Voice Box for OS X

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Now _this_ is brill. Voice Box is a fully-scriptable speach app for OS X. It sports aiff file output; listen-as-you-type; control over voice, pitch, and rate; and can even grab RSS feeds off the Net and read them to you in the voice of your choice. I see great applicability to Home Web Radio, interspersing tunes with up-to-the-minute news and weblog feeds.[via cory] [raelity bytes]

I downloaded the demo and it works great... The audioblog ideas are really very interesting. Lots of possibilities.... The link below is to an mp3 of the application reading part of my RSS feed... The demo only allows for a 9 second recording...

Lauer RSS Feed

Audblog....

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audblog : sounding out
audblog is a service that provides bloggers (so far just Blogger) with the ability to post audio to their blogs from any phone. [by way of...Scripting News]

Kind of interesting, is pretty nice that you can post from a phone... Here is the result....
Powered by audblogaudblog audio post

The Macromedia Flash tool that is being used currently by Pam's students and tools such as QuickVoice also allow you to create files that can be linked to from your blog...

Using QuickVoice, I recorded and converted this mp3 file: My son Fernando talking while looking out the window of an airplane...

QuickVoice can also be used along with other tools, to create audio post cards as outlined in this O'Reilly article by Derrick Story.

Munich Subway

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subway_sm.jpgJust back from a trip to Germany. Took a video clip of the Munich subway on the way out to the airport. Munich has a great subway system... very easy to get around. Click the image above for a video clip... The clip was taken with a Canon S45... a great camera...

A Tale of Three Cities...

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The Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest Magazine GO BY TRAIN pleads one.
GO BY STREETCAR urges the other.

Something tells me we're not in Seattle anymore, Toto. No, we're in Portland, American headquarters of the "New Urbanism" philosophy that touts neighborhood density, walking and transit over the car. Portland is doing, almost routinely, what Seattle keeps dreaming and arguing about.

I have been traveling for a few weeks... came across this article about Portland and am now even more homesick... :-) Is always nice when someone confirms what you already knew to be true... now if we only could fund our schools properly...

Weblogs in Education Article...

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techLEARNING.com | Technology & Learning - The Resource for Education Technology Leaders Educators have also been using the Web to publish course descriptions and syllabi, while building professional development communities dedicated to sharing best practices.Publishing student writing, however, has yet to gain widespread adoption in middle and high school English classes...

This is a great article explaining the background of weblogs, current uses in education, and more importantly potential uses by teachers and students. [by way of...weblogged News]