CC blog

Example of our rapid authoring - voice over presentation for our teaching

Thought I'd share an example or a rapidly authored voice-over presentaiton from Ano Lobb - one of the instructors in ECS 153/ECS154.  We worked with Ano, Sharon and the team in the Venture Fund - getting them screencasting tools including Camtasia, Screenflow, and Jing.

This presentation is made with Camtasia....and published to YouTube.  What I like about this is not only the content and the style....but the fact that the presentation will have a life on its own outside of the classroom (and be part of a larger conversation).    Ano also reports that "I'm getting to like Jing a whole lot as well. Its so quick and easy, and the five minute limit can be an attribute in that it forces you to be brief. We'll be using it a lot more in the Fall."

Enjoy the presentation (it is worth watching for both content and style).....of course the next step is to figure out a tool we can get into students hands for rapid authoring.

What's Chrome *really* about?

One of my favorite columnists, Bob Cringely, has a post this week on Chrome and why Google is bothering to do it.

Mr Bob thinks that Google is doing this:
* to get some counter play against Microsoft, should MS ever turn off the ad capability in IE;
* to enable it to do really good stuff with Google apps (the often mediocre support for Javascript in browsers hinders Google from doing anything but generic stuff in Google docs).

Cringely suggests that Google's not really invested in Chrome. By using Webkit and open source--so goes this logic--Google can help give a technology boost to non-IE browsers, which in turn gives them greater market share, which in turn leaves Microsoft less in control of things. Hence according to this logic, Google would actually welcome Mozilla's winning a "battle" with Chrome, as long as it keeps the major browsers advancing technically, in an more open environment, and out of the totalitarian control of evil Microsoft.

By the way, according to this column, IE8 is bad. Here's a pertinent quote from the column:

Google's main concern is quite simple: Browsers should render pages accurately, and the JavaScript engine in the browser should be fast, efficient, and bug free. On both counts, IE8 is an abomination. JScript just doesn't behave very well and is buggy. And, IE's page-rendering engine simply does not follow the standard. Because of this, Google has to keep development on their Google Applications quite generic and simply cannot implement the features they want. You'll also notice that Microsoft recently has been putting on some very compelling web content that is only available if you use Windows and IE.

Speaking of decorous language

Today we've discussed a few times the tone of the discourse that is appropriate for this blog. Well how about this one.

I just discovered something done by a group called My Fat Brain. It's called "You suck at Photoshop." It's a Photoshop tutorial. You can view them at the My Fat Brain site, and of course there is YouTube as well.

As you might guess, it's a tutorial with an attitude. They are narrated by Donnie Hoyle. Donnie is fictional but that doesn't prevent him from having his own Facebook account. Just listen to a bit of the first lesson and you'll hear that it's not just the title that has an, well, earthy quality to it.

I was just thinking, what an opportunity for Dartmouth to practice leadership! Can't you see it now: "You suck at Philosophy," "You suck at Anthropology," "You suck at Art History" etc. No other school would be offering courses with titles like these; we'd be the first!! Or we could even use this for our own workshop series: "You suck at Blackboard" etc etc.

What do you think... do we have a future here?

Chrome

I'm out of if again. Had not heard about Google's open source browser, Chrome. And apparently they have hired comics expert Scott McCloud to explain this new browser in, well, comics. This according to Tidbits. And for a bit more on the technology of Chrome, here's post on Google blogoscoped. Apparently the "browser will include a JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8, built from scratch by a team in Denmark."

The McCloud graphics are here.

Platform, not panacea

I'm guessing that we all came away with the same impression from today's Bb NG session: underwhelmed, close but no cigar, etc. But I think we came away from our Moodle viewing with somewhat the same impression: some good and interesting ideas, but nothing that will rescue us from our challenges. At least, that's my initial take on this.

So it's instructive to have had close looks at Moodle and NG both within the same week. No magic bullet.

Given that, it strikes me that the real question for the gap analysis is not whether there's a application that will, by itself, take us there. Rather, which gives us a better platform, basis, or foundation for moving away from a course management system and towards a learning management system. We will always have to do back-end integration, we will always have to look for enhancements, etc, no matter which one we alight on.

So the bottom line questions for the gap analysis could be:

* which one, by itself, takes us closer to the goal of a learning management system;

* which one gives us a more robust foundation on which to add our enhancements, integration, etc?

New Cross-Platform Rapid Authoring / Lecture Capture Tool from Camtasia - Relay

Check it out at http://www.techsmith.com/camtasiarelay.asp

I sent a message to sign-up for the free beta.....

This could be appealing if Techsmith has amped up Jing - done something simple, cross-platform.....just easy.  We will see.

Here is the demo video http://video.techsmith.com/relay/demo/overview/enu/default.asp

Web 2.0 in Blackboard Software at EKU - We Could Have Students Producing

I'll admit to getting a kick out of folks producing media who would have never been media producers in the past - particularly when the subject relates to educational technology.

The EKU video may be a bit hokey - but I think demonstrates what we could be doing if we could find a way to get students to produce materials like this.  You can read about how the video was produced here - take home message is that the tools are simple and cheap.

Screenflow Demo

Barbara let me know about this new application - screenflow - which seems very smooth and powerful.  I'm still debating - it is $85 educational pricing.

It is Mac/Leopard only.....so it is not a general tool...but may be worth thinking about for doing our screencasts - as it provides options not available with SnapZPro (or Jing)

Check out a QuickTime I made with the system (48 second)
http://media.dartmouth.edu/~blackboard/screencasts/screenflow%20demo.mov

What do you guys think?

The limits (or aggravations) of "for free"

OK, so like Mr. Wired says, the new price tag for stuff from the Web 2.0 is $0.0. Who can argue against free?

Except that it's not free. It runs on advertising and there are costs to that.

This came home to me just now as I was accessing a review on eWeek. The post is a review of an application that is a front end to Amazon storage.

The site keeps popping up ads in a very annoying way. Also look at paragraphs 2 and 3. See the links? You would think: "links to background information on this." Wrong. Trying following the links and see where you end up.

Take a look.

What do you think? Am I just overly sensitive? Not only does all this advertising get in the way, it's crassly manipulative. Makes me want to give up on eWeek altogether.

On a lighter note

Here's a site claiming to document the "12 worst Photoshop mistakes ever." I particularly like the one from Sports Illustrated and the breakfast cereal Curves.

Moral of the story: images are no longer evidence of anything!

Authors@Google - Great Model for the College

Nowadays I don't really miss being TV-less....as the whole family seems to get enough screen-time thanks to online video.....One example is a talk by Sam Gosling - who wrote a book I just finished Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You talking about his research at a June 17 authors@Google Talk.

It is so wonderful to get to see a book talk from the comfort of my own couch - as the seeing (and listening) to the author seems to add so much to the experience of reading the book.

I also watched a very good talk from Richard Florida - author of Who's Your City: How the Creative Economy is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

Seems like this would be a great model to copy here at the College - if Google can get so many authors to come in and give talks and then post them up on the Web (with questions from the audience)...seems like we could do the same....(and get them out there on YouTube). 

ECAR Research Bulletin: Web 2.0, Personal Learning Environments, and the Future of Learning Management Systems

Download ERB0813.pdf

This has been kicking around on some of our desks for a week or so - and I just now had the chance to read it.  Well worth the time. 

The author ends with some key questions to ask:

• What is the appropriate blend of in-house and externally hosted online learning systems for my institution?
• What are the support implications of using free software either hosted externally or on local servers?
• What legal, technical, and other issues should be incorporated in an institutional strategy for the integration and use of social networking sites for our students?

Some of the goals we have talked about in terms of moving beyond course based silos are also addressed.  There are no easy answers - but some of the questions are relevant to our look at the CMS landscape.

Beyond the blog

OK, so this blog is going pretty well so far. Cool.

Our colleagues and UNC have taken a different approach. Take a look at their capturepedia.

Looks to me to be a site that captures information into organized categories, a kind of collective notebook on various T&L technologies. Andrew Faunce pointed this out to me today.

This capturepedia is a different beast from our blog. While it appears to collectively gather and organize bits of information, it also seems to focus on specific technology times. Hence it preserves collective insight but on a more narrow focus.

I'm not suggesting we need to change this blog. But this capturepedia is an approach that might complement the blog.

Video - Future of Content

Okay...I'm a sucker for these things.....But music is good....and I think these are in reach of our students making in a wide variety of courses. V

On favorite economists and past employers

Paul Krugman (both Barbara's favorite economist) has a good Op-Ed today - Bits, Bands and Books...familiar stuff elegantly composed.  My vote would be to get Krugman to be the keynoter at our Open Symposium - to get him to talk about how he sees the move to "open" and changes in technology impacting higher ed.

Was amused to see the Chronicle report Britannica...my employer during the great dot-com bubbleish times of 1999-2001 - is now going to "open up" the online Encyclopaedia for user generated content.  Looks like I missed the boat by a few years (maybe they will call me again?).  Believe me, if Britannica can open up - anyone can open up.

Media white paper got me thinking - We Can Find What We Need

Source

Google I/O

Google apparently hosted a conference in San Francisco, called Google I/O. The Google Watch blog has a post that summarizes the event. It appears the event was jammed packed in terms of attendance. The summary makes it clear how powerfully Google is on the ascendancy. Things like

* Wordpress and myspace doing Gears;
* the backing for Google's OpenSocial;
* their showing Android prototypes that have iPhone-like features.

Who knows? Maybe conferences of this kind may be ones we need to attend in the future.

Basecamp Tour

Watched the screencasts on Basecamp http://basecamphq.com/tour

Good for both showing features of the tool....and as examples of how screencasts are an excellent teaching tool (rapid authoring.....).    Looking forward to incorporating this tool into our workflow.  Maybe sharing SMART goals through system so we can both view and support each other in out goals (as they are tied to projects).

Adobe Buzzword

Wow, cool. Look out Google Docs!

Buzzword: http://www.buzzword.com

Very nice Comments feature and "bubble comments for grading" hmmm...

4 stages of a technology's history

I just caught up with a TED talk, delivered by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, on the four stages of the diffusion of new technology.

In the attached Word document, I have captured my notes on his idea. There's more in his presentation than what I have in these notes; I was wanting to capture the four stage model. (the screen shots are fuzzy as they are grabs of Flash video).

Stage 1: technology achieves a price tipping point, where the price is generally perceived as no longer a barrier to acquisition; stage 2, critical mass of adoption (he cites examples of 20% of households with DVDs, 2% of the car market now hybrids; stage 3, displacement where some long standing tech is displaced (the VCR in the case of the DVD), and stage 4, where it becomes free or nearly free (example $48 DVD players from China).

Download ChrisAnderson.doc