Teacher | Answer 20 Questions

Answer 20 Questions

The 20Q Podcast Interviews – Video, Mac, Photo, Writers & More

Mac20Q Podcast 71 Paul McGovern – Educator Extraordinaire

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Great guy from Enniskillin in Northern Ireland. He is Lecturer In Media Applications & Computer Science, Specialising in Video Game Development. I used to go there to Enniskillin, quite often either for shopping or to go to the Theatre. I did even once go kayaking on the river, with a bunch of kids. A good day out.

In the ramble I mention my new Magic Mouse which I am really pleased with, Google Wave and The Film Ink which got featured on Video20Q Podcast, the film got put on torrent this week and was downloaded thousands of times. I would like to see them getting paid for it though. Excellent looking movie. I have a DVD on its way to me now.

Paul McGovern is a new media teacher – lecturer in Northern Ireland and in impressing his students with being a total tech head. He tells me about apps like Blender, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere. He also does things on the audio side with Audacity and other apps you can find out about in the interview. He is fond also of ScreenSteps an Application which Allison of the Nosillacast often bangs on about.

Planbook is designed to replace your traditional paper planbook with a robust digital scheduler. Planbook is designed and written by a full-time teacher and includes all the features you need to save time, stay organized, keep others informed and help you finish your teaching day a little bit earlier.

ProfCast - ProfCast FeaturesProfCast is a versatile, powerful, yet very simple to use tool for recording lectures including PowerPoint and/or Keynote slides for creating enhanced podcasts. ProfCast provides a low cost solution for recording and distributing lectures, special events, and presentations as podcasts. ProfCast offers an integrated workflow that makes creating, recording, and publishing podcasts easy. It’s as simple as Launch, Load, and Lecture!

Paul tells me of a thing called Moodle, which is  a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. I must check it out my wife is a teacher, maybe she could find it useful.

Mac20Q Podcast 47 Keith Blount

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The developer of Scrivener

The developer of Scrivener

I got talking to Keith Blount the developer of Scrivener, the excellent writers software.

He tells me that he is a wanna be writer and a coder but not necessarily in that order. Used to be a teacher in primary school and gave up the high life to be a code monkey.

He suggests some books in the podcast and I may well get them myself I would love to be able to write a Mac application. I still want to have a go at writing an iPhone application too. Books by Stephen Kochan Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (2nd Edition) (Developer’s Library)

Aaron Hillegas Cocoa(R) Programming for Mac(R) OS X (3rd Edition)

Talking about Scrivener

The idea behind Scrivener is that you write the long novel in chunks and you can use Scrivener to organise the whole thing. there are loads of ways of looking at the work. You can just concentrate on the small bit you are working on. You can see all of the small bits in an outline mode or you can see them on a corkboard view. Lots more information from Keith about Scrivener in the podcast.

He changed to Mac and was looking for a decent laptop and was blown away by the iBook and the retail store experience helped him to make the decision to buy. I have a number of questions for Keith in the interview about how he uses his Mac and you can listen to the podcast to get more.

Buy Scrivener 1.x (Regular Licence)