Gordon And Mike's ICT Podcast
Perspectives on Technology and Education from Gordon F. Snyder, Jr. & Mike Qaissaunee
Special Notes: In this podcast Mike and I interview Martin Trieu, a former community college student and current Google Engineer from California. The interview was done on January 5, 2008 during our National Science Foundation funded National Center for Telecommunications Technologies (located at Springfield Technical Community College) winter conference hosted by Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California.

We’d like to thank Dr Ann Beheler; Dean, Business, Computing, & Career Services at Orange Coast College and Principle Investigator of the NSF funded Convergence Technology Center (located at Collin County Community College), for hosting our conference and arranging this interview with Martin. We’d also like to thank the National Science Foundation for funding and support.

In the interview Martin uses a couple of acronyms that may need clarification. He refers to UCI - short for University of California, Irvine and EE – short for Electrical Engineering. He also refers to Orange Coast College as “OCC?.

Martin’s son, 14 year old Martin Jr, was in the audience and is taking a programming course at OCC this semester.

I’d also like to thank Mike Q – this was the first interview we’ve done in front of a live audience and I ended up asking all the questions due to some microphone issues.

We know you’ll find the interview with Martin fascinating – if you are a potential student, Martin’s story could inspire you to take a look at your local community college. If you are a current student – we hope his story motivates you to continue to do your best work. If you are a faculty or staff member – we know you can relate to Martin’s story because you and your students have similar stories to tell. If you are an employer – Martin is a good example of the type of talent, dedication and motivation you will find coming out of your local community college.

We especially enjoyed recording and now enjoy listening to this interview with Martin – we hope you do too!

- Gordon


Podcast Intro: We’re here today at the NCTT Winter Conference hosted by Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA. with Martin Trieu, a Software Engineer at Google Audio.

Interview Questions:

1.    Can you tell us about your background – where were you born and what brought you to the United States?

2.    I know you attended Orange Coast College, what made you decide to go to college and why did you choose a community college?

3.    What happened after you graduated?

4.    How did you start working for Internet based companies?

5.    How has working for Internet based companies changed?

6.    Can you describe your current job?

7.    What advice would you give young people with regards to careers and success?


Direct download: Martin_Interview_FINAL.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:33am EDT

Intro: In this podcast we discuss the growing array of online collaboration tools.

Mike: Gordon, because I'm in New Jersey and you're in Massachusetts, we've had to rely on online collaboration tools quite a bit. What are some of the tools we use most often?

Gordon: If we look just at what we're doing today. We use Skype - the free VoIP client to record these podcasts and we use Google Docs (docs.google.com) to write, edit and share the scripts. In fact, I use Google Docs to collect material and write my blog - ictcenter.blogspot.com

Mike: Although it's not a new tool, we also use email quite a bit.

Gordon: Yes - email is still a very important tool, but more and more we seem to be communicating with other tools such as Twitter and Text Messaging. The iPhone really lends itself to quick communication with email, Tweets, and IM.

Mike: Twitter and Google Docs aren't the only options.

Gordon: No. in addition to twitter, there are micro-blogging services Jaiku and Pownce, although if you compare the three using Google Trends, we see that Twitter is by far the most popular of the three.
Mike: What about Google Docs.

Gordon: It's what we use, and probably the most popular, but there are alternatives, including Zoho, Thinkfree and Zimbra. Again Google Trends gives us a nice snapshot.

Gordon: There's been some movement with some of these tools.

Mike: Yes. Zimbra was purchased in September by Yahoo, and Thinkfree is having some issues with leadership and possibly looking at a change of direction.

Gordon: Are there some new online collaboration tools?

Mike: Robin Good 
Online Collaboration Technologies - New Tools And Web Services - Robin Good's Latest News has a great listing of some new online collaboration tools and services. Good also points to Kolabora www.kolabora.com - a great resource for news and information about online collaboration.

Gordon: Mike could you give us an overview of the tools Good describes.

Mike: Sure - the article describes eight new online collaboration services, including:

Tokbox: http://www.tokbox.com/ is a free web-based video conferencing application that enable you to have one-to-one video meetings online. With the service, you create a video room and invite someone for a video conference. You can even embed the conference room on your web-site, or blog. I think this is a great tool for providing technical support, office hours, access to a librarian, or even college counseling.

Gordon: What else?

Mike: 
SeeToo: http://www.seetoo.com/ On the surface, SeeToo a free web-based application for sharing videos with friends and family doesn't seem that novel. What makes SeeToo unique is that you don't need to upload your videos - instead you select a video (any size) from your computer, invite others to watch, and click play to start watching together. It's like you're running your own streaming server!

SnapYap: http://www.snapyap.com/ Similar to ToKBox a free one-to-one video conferencing room. Create a personal video conference room, invite anyone to join - SnapYap users just enter their username, others get an email with instructions to enter the room.

TeamViewer:  http://www.teamviewer.com/ TeamViewer is a free (for personal, non-commercial use) Windows-only application that allows you to share your screen and control someone else's PC. After downloading, you start the program without any installation. You have a code and password you can provide to others to view and control your PC, and similarly, they have a code/password combination they can share with you. Other features include chat and the ability to transfer files. Possible applications include helpdesk/desktop support, application demos, and distance education.

FlickIM: http://flick.im/ FlickIM is a free Web-based instant messenger application that allows you to connect to all major IM services (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, GoogleTalk, Jabber, ICQ). Seems very similar to an existing service - meebo. Includes video, audio and other add-ons, as well as an iPhone friendly interface. Meebo has also customized their interface for the iPhone.

Loudtalks: http://loudtalks.com/ Is a free, Windows-only download-able application that gives users walkie talkie-like ability to communicate with one another with the touch of a single button(F7). Versions are being developed for other platforms, including mobile phones.

AirTalkr:
http://airtalkr.com/ Similar to FlickIM, AirTalkr allows you to access multiple IM networks. One major difference is access to Web 2.0 services (Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, and Myspace). AirTalkr is runs within Adobe's AIR (cross-operating system runtime; hybrid web/desktop applications) - Windows and MAC, and also as a web-based application. Looks like the download version doesn't work with the current version of AIR. Here's a screen grab:

Global IP Video: http://www.globalipvideo.com/
Global IP Video has a f
ree web-based (no downloads, no installs) video conferencing tool MeBeem (http://www.mebeem.com) that uses flash to create video conferences. In a browser, create a room, share it, and click to connect. Not sure how well it works, and seems a little like the wild west. Here are a couple screenshots:


Direct download: January_14_Podcast.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:50pm EDT