, and interest you have offered over this past week. A little context: Kris has generously offered to mentor me in the art of podcasting. I’m sure this will help me get my own podcast up and running sooner rather than later. Also, Kris, thanks for all the hard work you put into Croncast. It’s an excellent, thoughtful show that doesn’t feel “heavy.” It flows well, and that’s a credit to your skill.
2. Skype: To create this podcast, I learned how to use Skype – a free internet telephony service. The sound quality on a computer-to-computer call is surprisingly clear and crisp, much better than a regular phone line. It’s definitely a good tool for recording audio interviews. However, you do get what you pay for. As you’ll see in this podcast, our Skype connection kept dropping out. Then Kris would have to call me again to resume the conversation. That flakiness seems to be very common with Skype – so if you use it, get ready for that hassle and just roll with it.
3. Percentage of women in the population: I mentioned this briefly in the show. Here’s the real statistic, and the cite: According to the 2000 US census, women comprise 51% of the US population. That’s right – as of 2000 US women outnumbered US men by 6 million. However, I was wrong about the ratio of women vs. men in the global population. According to the UN, worldwide there are 101.3 men for every 100 women. Intriguing…
4. Recommended reading: I mentioned this book: In a Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan.
5. Betsy, Kris, and real life: Kris’ wife Betsy is a frequent Croncast guest. Here’s a link to the Dec. 14 Croncast I mentioned today, where Betsy made a good point to Kris about the nature of real life. Way to go, Betsy!
6. That cool geeky tool Kris mentioned: DirCaster. Yes, it’s geeky, but it sounds useful.
7. The infamous RSS nickname contest: If you’re new to CONTENTIOUS, here’s the history about the contest I held a year ago to come up with a nontechnical nickname for RSS. The winning nickname was webfeed.
8. Nancy White’s blog is how I found out about M-learning (mobile learning). See her article M-Learning with Disadvantaged Kids. More about m-learning.
9. Yet-Another-Device syndrome: Looks like I’m not the only person complaining about this plague of the information age.
10. Wisdom Tools: Kris mentioned this, and it sounds very cool. It’s a scenarios-based (storytelling) e-learning development environment. I’m definitely going to look into this more. (Geez, more learning overload…)
11. Listen to the Dec. 20 Croncast, too: In Monday’s show, Kris interviewed his friend and colleague Susan Manning, who is on the faculty of the Making the Virtual Classroom a Reality project (Univ. of Illinois). Susan knows far more about e-learning than I do, and she’s discovered some interesting ways to put it to use. I especially liked her “online party” approach to teaching conversational social English.
12. Moodle: Yesterday Kris and susan mentioned this free open-source course management system. Very cool. I will explore it.
13. Why the internet needs the whole world: I alluded to this briefly during the e-learning part of of conversation. If that intrigued you, listen to the IT Conversations podcast featuring a talk by GeekCorps founder Ethan Zuckerman
14. The Betsy, Susan, and Amy show: Kris mentioned that he wanted to put Betsy and Susan in front of his studio mikes, Skype me in, and just let us talk. Hell yes! That would be a blast!
15. Part 1 of this conversation: Here’s my posting with a link to the first part of my interview with Kris.
16. Kvetch! Here’s NPR’s special report on the Yiddish Radio Project.