This blog is an extension of some of the ideas discussed in today's' skype conference...The webcast academy already has several metaphors currently in use.  One is the 'academy' and the other is 'bridges'.  A third general metaphor is 'community'.  In a way having three 'identities' can be a little confusing.  A new visual model would serve as the hanger for new ideas. By visual I am mean image based as opposed to text based.  To me text is auditory, it's just an internal dialogue.  A site needs to have a strong metaphor and graphical interface if it's going to build a community image in the users mind.  Users need to construct a mental model of the community. They need to define their role as well as the roles of others. They must be able to find their way around the community easily, unless the goal is to create a maze and reward only those who can figure it out.It's like browsing a multidimensional universe.

I thought I would post a brief interview that involved recording both ends of a Skype conversation. It finally turned out to be quite easy, requiring nothing more than setting Audio Hijack Pro to the Skype application and clicking record.

What I was most pleased about was the complete lack of latency. I did not hear any feedback or echo of myself in the headset. Another important feature for me was the quality of the recording with an iSight camera (firewire), as this is what we will use in our Mac lab for the Japanese students. Also the ease of use makes it possible to set up as a class assignment.

Unfortuntely a Persian teacher was meeting with students in Ryan's office when I called -- it is a little disurbing and for a recording that I would archive I would call back at another time. Still, it provides evidence for me that the recording will be satisfactory when other students are talking simultaneously.