For the last several years I have been an avid iLife user … starting with the first release several years ago I have used to track all my photos, music, to make movies and DVD. I always wanted to use GarageBand, but the most musical talent I have is related to listening to music. When I started podcasting a year a half ago I didn’t even attempt to use it. I used a mish-mash of tools like Audio Hijack Pro and Audacity to record and edit the resulting podcasts. All of this stuff was used almost exclusively at home … I just didn’t see the value (outside of my students using iMovie) of how it all fit together in the classroom … call me lazy.Well, I’m now using to iLife ’06 and it has become an absolute staple in my classroom. Not really for my students mind you, but for me. GarageBand is now a part of every class period as I record lectures and produce enhanced podcasts. It gives me the ability to walk in with my PowerBook, a wireless microphone, and a Keynote presentation and do a class-based podcast. When class is over, I take about 30 minutes to export my sldies from Keynote into iPhoto, they show up in GarageBand, and I can drag them to the timeline. I mix it down and push it to iTunes … I could be using iWeb to publish them, but I am not ready to jump off the WordPress bandwagon just yet. At the end of the day the students click a single link from my class blog and iTunes auto-launches and a subscription is set.

iLife in the classroom has finally arrived for me. I’d love to hear how everyone else is using it.