FAP479: How to network at conferences, podcasting changing governments, dance scholarship, Jonathan Coulton
Student Financial Aid News
+ From NASFAA – hey, we changed the FAFSA!
+ And yes, WE did it. I may have done the recording, but without every single one of you listening, sending in comments, feedback, etc. I would have given up this show long ago. The community of the Financial Aid Podcast did this together.
+ Speaking of which, TODAY is the deadline for a lot of states – file your FAFSA online
+ The U.S. House of Representatives approved …

I was checking news and mail this morning, catching up after PodCamp Toronto, when I saw this article on the NASFAA web site.
Someone at the Department of Education actually changed the FAFSA after hearing about issues on the podcast.
Wow. Quite a way to start the workday. And to Theresa Shaw, COO of the office of Federal Student Aid – thanks for listening. You made my day brighter, but you’ve made a lot of families’ FAFSA experiences a great deal easier.

A few things I learned sitting next to a high school senior named Amanda.
Amanda doesn’t use email. Why? MySpace provides her with everything she needs to stay in touch with friends and family. On top of that, she navigates visually – why remember an email address when you can click on someone’s face? Her profile on MySpace is super-private as well – she doesn’t accept friend requests from people she doesn’t know.
Amanda understands the basic strategy of doing a couple of years at a community college and transferring into a …

FAP478: Secret meetings, Pizza Hut scholarship, mail bag on FAFSA and UGMA, PodCamp Toronto, Uncle Seth
Student Financial Aid News
+ LSU did a call in night
+ If I did one, would you call in?
+ Let’s do one! Only maybe not at night.
+ The U.S. Education Department is looking for the next big ideas in student aid — with a strong emphasis on promoting simplicity of programs and reaching students in their pre-college years.
+ Senior department officials invited about 20 experts on student aid — campus aid administrators and researchers on financial …

Here’s a common situation in my life – I go to shoot some video, and all I’ve got is my camera. No external mic, no hotshoe mic, no nothing except the onboard mic, which tends to be mediocre. Video guru David Tames often says that the best way to create good video is to have good audio, but what do you do when all you’ve got isn’t all that? What do you do? Levelate!

The Levelator is a piece of software developed by the hive mind at Gigavox Media – a …

Lots of things to review, lots of thoughts to process. PodCamp Toronto’s theme, if I could boil it down to one, was community. Community, trust, relationships, and understanding why people do what they do, capped off by a fascinating discussion with a high school senior on the flight home.
I’ve been talking a lot the past few weeks about the incompatibility of an economy of abundance with an economy of scarcity, and how they’re fundamentally incompatible, a discussion happening with folks like Whitney Hoffman, Chris Brogan, and Julien Smith. Initially, my …

FAP477: Student Loan Radio PlaneCast
Today, I’m out of the office, trying to recover from being sick after a long trip to PodCamp Toronto. However, in my stead is an episode of Student Loan Radio with a high school student from Buffalo, New York. Our conversation extended beyond the recording, but an interesting perspective on why MySpace is important.
Podsafe Music
+ Matthew Ebel, Drive Away
+ Munk, I Am
+ Rayko/KRB, Up Chuk Skat
+ Rayko/KRB, Simple Love Song
+ Becca Loebe, There Tonight
Reminders
+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ Student loan …

I’m back in the States again after a three day journey to Toronto, Ontario, Canada and PodCamp Toronto. What an absolutely amazing event this was – PodCamp Toronto (PCT) raised the bar in so many ways for what a PodCamp can be.

The energy of the crowd was eager and excited to learn
The sessions and presenters were fantastic, top notch quality
The lightning talks were equally amazing
Lots of great conversations deep into the night
Ryerson University stepped up and made it a venue to remember
And last but not least, the organizers did a …

I’ve gotten more than a few emails from folks asking about the subscribe icons on the Financial Aid Podcast web site. Well, they’re now available as a free download, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. Be sure to read the README file included with the icon pack as a condition of use (including the attribution HTML), but if you’d like to use them and your podcast is non-commercial (no revenues or advertising supported revenues, or a publication of a qualified IRS 501(c)(3)), then please use them with our …

Something completely different: an interview with John Buckley of PodCamp UK. Off to PodCamp Toronto today.
Reminders
+ Private student loans
+ Stafford loans | Other federal student loans
+ Student loan consolidation at StudentLoanConsolidator.com
+ FAFSA form online filing at FAFSAonline.com
+ Financial Aid Podcast Show Notes at FinancialAidNews.com.
+ The Financial Aid Podcast is a publication of the Student Loan Network.
Direct MP3 file download: MP3 file