068 – Spending A Smarter Summer

This week on the WELSTech podcast we gear up for summer with loads of options for personal learning, and we conclude our interview with WELS musicianary Mike Westendorf.

The discussion:

Summer Learning – Gail Potratz, our monthly guest host and Technology Coordinator at Emanuel in New London, WI, joins the conversation with Martin and Sallie, and we look at all the possibilities for learning something new this summer, including face-to-face and online, traditional and via your Personal Learning Network (PLN).

• Summer classes from
  • Martin Luther College
  • Wisconsin Lutheran College
  • Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
• Online learning opportunities
  • All-you-can-learn tech training – www.lynda.com
  • Microsoft training
  • Image based Office and Open Office training – www.inpics.net
  • Social language learning – www.livemocha.com
  • Classroom 2.0 network
  • 200 Free Online Classes to Learn Anything
• Pull your PLN all together on a custom page using
  • iGoogle
  • Pageflakes.com
• Summer reading recommendation
  • Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• Join Gail at the zoo
  • Milwaukee Digital Media Conference

The interview:

(18:22) Music With A Message – Martin and Sallie continue their discussion with WELS musician Mike Westendorf about the maturity of a Christian artist into a musicianary.

• www.mikewestendorf.com
• Listen to part 1 of the interview with Mike

Picks of the week:

• (42:25) Distraction-free YouTube videos – www.quietube.com
  • Sample – Susan Boyle on Quietube vs. YouTube
• Novel Games – Embed Flash games in your web site
• IRC Chat for your site
  • Mibbit – www.mibbit.com
  • WELSTech Chat

The contest:

(47:47) Top 5 Desert Island Software Picks

• Send us the five software titles you wouldn’t want to live without – free or fee, desktop or Web 2.0, anything goes
• Get us your list via your favorite WELSTech communication channel – e-mail us, leave us a voice mail (414-375-2334), send us a message on facebook or twitter – just get us your top 5 picks!
• One random entry will receive a $25 gift certificate to the WELSTech store (cafepress.com/welstech)
• Deadline for entry is Sunday April 26, 2009 @ 11:59 p.m.

• Listen to WELSTech Episode 069 on April 29th to find out if you are the winner and to experience a virtual desert island of software picks

Community feedback:

• (49:17) The #WELSTech Twitter conversation this week featured
  • Jason Schmidt from Gethsemane in Omaha, NE shared a link to another video captioning web site, this time for YouTube videos – CaptionTube
• John Shoosmith from Redeemer in Yakima, WA
  • Reports that the video hosting and captioning site discussed in our last episode, dotSub.com, allows for 300 MB video uploads which is more than adequate for typical sermons
  • Added a new page to the WELSTech wiki (welstechwiki.wels.net) with coaching on video angels, lighting and more – Video Taping Guide
• Additional WELSTech wiki updates include
  • New pages capturing the WELSTech listserve discussions on Office Suite and Server software
  • Discussion on calendar software
• Check out the WELSTech listserve archive for discussions on Moodle and Martin’s call for church technology plans
• Brian Preuss shared a link to a free, open-source, Linux-based church management software application, ChurchInfo, www.churchdb.org
  • Check out our interview with Pastor Steve Daley who discussed other Linux software packages for the church office
  • We’ve also interviewed Brad Wheeling from Concordia Technology Solutions about Shepherd’s Staff.  They are currently running a special on their Small Church Edition

Coming up on WELSTech:

(1:04:32) Episode 069 – The contest results are in, and we share our listener’s list of desert island software picks.  You’ll want to tune in to find out if you are the lucky winner of a $25 WELSTech store gift certificate. Enter to win by April 26th!

• Production note: Due to scheduling conflicts, this episode will have a later-than-normal release time.  Look for it by noon on April 29th.

The featured artist:

(1:06:20) This week we close with WELS artist Michael Schroeder (www.michaelschroeder.com) – The One from his CD titled Fuel For The Soul

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