Babsonknowledge.org: A new blog on knowledge management. It’s connected to the Babson College’s Working Knowledge Research Center. Here’s the blog’s Atom feed. (Link via Knowledge Jolt with Jack.)

Hobson & Holtz Report: Neville and Shel review “Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers,” by Shel Israel and Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble.

Computer Business Review: TiVo is testing a new feature that will allow subscribers to transfer recorded TV shows to iPod or Sony PSP.

Collegewebeditor.com: An interview with Sean O’Key, student blogger/podcaster for Ball State University.

Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences Talks Podcast: Jean-Claude Bradley on blogs, podcasts, screencasts, and games to enhance student interaction.

Gardner Writes: Thoughts on lecture podcasts and listener interaction.

UC Berkeley Haas School Podcast: Information about financial aid for prospective students in the MBA program, hosted by Peter Johnson, Director of International Admissions for the Full-time MBA Program.

Sinkingships.net: Rob Pongsajapan has some forward-thinking observations about how a modern conference should work, including roles for blogs, wikis, and online discussions.

PC World: Microsoft proposes Simple Sharing Extensions (SSE) for RSS 2.0 for exchanging and synchronizing content.

Investors.com: Craigslist plans to expand into journalism.

ChicoER: Butte College Chronicles podcaster Dan Barnett talks about the origins of the podcast and reviews the book by Bart G. Farkas, “Secrets of Podcasting: Audio Blogging for the Masses.”

I’m excited to share with you some details about HigherEd BlogCon, an all-online event exploring new media and new online social tools in higher education. Along with Dan Forbush of PRNewswire’s ProfNet, I’m helping organize the event, which is modeled after GlobalPRBlogWeek. Both Thomson Peterson’s and ProfNet will be lending support. Check out yesterday’s announcement coming via PRNewswire’s Media Insider blog.

We’re pleased that some of the leading thinkers and practitioners in this space will serve as guides for the event, which is scheduled for April, 2006.

Teaching: Jean-Claude Bradley, Drexel University
Library and Information Resources: Meredith Farkas, Norwich University
PR/Marketing: Robert French, Auburn University
Tools/technologies/web development: Mike Richwalsky, Allegheny College

We’re considering adding several more tracks to these first four and would like to get your feedback about topics you’d like to see covered as part of the event.

You can learn more and jump into the conversation going on at the planning wiki. We’re revising a draft of a call for presenters, which will give you a sense of some of the areas we’re hoping to explore.

We’re using “higheredblogcon” to tag posts about the event.

SHE is back online after a week of travel, planning, more planning, and discovery. The week saw this blog tip 100k hits since tracking began in late August. Somewhere back in there we also topped 9500 uniques, according to my trusty ShortStat module, a WordPress plugin. I interpret this as respectable interest (if passing) in what some might consider a highly niche topic. The big blogs get this kind of interest in a day, but still I’m pleased. In the past week I also had a chance to present some ideas about podcasting (worth clicking through for the regional photos) to a lively crowd of college admission and marketing folks in Chicago. And today I arrive in the office to learn of the re-launch of Sinking Ships, a blog from our friend Rob Pongsajapan, a rising voice in the new higher ed web, the same Rob who did the killer talk on student blogs at the ‘05 Salisbury conference. He has not abandonded WordPress.

Let’s jump into some links I think you might find interesting.

Not too long ago I pointed you to Gnosh, a social app developed over at Allegheny College. Mike Richwalsky (its champion) points us to a full-blown review. Some words from the reviewer:

Overall, I feel that Gnosh is an excellent search tool that gets straight to the point, search results. It is very organized, you receive a wide range of results from photos, products, search engines, and even social bookmarking services. Next time when making a search for something, give Gnosh a try and see how it goes. I’m really liking it.

Via Sentinel and Enterprise: Fitchburg State College announces plans to begin offering podcast lectures. Instructors are to be fitted with wireless microphones. No word as to how many classess will be available via podcast, or when.

Phil Gomes notices an uptick in undergrad requests to interview PR professionals in the new media (a good sign). He points to this group blog at Northeastern, a forum on organizational communications.

Dave Winer (usually here) is trying a WordPress blog.

Harvard Extension School is offering a computing course via audio and video podcast.

As a note to those of you who read this blog via the RSS or Atom feed, I wanted to mention that I’m providing some updated resources via the right nav section of the blog home page.

First there is a temporary section at the very top with a link to tomorrow’s talk on podcasting in higher ed. Readers be warned: this is classified as a vendor presentation, so there is a fair amount about my company in the presentation. But this isn’t to say that those interested in podcasting in higher ed won’t be pleased with what they get.

Next there are deep links into the College and University Feed Directory, which currently highlight journal and publication feeds, news feeds, and podcast feeds.

I’ve also added a link to a page on the blog that lists marketing, news, information, and media-oriented college and university podcasts, a list I compiled in preparation for my talk tomorrow.

Dan Forbush’s FutureOfPR.com also gets some deep links, as Dan is providing some exceptional resources and interviews of higher ed communications professionals who are exploring applications of new media and social software resources.

And lastly I’ve added a set of links for Del.icio.us tags that readers of this blog might find interesting (highedweb, millenials, podcast+education, rss+education).

Come on over and visit the blog home page!

In a piece from last week’s print edition highlighting podcasting endeavors at Philadelphia-area universities, writer Peter Key uses the term “Podcast Generation.” What an apt descriptor. I think I’ll use it in my presentation on podcasting in higher ed tomorrow (get links for the talk here; other media to follow).

In an undated article that just hit my alerts last night, I learned that Columbia College Chicago will be offering entertainment programming via iTunes. From the article: “Columbia’s Frequency TV station recently became the first college station to offer entertainment programming as Podcasts through the iTunes Music Store.”

I happened to be on Michigan Avenue this morning and grabbed the shot below.

Apologies for being away for a few days.

What have I been doing? Among other things, I’m working on a talk I’m giving next week on podcasting in higher education. It’s been a lot of fun to prepare, as it includes a mini-timeline of podcasting in education as well as some survey results and interviews with practitioners. I’ve also been working on a large-scale project that I know will interest many of you, but which I can’t announce yet. Among the more mundane but critical achievements I’ve made this week is reorganizing my 300+ RSS feeds (not counting college and university feeds). I’m still using Sage for FireFox, but now, for the moment, there’s some sanity to my daily scan.

Here are a few links to help you through the weekend.

-Get your news via podcast from Podcasternews.com (link via Scobleizer)

-Discussion about Audible.com’s recent announcement about a podcast tracking service.

-PR Week piece on the launch of Society for New Communications Research (link via SNCR’s blog), a group of communications professionals studying the impact of blogs, wikis, and podcasts. They got a nice quote from Dan Forbush about connections between this think tank and college and universities. Dan is the one behind FutureOfPR.com, a resource for communications professionals in higher education. (Disclosure: I am a member of the SNCR advisory board.)

-MTV piece on classroom podcasting. “One advantage is that you get classroom time back for purposes other than shoveling out information,” says Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, assistant professor at the School of International Service at American University.

-Macworld: University of Portsmouth announces plans for marketing-oriented video podcast.

-An RSS feed for videos of the MIT SICP lectures. SICP stands for Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, a cornerstone course in MIT’s computer science curriculum.

-Podtrac launches, beats Podshow to market.

Although I haven’t had the good fortune of bringing home an iPod video, I’ve been excited about RSS-based subscription video for a while. Readers of this blog may recall my preference for FireAnt, a video and audio aggregator/player that was around long before iTunes began supporting subscription media. (I prefer the Mac version of FireAnt, but primarily use the Windows version to watch videos on my PC laptop.)

The recent launch of the iPod video has led to renewed interest in RSS-based subscription video, and some in higher ed are taking the plunge. Karine Joly at Collegewebeditor.com highlights this trend in a nice post about admission video podcasting efforts via iTunes at Savannah College of Art and Design.

So, what does it take to pull this off? The quickest path is to use a miniDV recorder, a simple editing/conversion program such as iMovie (Mac), a blog, and an RSS feed. Ryanne Hodson and Michael Verdi provide a free screencast tutorial showing how to put all the pieces together. I’ve done it; it’s extraordinarily easy, and fun. The video quality you can get from relatively inexpensive cameras (such as this Panasonic 3-chip model) is simply astounding.

Want some behind-the-scenes information from a serious practitioner? Andrew Baron, creator and producer of Rocketboom, a popular daily videoblog, was recently interviewed on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (link via Micro Persuasion). He talks about details like video compression–something you’ll want to consider if you decide to get into the business. He also talks about the hardware and software he uses to watch videos himself (hint: not iPod video, and not iTunes).

Here’s some more news from the blossoming world of college and university podcasting this week.

-This story about lecture podcasting says that Stanford was the first to offer materials publicly via podcast. I’m pretty sure Drexel University College of Arts and Sciences through Jean-Claude Bradley’s e-learning program has been doing it for quite a bit longer, first via RSS 2.0 and then iTunes. The University of New South Wales (here’s the RSS feed) also came before, among others.

-Mansfield University has launched an admissions-oriented podcast featuring interviews with students and information straight from admissions director Brian Barden. Here’s an article on the effort from Star-Gazette.com. Here’s the feed for this new podcast.

-In a new episode in the Drexel University e-Learning minute podcast, Dr. Kenneth Hartman talks about comparing and selecting an online degree program.

-The Times Educational Supplement provides some resources on podcasting in education.

And now we turn our attention to news and new episodes from the world of college and university podcasting. All the feeds I scan to bring you updates about new podcast episodes are listed in the podcast section of Thomson Peterson’s Edufeeds.com.

-An episode from Wisconsin Center for Education Research News provides information about research surrounding the role of teacher research in professional development (link to mp3).

-Paul Baker, who produces and hosts the WCER podcasts, was recently featured in a University of Wisconsin - Madison news story about his work on “Caravan,” a radio program he created on Middle Eastern music (available in live stream here).

-Arizona State University DMIT Podcast released an episode of “Conversations with Filmmakers.”

-Dan Barnett interviewed assistive technologist Dan Keys as part of the weekly Butte College Chronicles podcast.

-Jean-Claude Bradley discussed the state of lecture podcasting as part of the weekly podcast from the Drexel College of Arts and Sciences RSS Club.

-Allegheny College posted volume 28 in their podcast series. This one is an interview with Bill Salyer, director of athletics information, about fall and winter sports at Allegheny.

-This week’s podcast from Texas A&M Engineering Engineering Works took a look at houses that float.

-The University of Western Ontario podcast (link to mp3) provided UWO news updates for the week.

-In coming weeks, look for in-depth commentary on this blog regarding the Ball State student blogcasting efforts and the UC Berkeley Haas School podcasts. I had a chance to interview representatives from both institutions for an upcoming talk I’m giving at AACRAO SEM 15 on the role of podcasting in admissions.