I’ve created a document describing the odeo (http://www.odeo.com) set up process. I believe it to be a good read. If you want to read this document just follow the link.
Another approach to having storage capacity is to use free Web 2.0 capacity. To do this I will use odeo to host the sound files and bloglines to aggretate all the RSS feeds set up by odeo. This setup process is described in this one page document.
We are in the process of setting up a virtual classroom for high school
music. And the question has come up regarding storage and bandwidth.
The variables we need to think about are disk space, number of
students, frequency of uploading and downloading, number and size of
music files created during the course. For example; lets say each
student created 40 minutes of music files per week, and lets consider
the school year is 44 weeks. Given each minute of music is 1 megabyte
(MB) that would mean each student would create 1,760 MB or 1.7
Gigabytes (GB) of music during the school year or approximately 200 MB
per month. Now consider we have 50 students, that means we will require
88 GB of disk space by the end of the year. And if all students are
expected to be listening to half of the students work we will need 5 GB
of monthly bandwidth. Now 5 GB is a low number for monthly bandwidth
and we shouldn’t expect extra bandwidth fees for this low level of
traffic. But what happens if the site becomes popular and its
popularity spreads like wildfire (which happens within the social web
2.0). We get hit with 10,000 visitors (a potentially low number)
downloading a full months worth of music, that would be 100,000,000 MB
of bandwidth or a 100 Terrabytes. Now our bandwidth fees shoot off the
scale. I think we should limit access to just the students…
So everytime I build a new site I start coding in straight html. And
inevitably I come to the point where I am becoming frustrated with the
lack of flexibility html has to build nice looking sites. So, I start
using CSS to get the good looking stuff done. So if your finding that you just can’t get the look
you need, start your readings / learnings in Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS). In the long run a good understanding of CSS will go a long way
for you. And while your at it review some material on good design, I’ve always found Robin Williams books to be right on!
I’ve recently done some investigation about the free blogging
servers. There are a few so take a look around. One thing I
find is important is that you look at a number of other blogs on the
server. I have found porn sites on a few, so be aware.
Choose a blog server that hosts similar content. The two that
have jumped to the forefront are www.blogger.com and www.edublogs.org.
Both of these will work for you… I am beginning to prefer the
edublogs.org better. Mostly because it is focused on educational
blogging and it has two companion blog servers; learnerblogs.org for K12 students and uniblogs.org for University students. I also like the administrative console available with edublogs…
I think so… When I review a number of articles and sites on
the subject of educational blogging, I believe it is now become the
cognitive framework tool du jour. I recently set up a blog for my
daughters grade five newsletter, there are free blog servers now
dedicated to K12 school students, University students and Educators in
general. Two of my courses want blogs. One asks for it directly, the
other wants a learning journal. So here we go, EduBlogging. This shift
makes total sense. We are moving toward tools for Personal Knowledge
Managment (PKM)
and Personal Learning Tools. A blog provides one place to store our
thoughts as we learn. Obviously, a blog is single layered, thinks will
change…