I go to college this Saturday, August 9th, 2008. I will be a freshman at Bard College, in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. I have a little more packing to do (misc items and clothes). Bard College starts rather early, as they have a three week workshop for freshman, called “Language and Thinking.” I’m not so excited about doing work during summer, but at least it’s better than going right into a 4-5 course schedule.

Map of campus.

My roommate is from China, which is totally rad. I’m in the dorm Oberholzer, a 5-10 minute walk from campus. I’m excited and nervous. I’m happy I’m not going to be across the country, I’ll be 3.5 hours away from home, and 2 hours away from New York City. Also, it will be nice to go to school with a few people I know (there are 3 from my high school going to Bard, in addition to a few others).

The one thing I’m upset about, is that Apple hasn’t yet released new MacBook Pro’s. My college technology “situation” will be simple(r), as I’ll only have one computer (my MacBook, and in the future, a MBP). I’ve made a few purchases (hard drives, mouse, keyboard, monitor), but nothing major.

I can’t promise anything, but I hope to keep blogging and podcasting, maybe even more regularly. I’m sure my Twitter stream will be over-active, particularly in the first few days and weeks, and I’m going to take lots of photos. I’m bringing my (new) portable recorder, USB interface, and my microphone, so I’ll be well equipped to podcast. I’ll probably write a blog post a week after I settle in, but if I’m feeling particularly lonely, you may hear from me sooner.

Wish me luck.

PodCamp Boston 3 was amazing. The venue this year was unbelievable, thank you, Harvard! It was easier to run into people this year, which was fun. PodCamp Boston 2 was nice and big, but this year the event was very close knit. I was more social at PCB3, and this year overall – last year I was very reserved. I also knew more people in general, those I had met on Twitter and at various Social Media Breakfasts. (For those interested in the Academic Technology session I led at PodCamp, check the end of the post.)

My junior achievement award. Photo Credit: Gradon Tripp

I won a Junior achievement award this year! Thank you, Adam Zand (I think, at least.) Unfortunately, I was the only teenager (I knew of) at PodCamp Boston 3. Last year, I was 1 of 2, this year, I was 1 of 1. I had hoped more teens would show up. I did know a few who wanted to come, but couldn’t. Next year!

Jamming at PodCamp.

Being social and having fun makes a huge difference. Don’t be afraid, introduce yourself to everyone. We have so much virtual, or digital, contact with each other, it makes such a huge difference to get together and have fun in person. Twitter went down for maintenance on Saturday July 19th, during PodCamp, and I think it actually was for the better – it helped people actually connect with each other. Not to say that Twitter is bad; sometimes, the best part of the session was the conversation taking place on Twitter. Check out the PCB3 tag on Twitter Search.

Steven Sherlock.

My Session

I led a session at PodCamp Boston about Academic Technology, mostly outlining the work I did at the Cambridge School of Weston, for my Capstone Project. If you’re interested in the presentation, you can see it on Slideshare, download it as a PDF, and download the audio recording.

Yesterday morning, I found out about Educon 2.0 from Whitney Hoffman on Twitter. I really wish I could attend the conference. Yesterday, I was watching a session about “Learning to Teach: First Year Teaching in a Progressive School,” and today I’m watching two sessions, one on Student Voice, and one on Student Led Technical Support. It’s right up my alley. These educators have radical ideas about the future of education.

Sometime in the next two weeks, I will be leading a 1.5 hour faculty seminar at my school, the Cambridge School of Weston, about podcasting. I spoke for about 5 minutes at the faculty meeting on Thursday about my project, they seemed impressed. My hope is to get some of the faculty/staff to sign up for my course which will be offered in Mod 5 (starting February 11th and lasts approximately 5 weeks). The course title is “New Social Media: Podcasting, Blogging, and Internet Journalism”. I can only fit 10 people in the class, so far, I have three or four faculty/staff members interested (I have 10 interested in my seminar so far). This is really exciting for me. Right now, I’m designing what the seminar will look like and creating a Keynote presentation.

(photo credit: taylorkoa22)

I realize now that my program is less about technology and learning/teaching technical skills and more about radically shifting the power paradigm in education. I need some help. I need resources on education, teaching, and technology. What do you think of the course? Would you take it, as a student or a teacher?

Feel free to email me.

Here are some of the people I met at PodCamp Boston 2. Fairly incomplete, I didn’t collect cards as actively as I should have, but, nonetheless, here are some of the people I met. I got this idea from Dave LaMorte, thank him for the format.

Here are the highlights:

Chris Brogan – http://chrisbrogan.com/ – Cofounder of PodCamp(s) in general. He worked really hard to make sure I had a session, and make sure I was actually enjoying myself at PodCamp Boston.

Mitch Joel – http://twistimage.com/ – I attended his session on Saturday about Tools of the Trade, and the next day, Hugh McGuire must have mentioned my name, and he began following me on Twitter. Amazing. Really amazing ideas about marketing and PR.

David LaMorte – http://davidlamorte.com/ – Runs the podcast “Teaching for the Future”. He sacrificed his session slot so that I could lead my teen podcasting session. He was a major participant in the discussion that took place in my session at PodCamp. Hopefully he and I will work together in the future.

Ann Bernard – http://whygosolo.com/ – She’s the CEO and Founder of startup Why Go Solo. She and I met on Pownce in July, and have been “powncing” back and forth for many months now. It was great to finally meet her.

Derrick Kwa - http://derrickkwa.blogspot.com/ – He was the only other teenager (I think) I met at PodCamp. He flew into Boston from Singapore all by himself, just to be at PodCamp. He came to my session on teen podcasting. It was really great to hear his ideas and opinions on teens, podcasting, blogging, and new media.

Bre Pettis – http://brepettis.com/ – Wow. I don’t even know what to say. Nice guy. It was amazing to see, and meet, Bre at podcamp. I’ve been a huge fan of his work with MAKE on the Weekend Projects podcast. Actually, at PodCamp, he and a bunch of friends created a website, http://lolsaur.com, got it dugg, and it was amazing to see all this evolve at PodCamp.

Hugh McGuire – http://hughmcguire.net/ – We met on Saturday at the High School Journalism Project session, and he attended my session on Teen Podcasting. Writer and founder of Librivox, he had amazing ideas about new media, podcasting, and education. He led a great session on how podcasting will save the world.

Whitney Hoffman – http://www.ldpodcast.com/ – As an organizer, Whitney was also vocal in finding me a session at PodCamp. She and I spoke a lot through email and right here on this blog, and it was great to meet her in person.

Steve Garfield – http://stevegarfield.com/ – We met in the food court at PodCamp. He knows so much about videoblogging and video in general. It was pure coincidence that we ran into each other, I’m a huge fan of his work.

Clarence Smith Jr. – http://doyouknowclarence.com/ – I met him in the food court at the event. Since then, he and I have been in touch via Twitter and AIM. He was amazed that I began podcasting at age 15. “Do you know Clarence?”

Anita Roy Dobbs – http://www.studioae.com/ – I met her at Hugh McGuire’s session on Sunday. She wanted to hear all about my experience with podcasting, and we, along with a few others, ate lunch together. She’s currently getting into video production, and working on Hugh’s website, Librivox.

David Tames – http://kino-eye.com/ – He paid for my lunch on Sunday! He was also impressed with my podcast. He, Anita, Andrew and I ate lunch together, and we had great discussions on politics, podcasting, and audio and video production.

Fred Munao – http://selectrecordsonline.com/ – He and I also met at Hugh’s session. He’s the president of Select Records, and had some thoughtful comments about new media and the record industry.

Adam Weiss – http://podcastconsultant.com/ – He introduced himself at the final closing “keynote” on Sunday. And, I really thank him for doing so.

Leslie Seifert – He led the session on High School Journalism. He’s working with the MIT Media Lab on teens and journalism. He also attended my session with a journalists point of view.

Maynard S. Clark – http://maynard.clark.googlepages.com/ – Another attendee to my session. He’s the director of the Vegetarian Resource Center. I don’t know really why he came to my session, but I’m glad he showed up! I guess he was just interested in teen podcasting.

Jesse Baer – http://digitalnative.org – From what I can tell, he’s doing amazing work with the Harvard Law School Berkman Center for Internet and Society. We now follow each other on Twitter.

I think that’s it…Of course, I ran into and briefly spoke to many others, but these were the ones I actually had insightful conversation with. If I left you out, I’m sorry!

So, as I’m sitting here in a session, might as well talk about the event so far.

My session on Teen Podcasting, late Saturday afternoon (yes, it did happen!), was unbelievable. Some great people, including Ann Bernard from Pownce, showed up with great ideas on teens, podcasting, education, and (new)media. Forget the fact that it was a “session”, it seemed more like a group brainstorming session. Later, once I can get my thoughts together (that’s a sleep issue), I’ll be sure to write it up and put it up somewhere. As far as I know, there will be an audio recording of the session, but that won’t help too much because the session was highly participatory, and only I had a microphone. And, thanks to Dave LaMorte for giving my his session slot.

And, thank you Ann, Hugh, Derrick, Dave, Leslie, and everyone else, for coming to see the session. I had fun.

Currently, I’m in the “Is Podcasting a Revolution?” session in room 206b.

I’ve noticed something; I’m putting a lot more time into my podcast, Nerd News Radio. Suddenly, for whatever reason (read on), I care more about it and its welfare. For example, I’m getting my Presonus Eureka (an AMAZING audio processor) repaired after almost a year of it being broken, I’m speaking (hopefully) at PodCamp Boston 2 in late October, and in general, I’m trying to improve the content I put on the show.

Part of this heightened “caring” for my podcast comes from the fact that I’m applying to college soon. I want to make sure that the show is at its best. Of course, I want this to continue forever, ideally.

On one of the latest Macbreak’s, they were talking about what it means to be a “podcaster”. One of the major points they brought up, was someone who uses a hammer doesn’t call themself a “hammerer”, they call them selves a carpenter, or something similar. A Podcast is really the method, not what you are. I’ve been thinking, instead of calling myself a podcaster, which can be limiting and confusing to some people, I might start to call myself an Internet radio broadcaster or Internet content creator. To some of the people I’ve spoken, labelling yourself a “podcaster” comes off as immature and unprofessional (but, this is the Internet after all, so who cares?).

Just a thought.

If you have suggestions for my podcast, please email me.

Well, I’m a few days late, but what the hell.

This month is going to be intense, to say the least. My application to Brown University (the only school that doesn’t use the Common App) is due November 1st, which means a lot of things. Currently, I’m working on doing well in school because this “Mod” (like a semester…) ends on Friday. Lots of final projects. Three, to be precise. The next thing I need to do is prepare for the SAT2′s (those are on November 3rd), and write the few essays Brown requires. Then, I’m working on my portfolio which will be comprised of photography, music (I’m getting professionally recorded!), and technology. Usually I love October; the air is fresh and clear. But this year, it’s stressful. In a week, I’ll be less stressed, and in a month, I’ll be even less stressed. After November 3rd or so. Once I get the portfolio done, it’s done. All I need to do for the other colleges is do the essays…

Oh, and I’m speaking at PodCamp Boston 2 this month. Gah. It should be fun, but it’s so much to do…

I’ll keep you up to date.

Kabren

I know…

College applications are tough. Still have a few crucial things I need to do – design my portfolio, and choose what I want in it; write the main essay, the short answer question (for both the Common App, and Brown University’s application), and all the supplemental writing pieces; and get recommendations from teachers.

At school, today is what we call “mid mod”. It is what it sounds like, the middle of the module. Remember, my school breaks the year in to 7 modules that last 4.5 weeks each? Mid mod is actually pretty big, it’s where teachers evaluate your performance, and if you’re not doing well, you’ll get a mid mod (which isn’t so fun). Classes have been good, but stressful. Next mod should be a little bit lighter, but we’ll see. I’m finally getting good ideas out for my senior project, or the Capstone Project. I’m thinking abouto developing a device that fits in with Kelly Dobson’s idea “machine therapy”. Another idea I have is do work with the Holocaust and obtaining Austrian citizenship.

I’ve also fallen behind in podcasting. I completely forgot how demanding school was, and how much more tiresome everything is when you pile college and my capstone project on top of it all. Not to mention that this weekend is the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, which will occupy a lot of my time.

Maybe I’ll try to be around a little more…

Kabren
Email me if you like.

One last post before I make the switch to Media Temple…

PodCamp Boston! http://www.podcampboston.org/

Yup! I’ll be there. For those of you who don’t know what PodCamp is, it “is the new media community UnConference that helps connect people interested in blogging, podcasting, social networks, video on the net, and new media together for three days to learn, share, and grow their new media skills.” It’s free to attend, so go register! It happened last year, but I missed it, and since I’m going to college next year, this is a must for me.

There’s a slight possibility I might lead a session, but I’m not quite sure how all that works out, so we’ll see. It’d be about Teen Podcasting, for sure. So, go to the website, register, and leave a comment if you’ll be there! Here’s the link to register: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/59949310/pcb2home

-Kabren