Learning new stuff: podcasting

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy Willard, director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use and author of the forthcoming book Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens. The interview will be available as a podcast on the Young Adult Library Services Association Teen Tech Week website during Teen Tech Week (March 4-10). I had to use all sorts of new gizmos to make this happen -- fancy new headset, Skype to make the phone call (I have $7.50 left on my account!), and Hot Recorder to record the conversation. None of this was easy to arrange, given the dictates of operating systems, firewalls, and administrator rights to computer guts. The last straw was finding out that the free version of Hot Recorder only allowed us to record 2 minutes and 6 seconds at a stretch. So Nancy and I made a game of it, recording questions and answers in sound bites. Sigh. But it was thrilling to hear Nancy's common sense, hopeful, and anti-fearmongering messages about young people and social networking software.

Tomorrow I will leave for Commonwealth School in Boston, making up for the trip I missed during the Great Snowfall of February 2007. I will take with me a mental image of the latest item left in the library. Mmm, yum, bag o' seaweed.


At least it wasn't left as a present in the book drop.