Homework-casting using del.icio.us
Posted By Doug Belshaw On 25th October 2006 @ 18:10 In Ideas | Comments Disabled
WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at [1] dougbelshaw.com...
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I would hope that most people reading this blog by now are familiar with podcasting - if not how to go about it oneself, then with the whole concept of it. You might even know how to subscribe to one in [3] iTunes… What I want to demonstrate in this post is how the social bookmarking site [4] del.icio.us can be used to ‘homework-cast’ files to students. Read on… 
The stimulus for this post came from a (fairly old) post entitled [5] del.icio.us + enclosures = x-casting on a blog that I came across when I was trying to figure out how to ‘podcast’ zip files, etc. I’ll quote the short post in full:
[6] This post over at the del.icio.us blog says:
Bookmarked items in del.icio.us that end in one of a number of filetypes will now automatically get some system tags added. You can use these just like normal tags. RSS feeds that have one of those system tags added will automatically become a rss-with-enclosures file.
So now you can generate a podcast from a del.icio.us feed of entries tagged with, say, system:filetype:mp3. Or, to get a podcast of all del.icio.us audio entries, get this: [7] http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:media:audio. You can video-cast, picture-cast, pdf-cast, etc, etc. del.icio.us beocmes the enabler to “cast� bloody anything.
Brilliant!
And would you believe it, it gets even better! Say you wanted me to listen to a cool podcast. Instead of emailing me a link or whathaveyou, you could just tag it (something agreed upon) so I could then subscribe to that tagfeed–and voila! Podcasts you tag are automagically on myPod next time I sync up. Share podcasts via feeds, cutting out all the time-wasting communications middlemen.
So all you need to do is to sign up to a separate [4] del.icio.us account - or even just tag things for school with an appropriate label. People can then subscribe to the feed and receive the media files automatically soon after you post them! 
The problem is that this is an idea slightly ahead of its time. Although iTunes allows you to subscribe to feeds created in [4] del.icio.us in this way, it only supports audio and video. [10] NetNewsWire apparently supports all type of enclosures, but it’s not free. 
Anyway, check out the post on the [11] del.icio.us blog about this and let me know if you have any success. I’d appreciate it if someone could let me know of a free program that supports all different kinds of enclosures. That would be fantastic. Some people are already [12] appcasting, so the whole process can’t be that difficult… 
Popularity: 6% [[13] ?]
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Comments Disabled To "Homework-casting using del.icio.us"
#1 Trackback By 560294 Blog Verification On 25th October 2006 @ 19:15
560294 Blog Verification…
560294…
#2 Comment By Quentin D’Souza On 27th October 2006 @ 16:55
Doug,
This is an awesome idea! What about adding in an online file storage system (like [24] http://box.net/) and then bookmark directly to del.icio.us. Another great use of RSS.
#3 Comment By Doug Belshaw On 27th October 2006 @ 19:28
Quentin’s having problems adding another reply - here’s what he wanted to say:
I was just taking a longer look at box.net and realized that you can get a rss feed from the online storage account to any group. This could be of course a group of students. You could store homework files directly to the online storage area for download.
So to expand on your idea, what I might do is mashup the del.icio.us feed with an online storage feed and then give that feed to my students. I can then either bookmark directly to the content or upload content depending on my needs as a classroon teacher.
PS (from me) I think I may now have solved the ‘Slow down cowboy!’ problem that has plagued some commenters. If you do receive this message please get get in touch via the contact form to let me know… 
#4 Comment By Doug Belshaw On 28th October 2006 @ 23:26
Quentin’s expanded the above idea [25] over at his blog. He’s correct about the term ‘homework-casting’ - ‘file-casting’ is probably better…
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#5 Trackback By Teaching Hacks.com On 2nd February 2007 @ 22:12
Homework-Casting…
Tags: No TagsI read an excellent post for using rss feeds in order to post and download homework content through the use of an rss feed from del.icio.us, through Doug's blog . Doug call's it homework-casting, I'm not so big on the nam…
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[1] dougbelshaw.com: http://www.dougbelshaw.com
[2] Image: http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/index.php/category/ideas/
[3] iTunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes
[4] del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us
[5] del.icio.us + enclosures = x-casting: http://joga.be/2005/06/28/delicious-casting/
[6] This post: http://blog.del.icio.us/blog/2005/06/casting_the_net.html
[7] http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:media:audio: http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/system:media:audio
[8] del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us
[9] del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us
[10] NetNewsWire: http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLProduct.aspx?ProdID=NetNewsWire
[11] del.icio.us blog: http://blog.del.icio.us/blog/2005/06/casting_the_net.html
[12] appcasting: http://connectedflow.com/appcasting/
[13] ?: http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress/popularity-contest
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[24] http://box.net/: http://box.net/
[25] over at his blog: http://www.teachinghacks.com/2006/10/27/homework-casting/
[26] Image: http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/homecast.jpg
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