Springdoo, wherefore art thou?
Wow… a lot can change on the Internet in a few hours time.
I planned an entire lesson around my old standby, Springdoo. I was going to have the students record a “What does Peace mean to me?” message for a podcast. Springdoo has been the only way for my elementary students to quickly record their voice on the internet and have it downloadable by me. In other words, I subscribe to the Springdoo feed, and I have their recordings as mp3’s and I can put them into a podcast. So far, it’s the only solution for us due to the fact that other avenues would require email accounts (podcast people, for instance) or can’t be downloaded as mp3’s (VoiceThread, for instance). I understand how to “fake” email addresses for my students, but I’ve wanted to avoid that route.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Like always, I checked my links for the lesson this morning to see if they were operational. They were. 2 hours later, when I brought the students to the link, Springdoo had transformed. The entire site looks different and seems to now be a video only site (?) that brings in revenue. The gmail ads never were on pages that were accessible by students (what was known as a “PalCast” site — where they could make their recordings) and are definitely too risqué for an elementary population:
Now, don’t get me wrong: Springdoo has every right to “evolve.” I just wished I had more notice. Also, chances are that I am catching it in the middle of the actual update, and hopefully the features I can’t find (and desperately need) are still going to be available.
Just a great reminder: no matter how well planned, ALWAYS have a backup.
Please share any other tools/ideas you have for getting students voices easily recorded from a web page. Thanks!
.
Technorati Tags: springdoo
12 comments
Bummer, it has happened to all of us. I did the same thing, checked my links in the AM, and by noon, the site was down.
Oh, the woes of technology.
Cheryl
Hi Bob,
Hope you are well?
I picked up your blog thanks to Google alerts and enjoyed reading through your critique of the latest updates to the Springdoo service.
Firstly let me assure you that alienation was never what we intended with the re-design. Any decisions on what functionality to adapt were made after listening to comments from our current userbase.
Though impossible to please everyone I’d really appreciate your thoughts and comments on what functionality you feel should have been retained.
Kind Regards,
Tom Eaves
Tom,
Thanks so much for your post!
I miss what you had. It was awesome for my kids. Being able to record right into PalCast was what worked for us because then I could gather all of their posts in iTunes with an RSS feed. Also, having PalCast as a site that my kids could get to without going to the main Springdoo page (with advertising, for instance, and now… having access to video postings) worked great as well.
I understand that everything evolves, and these days, that means video.
Thanks for your concern and good luck with your new ventures
Bob
Bob, have you tried Gabcast? I just started using it so I’m by no means an expert but it’s a pretty quick setup that allows users to create a podcast similar to leaving a voicemail. Still have to go the fake email route but you can download them….
Sean M.
Sean,
Thanks for your post. I’ve considered Gabcast as well as Gcast and may in fact go that route. I’m trying to avoid the fake email because that’s about 500 emails that I would then have to validate once they sign up. Web-based phones are a possible option to call in to Gcast, such as Flashphone… but at present, it’s not able to call into a Gcast number.
Thanks!
Bob
You may consider the Gong Project:
http://gong.ust.hk/
Best wishes.
Bob, you may want to setup a different VoiceThread account for each class, and have students just use the same identity within that class’ login. Optionally, students could create their own identity using an avatar or digital photo of a picture they made.. I am really bummed to hear about Springdoo losing the functionality you really liked and students benefited from too. It’s cool a Springdoo rep responded, hopefully they’ll listen to your feedback. Certainly if you use VoiceThread, it would be nice to permit students to have conversations there around different topics.
Thanks, Wes! Say do you know… can more than one person log in at the same time with the same Identity on VoiceThread?
Bob
I have been using this great program to send live video etc. to the children, and the Troops overseas and WAS 100% till they advanced up the ladder far to quickly.. But as we say people have to try and upgrade and leave crumbs behind… Toronto Canada here
Hi Bob, on Voicethread you can sign up for an educators account which allows you unlimited threads and multiple identities under your own.
THis means you open one account and have your students create their own identities using your account info. Yes more than one peson can be signed in at the same time under the same account.
Another way of creating a simple voice cast would be to use gtalk. The students would however have to use your account or have their own.
Recently I also tried wildvoice.com – which offers a free download of a very nice podcasting software. Mp3s can be saved on computer and uploaded to wild voice site or other podcast hosts.
Hi Susan,
Thanks for you comments!
I have indeed signed up for the VoiceThread educator account. Currently, I’ve set up 3 main accounts for grades 2, 3, and 4 and then set up 23 different identities in each account. It took a long time, but it should last for a while.
The wildvoice.com looks outstanding and I hope they port it over to mac sometime soon.
The same goes with gtalk… waiting for a mac version
Thanks so much!
Bob
Just stumbled on this thread. Check out GabMail at http://www.freegabmail.com. It’s based on video, but will work just as well with audio only. Just don’t turn on (or allow) your webcam.
Cheers.
Leave a Comment