Poducation

Download PDF of presentation Google Doc Transcript of Presentation Slideshare Web Resources TLT: “Using Twitter in Higher Education” http://bit.ly/115xu Academic Hack: “Twitter for Academia” http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/hom~ E-Learning Blog: “Twitter Tips for Teachers and Educators” http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/twitt~ Organizational Leadership Journal: “Twitter: A Tool for Academia to Connect, Share, and Grow Relationships” http://strategicplanner.wordpress.com/20~ eLearning Technology: “Twitter Conference Ideas” http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2009/0~ JSOnline: “Professors Experiment with Twitter as a Teaching Tool” http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/4~ Blog by Carol: “50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education” http://cooper-taylor.com/blog/2008/08/50~ Educause: “7 Things You Should Know About Twitter” http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/E~ Web 2.0 Teaching Tools: “Twitter Tweets for Higher Education” http://web20teach.blogspot.com/2007/08/t~ Georgia Public Broadcasting: “Twitter for ... [Link] [Cache]

Blackboard still doesn’t have a way to directly post an RSS feed. Don’t worry. Andy Rush has come to our rescue with a great screen-cast explaining how to do it: Ingredients - Computer with access to the Internet - Instructor access to a Blackboard course the screencast features BB Enterprise 8 - The website at http://feed2js.org - A website with an active RSS feed to be used in Blackboard Directions Navigate to the website that has an RSS feed. Look for an icon on the page that looks like this: If you don’t see that icon, look for some text ... [Link] [Cache]

Silvia Tolisano’s recent post “Never was about technology - Time to focus on learning” raises the question of technology’s true contribution to the teaching/learning process. However, it was a quote from Conor Bolton that caught my attention and led me down a specific path of ideas: “Poor teaching + technology = Expensive poor teaching“ I would have to agree with Mr. Bolton. Simply adding a specific technology to our instructional strategies does not automatically result in improved student learning outcomes. If anything, I am convinced we need to make improving our teaching skills a high priority. Just as we encourage ... [Link] [Cache]

Not that long ago Google announced the availability of a new service connecting Google apps to specific Moodle courses. This enables faculty to integrate Google apps directly into their Moodle courses, and to require students to use the Google apps to produce course assignments. The integration of Google apps into a Moodle course if fairly robust. Creating user accounts in Google apps automatically creates a Gmail account for each user. Further, each Google app displays the course name, reminding users that they are connected to their online course. Having direct access for my students to Google apps within my online ... [Link] [Cache]

What a nice surprise. Three subsequent attempts to upload large video files to an iTunes U course site succeeded without a hitch. More surprising, 2 of the files were >400Mb! Huzzah! This kind of reliability may enable some faculty to upload their own media files, which would potentially provide workload relief for our staff. Ironically, after 2 years of Apple telling us the problem was not on their end, it appears their upgrade solved the problem. I guess it was on their end after all. [Link] [Cache]

Back in January I posted an entry titled “The Potential & Dissapointment of iTunes U“. My greatest disappointment was the fact we could not reliably upload any file with a size greater than 100Mb. Often it took 2, 3, 4, or more attempts to successfully upload a larger audio or video file. In one case it took us 3 weeks of trying to upload a large video. Recently, Apple updated the iTunes U backend providing new functionality and flexibility. Yesterday I decided to test the “new & improved” version of iTunes U by uploading the video file that took us ... [Link] [Cache]

If you do more than a small amount of audio recording you will eventually run into the problem of the “popping p’s” and the hissing of sibilent s sounds. A pop screen is the perfect solution, but the expense of a pop screens may be hard to justify in a time of shrinking budgets. Jake Ludington posted a brilliant little “how-to” article on building a custom pop screen for under $10 USD! It’s amazingly simple, and worth the read. [Link] [Cache]

Tom Kuhlmann Rapid eLearning Blog provides some excellent basic pointers for recording high quality audio. It’s not surprising that paying attention to the “basics” of audio recording results in a good recording. However, it is surprising how few people know the “basics” of good audio recording. Fortunately, as Tom shows, they are simple and easy to do. [Link] [Cache]

While wandering through blog sites I came across an article on Google Wave at Joho the Blog. My curiosity was piqued, so I watched the lengthy demo of Wave given at the Google IO 2009 developers conference. The Rassmuson brothers software geniuses who gave us Google Maps have developed a potentially transformative product called Wave. Wave represents IMHO a paradigmatic change in thinking about online communication. Google plans to release Wave later this year. The fact that the engine will be released as open source may result in tsunami of fascinating web-based, in-browser apps that begin to redefine how we ... [Link] [Cache]

I stumbled across a link to xtranormal.com in an Alan Levine presentation, and was intrigued with the concept of creating presentations with animated characters. Even more intriguing was the claim that all I needed to do is type the script. I couldn’t resist, so I took my previous post on “Post-LMS Era” and used it with very minor modifications as the script for my xtranormal “movie”. The movie took about 45-60 minutes to complete, including adding camera angles, actor gestures, etc. While my blog script does not make for riveting dialog, it may be a useful way to demonstrate the ... [Link] [Cache]

The University of Michigan is not only taking the initiative to be technologically innovative in the classroom, but making sure to set up checks and balances to help assure that what they are testing only enhances the engagement and ultimately the learning taking place among participants. In their recent development of LectureTools they have found that the student responses to using their own laptops rather than clickers has been shown to be a preferred method and surely less of a cost to the university . LectureTools started as a framework to investigate new methods for adding to class discourse by ... [Link] [Cache]

Effort is a Good Start Blackboard is trying. Let’s start with that. They are making an effort to stay up with the times. We’ll review the new Blackboard 9 next month. Great effort. And because they are basically buying up their competition, they can afford to sit on their laurels. But we know from Microsoft what happens when the big dog doesn’t innovate. People get restless. And look elsewhere. Blackboard has made a great effort to become more relevant by creating two synapses to some of the most relevant Web 2.0 tools: Facebook and the iPhone. Official Wiki for Bb ... [Link] [Cache]

Speaking as one who recently devoted his life to the field of education, I can honestly say that the reason I have done so is due to the potential I see for educators to radically influence society towards its common good and improvement. In the same breath and with as much respect and admiration I have for the calling of teaching, I am not so naive to think that the field itself is any less susceptible to stagnation and failure than that of the fields that surround it in interdependence. That is why words like those spoken by Trent Batson ... [Link] [Cache]

We’ve been getting lots of activity from our posts on mobile Web. Mobile Learning: A Springboard Discussion | Fear of Mobile Learning | ML Podcast iTunes It’s something that higher education is already behind in. The best Web sites have created mobile versions for a group of users growing at an over 100% rate each year. Look at the big guns: ESPN, CNN, Yahoo and Google. Even social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. There are very few higher education sites with mobile versions. Try it. Search for m.harvard.edu. m.um.edu. m.berkley.edu. The best site I can find today is Duke. ... [Link] [Cache]

The recent announcement of Blackboard’s absorption of their biggest LMS competitor -Angel, leads me to think we are moving toward a new era of delivery systems for online learning. As a user and admin of Web-CT, e-College, and Blackboard I appreciate their relative strengths and weaknesses. My brief exploration of Angel gave me a glimpse of really well thought out design. My boss, in fact, asked me the other day if our university should consider moving to Angel. Three years ago we upgraded our basic Blackboard installation to the Enterprise version, and integrated it with our business systems. The integration ... [Link] [Cache]

As a educational podcasting enthusiast I am always looking for easy, effective methods for recording conversations, lectures, or even personal reflections. In an earlier post I reviewed the Bias iProRecorder for the iPhone. In this post I review a competitor to iProRecorder - Griffin’s iTalk. iTalk is available for the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch 2nd-generation. I actually purchased iTalk before I purchased iProRecorder. I reviewed iProRecorder first because I was so impressed with the user interface. However, upon reflection I have concluded that the functional differences provided by the interface are not as great as I imagined. That ... [Link] [Cache]

New WP Plugins I thought I’d report back on a few tweaks to TTF I’ve made this past week. You’ll notice that the tag cloud on the sidebar is now reformatted to a nice, clean, bulleted list thanks to the Reciprocity Wordpress Configurable Tag Cloud Plugin . It’s a simple and highly-customizable plug-in that helps display tags in a more friendly light. You probably also noted we’ve added a “Share This” link on all of our posts to allow you to share to whatever source you wish. Thanks to Crowd Favorite and Alex King. | Plug-in Homepage Twitter We’ve added ... [Link] [Cache]

Background As our office has been researching mobile learning, we decided to discuss it and record the discussion to see what happened. What we discovered sounds like a typical reserach paper at the end. The whole “additional research is needed in order for us to …” statement. From our initial reading, we discovered that the definition of mobile learning is still not solid. Mobile learning could mean a mobile device like a Palm or clicker. It could also mean a mobile phone. Different schools are using the term “Mobile Learning” to mean different things. As we investigated those pathways, we ... [Link] [Cache]

Media Capture 3 of 3: Workflow & Delivery from Academic Technology on Vimeo. The Workflows If you’re reading this, you already know there are a myriad of ways you can create workflows for moving content. I’ve spoken to several other schools that serve content many ways. Some push the video into an FTP space where students push the files to iTunes U. Some use other media servers and push the files to the Web. Some stream. Some use Woolamaloo to push to iTunes U. Some use Automator. Some Podcast Producer. There’s also the OpenCast project and enterprise YouTube as options. ... [Link] [Cache]

We’re excited to welcome another guest contributor to the community. David Goodrich is an Instructional Designer from Spring Arbor University. He’s a musician, writer, blogger, and all-around cool guy. You’d like him. He’s also working on his Master’s in Instructional Design from Capella University. Find out more in the Contributors page. Welcome, David. To approach instructional design in a systematic fashion like that of an assembly line where each key principal is viewed in isolation to the other and in the end a final product is made that is deemed good or bad is becoming a faulty framework for imagining ... [Link] [Cache]

Media Capture 2 of 3: Setup & Configuration from Academic Technology on Vimeo. Walking You Through Our Process This piece is pretty elementary. but it explains in detail what we use and how we use these pieces to record a classroom lecture or activity. Pre-Production Right now we use a full-service model whereby either myself or our student staff will go to a classroom and capture the event. We use a Web site with a form they fill out or call/email us directly. We then use a shared calendar in Exchange where we schedule the event, contact the faculty member, ... [Link] [Cache]

I am always eager to discover how innovators adopt emerging technologies and fads. The article posted in yesterdays Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired section illustrates a new pedagogical use for Twitter at Duke University. It is not surprising that the discovery was made by Duke students taking an introductory film class. These students organized the “First Ever Twitter Film Festival” where students watched short YouTube clips that were embedded from 39 movies. The students then spent time tweeting their thoughts about the clips being viewed. While I no longer consider YouTube an emerging technology, I do consider it a tech ... [Link] [Cache]

It’s About More Than The Familiar As a teacher/technologist/designer/builder, I wonder with so many pieces of technology available, what should my approach be? I know some teachers are afraid of emerging tools. But I also wonder if that fear is a barrier to student learning. As I research the landscape of tools that teachers, school districts, and higher education institutions fear the most, mobile phones may be at the top of the list. But should we as educators fear them? Mobile Phone Breakdown Mobile devices are growing at an astronomical pace. Statistics today show that there are about 7 billion ... [Link] [Cache]

My colleague, Jason Archer and I continue working to develop a standardized, reliable, easy, and efficient process for capturing audio and video in the classroom or studio. This is, as you would expect, an ongoing process. Jason has posted some great content on our departmental blog site http://www.academictechnology.org describing our systems and processes. You will see that we employ a lot of interesting systems and equipment supporting media capture at the university. Our goal in posting this information is to hear from others, not only how you do media capture, but how we might do it better. Please take a ... [Link] [Cache]

Media Capture 1 of 3: Unit Inventory from Academic Technology on Vimeo. A Brief Overview Many schools have asked what gear we use for media capture scenarios at Spring Arbor University. Knowing every school does media capture differently, we decided to make a three-part video series on what we do for media capture, how we configure the gear, and what workflows we use to migrate content from the classroom to the Web. We hope this helps get some of you an idea of where you can start. This is part one of three. In this tutorial, I show you exactly ... [Link] [Cache]