School Board podcasts go gavel-to-gavel

MicrophoneThe first official gavel-to-gavel podcast of an Albemarle County School Board meeting is available on the school division's website.  If you use iTunes, an RSS feed reader, or some other podcast subscription software, there are links available to get automatic downloads and notifications.  You do not need an iPod to listen to these recordings.  You can just download the file(s) to your computer and double-click the item to listen to it directly on your computer.

Our Chairman, Sue Friedman, did a GREAT job during the meeting to recognize, by name, the various speakers.  This will add a lot of value to the recording and is something I hope our other public bodies will emulate so audio recordings of their meetings will be better products for the public.

School Board meetings are long!  So staff have broken up the meeting into different audio files each of which have names that describe what portion of the meeting it is from.  With the agenda in hand, you should be able to pretty quickly tune in to an item of interest before the Albemarle County School Board.  Let me know what you think!

Brian Wheeler

Posted on July 14, 2006 in Podcasting | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

First "official" School Board podcast

On this web page you can find the first ever "official" podcast from an Albemarle County School Board meeting [the first unofficial podcast was my experiment last November here].  I am thrilled we are doing this and I hope the public gets a lot of use out of these recordings. 

The School Board was informed during our meeting last night that a podcast would be produced of our discussion on student conduct policies and I believe that is what has been posted.  The School Board agreed to start podcasting all our meetings later this summer.  We are also investigating streaming video of our meetings over the Internet since, unlike the City of Charlottesville, the County has no franchise agreement with local cable TV that would allow us to put our meetings on public access TV.

Brian Wheeler

Posted on June 09, 2006 in Podcasting, Student Conduct | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Podcast on Blogging by School Boards and Superintendents

LogoAfter I participated as a panelist at the National School Boards Association (NSBA) Annual Conference in Chicago this past Sunday, Steve Burt (also a panelist) and Tim Wilson interviewed myself, Superintendent Clayton Wilcox, and moderator Craig Colgan and created an audio podcast on the role and use of blogs by School Boards and Superintendents. You can listen to the recording here.

While attending the conference, I also was one of a dozen conference bloggers.  So I signed up to cover certain sessions and put a summary on the conference website.  Here are my postings from the conference (not sure how long these links will last):

Brian Wheeler

Posted on April 12, 2006 in Blogging, NSBA, Podcasting, Weblogs | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A School Board meeting Podcast experiment

NOTE: This message is not an official communication of the Albemarle County School Board.

This weblog entry contains an experimental Podcast of an Albemarle County School Board meeting.  I recorded the meeting on October 27, 2005 with the help of some equipment from Sean Tubbs at Charlottesville Podcasting.  I do not plan to create additional Podcasts of the meetings I am participating in, but I hope this will serve as an example that might motivate others in the community to help us get our public meetings available on the Internet.  While the City of Charlottesville is able to broadcast their School Board meetings on local cable TV, the County of Albemarle has no similar capability.  Podcasting, whether done officially by the School Board or by interested citizens or students, would be a great public service project.

If you think this would be a valuable service, leave a comment and share your thoughts.

I also want to thank my colleagues on the School Board and staff for their participation in this experiment.  I appreciate their support!

Brian Wheeler

To listen... Download the 2 files linked below.  I didn't break the audio down into separate agenda items, but that could easily be done in future Podcasts so one could listen to just the item of interest and keep the files as small as possible.

File 1: Download ACPS-SBMtg20051027-Part1.MP3

  • 0:00 to 0:36 Intro by Brian Wheeler
  • 0:36 to 2:53 Call to Order, Pledge of Allegiance, Moment of Silence
    Certify Closed Meeting, Approve Agenda, Approve Consent Agenda
  • 2:53 to 12:04 Announcements
    Mileage reimbursement rates increased to 48.5 cents
    Graduation dates for 2006
    High School 1st Semester Exams now all before Winter Break
    Redistricting implementation activities underway
    Public Comment (None)
  • 12:04 to 32:41 School Board and Superintendent Business
    Superintendent interviews underway during next 15 days.
    Discussion of advertising for openings on Health Advisory Board and Long Range Planning Committee
    Mention that this meeting is being recorded for an experimental Podcast
    Discussion of Deputy School Board Clerk position opening
  • 32:41 to 52:12 Driver’s Education Recommendations from Richard Wharam

File 2: Download ACPS-SBMtg20051027-Part2.MP3

  • 0:00 to 0:36 Intro by Brian Wheeler
  • 0:00 to 27:44 School Health Advisory Board Report from Diane Behrens and Suzanne Coffey
  • 27:44 to 1:01:59 Equity and Diversity Report from Charlene Green
  • Not recorded--Break
  • 1:02:00 to 1:18:54 Financial Reports Quarterly Update from Jackson Zimmerman
    Discussion of Budget Calendar and Budget Development Process
  • 1:18:54 to 1:34:37 Policy Review and Revision
    VSBA Policies and Resolutions
    Other Business by Board Members/Superintendent

Posted on November 16, 2005 in Podcasting | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

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