Mary Haddon’s Life of Li(brary)

A German teacher at my school introduced me to a program within Microsoft Office called NetMeeting.  She uses this for her students to have guided conversations in German but with an instant messaging/texting/conference call feel. 

To find this on your computer go to the Run command and type conf.exe.  This will load the program.  Set your preferences.  You will need to know your computer’s IP address so other computers can “call in.”  Whatever computer you are calling to is called the host computer.

 To find a computer’s IP address: Go to “Run.”  Type “cmd”.  The screen will turn into DOS mode.  Type “ipconfig” and listed will be the numerical IP address.

 This explaination may be clear as mud, but when you figure it out it is cool!  Once the host computer accepts your call you can begin typing messages back and forth.  You can also use voice, maybe video?  There are lots of features that I haven’t explored yet. 

Broadcast Journalism students at Flora are podcasting.  This is an excellent way to get started with podcasting since it only takes about 15 minutes from recording the annoucments, exporting the file as an mp3 using Audacity (a free download) to uploading it to the webpage.   And what an impact it has made with the school community!