Creating an EDTECH Learning Log

Creating a Learning Log for EDTECH is an important step in your completion of your final showcase portfolio. For more information about your Learning Log and an example WordPress.com site, please view http://edtechbsu.wordpress.com.

In EDTECH 513, you are required to set up some sort of website to host your artifacts. We suggest either setting up a Blogger site (they are very simple to figure out) or use your existing WordPress.com Learning Log.

Assignment 1 involves setting up a website and sharing the URL with your classmates. You are also required to set up an "About Me" page, telling us more about you and your goals in the EDTECH program. This EDTECH 513 Class Blog illustrates how your Blogger website might look.

This post also has a label (Blogger's terminology for tags), which you can use to identify and index artifacts that meet certain AECT Standards. Please refer to your course syllabus to view how your instructor has organized and identified the standard(s) that might apply to each of your artifacts. You can add a Label Widget to your Blogger site by clicking the Design tab. For this post, I have assigned the label: 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies. Once you assign a tag to a post, it will appear in the Label Widget.

How to Store and Add Your Podcast URL

With the new Blogger interface, you won't see the "enclosure link" for you to include the direct link to your podcast URL. Therefore, I advise using the "old" Blogger until the updated interface includes this feature.

Use Dropbox to Host Your Audio File

In order to have your podcast show up on the blog feed, you need to upload the audio file to an online storage space. There are many free storage solutions where you can upload your mp3 podcast file, but one of the easiest and best tools for this is Dropbox (http://dropbox.com).

I'm including detailed directions in this post, as you need to make sure you place your audio file in your Public Dropbox folder. That way, you can obtain a direct link to your audio file (it will end in an mp3 file extension.)

If you've never used Dropbox, you will soon be using it for everything. Once you create an account and get accustomed to saving all of your local files in your dropbox folder, your life will be easier and your files will be backed up to another storage space. Plus, you can download dropbox on all of your computers, syncing all of your files.

For this example podcast episode post, I dragged an old podcast episode from The Cool Teacher Podcast to my Dropbox Public folder, right-clicked the file, selected "Dropbox" and then "Copy Public Link."

Use "Add enclosure link" for Your Podcast URL

This is the link you will need to paste to the "Add enclosure link" on your blog post.

Once you copy the link (it's on your computer clipboard) select the "Add enclosure link" above the post box and paste the audio file URL direct link (remember, your link should end in mp3).

Remember to Publish or Update if you have already published. Then, check the feed for our blog and subscribe to our blog in iTunes. You should be able to download a podcast episode in iTunes!