Robert R Heinrich

Here is a free guide to educational podcasting online:

http://www.poducateme.com/guide/

The one issue that I have found is that you need to select the text that you want to make linkable and then you will be able to click on the chain link icon to add the link.  If you click on the chain link with no text selected it will not prompt you to do anything. 

ORIGINAL QUESTION -

I am having trouble with adding links when writing a post on my blog for my class

 I did it once, but can’t get it to work any more.  I log in as Site Admin, then write a post. I’ve tried clicking on the icon for the linked chains and don’t get the pop-up for naming the link and putting in the address.  All I can do is block and copy the full address, but that looks much messier for students.  (You will see that I did this in my last post.)  I’ve tried it on both my work and home computers.   

A student must have an account in order to participate in your blog.  The students can create an account from the main page - http://titania.stockton.edu.  I would recommend having them use their stk number as their username and they must use their goStockton Portal email address as the verification address.  Once they have created their accounts, they are now able to author content.  This can be accomplished in one of two ways, you must either add their accounts under the dashboard as authors in your blog or simply have them reply as comments to your postings.  I prefer the first method as it gives them access to the dashboard and the full editor via the dashboard to participate in the blog.

The students will need to go to your blog at http://titania.stockton.edu/YOUR BLOG NAME/.  Once they get to that can either comment on existing postings or enter the dashboard.  One issue you may encounter is that certain templates remove the login button.   I would recommend adding a link to your blogroll to the dashboard administrative page at http://titania.stockton.edu/YOU BLOG NAME/wp-admin/.

Using iTunes is fairly straightforward for setting up your students to subscribe to podcasts.  You can make it even easier on them if you go through a few simple steps. 

The easiest way to get up and running it to copy and paste the RSS link to your site in the subscribe field for iTunes. (Click on PODCASTS on the left -> Select Advanced from the menu at the top -> then click Subscribe to Podcast).  This will automatically tell the iTunes client to download the content as it becomes available based upon the schedule interval that iTunes is configured to look for new Podcasts.  The RSS feed for your blog is the direct URL with the word feed appended on the end (http://titania.stockton.edu/csis118000607s/feed/).   

I however like to take it one step further and have the Podcast listed in the iTunes directory so your students can type in the name of the course and have the ability to select it in that manner as well as have the ability to put an iTunes button directly on your Blog so that students can click on that button and have it automatically subscribe them without performing the manual step described above.   In order to accomplish this, you need to register the RSS feed using Feed Burner (http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home), this will give you a URL that you can submit to the iTunes directory.  FB allows you to set categories and customize how your Feed will appear in the Podcast directory.  The PodPress plugin inside WP can also help here.  You’ll receive an email from Apple once you have successfully submitted your Podcast and then you can setup a button on your Blog using this URL http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=212769848 (where ID is the number Apple sets up for your Podcast).   There is an example of this on my Spring 2007 course blog - http://titania.stockton.edu/csis118000607s/ 

iTunes is cross platform and will run on both Windows and Macintosh machines.  An iPod can be used to play the content remotely and will synch with iTunes but it is not required if they want to simply play the podcasts from their machines.

I realize some of this may be confusing so I’ll be glad to chat more in person to further describe in detail the steps near the end.