Historically, I have not been one of those “New Year, New Me” kind of people.

I don’t typically make New Year’s Resolutions.  I don’t set annual goals and post them around my home, car, and office to remind me to work toward them.  I do set goals, but I don’t formalize them in the same way many others around me do.

In recent years, I have become more intentional with some of the changes I want to make and new things I want to try.  This blog was one of them.  A still-unfinished book manuscript (7,500 words and counting) is another.  My newest “Hey, there’s an idea, let’s try it and see what happens” project… a podcast.

At ISTE 2017 in San Antonio, I talked briefly with my friend Luis Perez about this idea.  At the time, I was only thinking about how much would be involved in creating such a podcast, and how many podcasts already existed.  His advice to me?  “Do it!”  In truth, the barriers I was seeing were the same ones I had already talked myself through in starting this blog and in starting to write my book.

So, those of you who are visiting my blog get a “sneak peak”.  I am planning to start this podcast as a regular series in 2018, but I have a rough cut of episode one ready to preview.

Cincinnati Zoological and Botanical Gardens Director, Thane Maynard, taught me years ago that you can say a LOT in 90 seconds.  His “90 Second Naturalist” radio spots are some of my favorite listening – as much for how they are structured to convey a little important information quickly as for what information they contain – so with a nod to him, here is Episode 001 of “The 90 Second Integrationist”.

So far, I have used a reasonably inexpensive (~$50) Blue Snowball Ice microphone and the powerful open source Audacity software to create my audio files.  I found a piece of intro music I liked from freemusicarchive.org.  The next step (once I produce a better quality m4a/mp3 file) will be to create the necessary rss file to submit the podcast to iTunes.

If you have 90 seconds, check out Episode 001 and let me know what you think!

(**note** – One of my biggest hesitations about starting a podcast was my self-imposed requirement that I provide a transcript with every episode.  Some of my best friends and biggest influences in education work with students who are hearing impaired and/or are themselves hearing impaired.  I could not in good conscience provide a product that they were unable to consume.  On the blog post, a transcript appears below the audio controls.)