This podcast includes 3 websightings and an editorial entitled "Education That Matters." Learn about how students can balance the US federal budget online (at least experiment with different approaches to accomplishing that goal) and gain insights about string theory through NOVA's fantastic website and video series, "The Elegant Universe." The editorial, "Education That Matters" focuses on the importance of teachers analyzing the long term impact of the assignments and lessons they give to students. Featured stories include my experiences with a Nazi concentration camp survivor and liberator last week, and discussions with a young student about science, writing, and the implications of that dialog for teachers providing choice in student literacy activities. Challenges for this week include checking out my photos of Vancouver in the week to come, and providing positive, specific feedback for Room 208 elementary student blog publishers.

As a potentially disruptive technology capable of constructively promoting transmediation, educators have both an opportunity and responsibility to embrace podcasting. Under certain circumstances, podcasting can fundamentally transform the perceptions of students about school, their roles in the learning process, and the value of their daily activities shared via podcasts with a global as well as local audience. In this session, we'll explore transmediation (multimedia communication), disruptive versus sustaining technologies, and the need to help students be rich media producers rather than just consumers in the 21st century classroom.

This podcast features a skypecast interview with Dr. Bill Casebeer on the topic of Storytelling and Cognitive Neuroscience. Bill is a remarkable scholar and scientific researcher, engaged in work that has broad applicability in the fields of education, psychology, medicine, ethics, philosophy, and defense policy.

This week's podcast features a skypecast interview with Afan Ottenheimer of JeoNet. JeoNet is an Internet applications development company based in Iowa City, Iowa. Our conversation focuses on the viability of using open source software solutions in the educational IT environment from security, total cost of ownership, support, and usability standpoints.

In this week's podcast I introduce a new writing project I have started entitled "Publish At Will." I welcome listener and reader feedback on the ideas contained in this message, either via email or recorded audio message sent as an email attachment.

In this week's podcast I share 2 websightings, an RSS Quickstart Guide for Educators and Podcasting 101. I also discuss "The Digital Face of 21st Century Curriculum," exploring how digital content is changing teaching and learning in the 21st Century.

In this podcast I feature something different, a skypecast interview with educator and technologist Miguel Guhlin of San Antonio, Texas. We discuss the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of open source software and technologies in education.

Links to open source software and technologies mentioned in the podcast are available on http://del.icio.us/wfryer/OpenSource. Thanks to Glenn Fleishman for his thorough instructions on skypecasting.

Catch up with Miguel Guhlin's latest ideas on his website (www.mguhlin.net) and blog (www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/blog).

In this program I address:

WebSighting: Netflix: www.netflix.com.

Research Tip: Google.com News RSS ATOM XML Generator: www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.php.

Editorial: Trails, Trains, and T-1s: My visit this summer to Marysville, Kansas, home of the only remaining Pony Express station in its original location, prompted some reflections on the nature of telecommunications lines from the 1860s through the 21st century. (A link to my Marysville photos on Flickr will be posted here soon.)

Why should teachers and students in 21st century classrooms podcast? As potentially disruptive, narrowcast multimedia production, podcasting can serve as an invigorating tool of communication and authentic literacy development in schools. In this program I address:

WebSighting: The new website from the UK: iPod in Education (www.ipodined.org).

Editorial: When we consider podcasting as a technology which is disruptive rather than sustaining, encouraging of multimedia production rather than mere consumption, and narrowcasting rather than broadcasting, I think we find three compelling reasons to podcast in the classroom.

Blogging has changed in fundamental ways the dissemination of information in and from the 21st Century battlefield and theater of conflict. On Sunday, August 7, 2005, I had the privilege to interview US Army Reserve Sergeant Chris Missick, who was featured in the August 2005 Wired Magazine article, "The Blogs of War." In this program I address:

WebSighting: Chris Missick's Web of Support website.

Interview: Thoughts from Sgt Chris Missick on the impacts of blogging on the 21st Century soldier, prospects for using blogs in education, and imperatives for the citizens of our nation in 2005. Visit Chris's warblog (A Line in the Sand) on http://www.missick.com/warblog.htm.

Editorial: Thanks to our servicemen and servicewomen serving around the world, closing thoughts on "sustaining" versus "disruptive" educational technologies, and the importance of emphasizing the latter.