Well, the last day of the conference was the least productive. During the last session of the day (about e-portfolios)the presenter actually stood up and said, "I wasn't expecting this many people. Who are are the IT folks? This presentation is for faculty explaining the very basics of e-portfolios." She then paused as if asking some of us to leave. It was pretty bad.
Other then a couple bad presentations it was a great conference. In this last post I thought I'd share a list of interesting and useful websites that I discovered while at this conference:
http://blabberize.com You have to see this to believe it! Upload a photo and audio and then you can have your picture's "mouth" move to your audio. It is hilarious.
http://toondoo.com Using templates and flash objects, easily great online comic-strip like objects. Here is an example http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/289696
http://bubbleshare.com A nice looking photo sharing website.
http://wiziq.com Free (for up to 10 people at a time) virtual classroom. Why spend thousands of dollars for Connect, Echo360, Illuminate, etc. when this tool is free!)
http://dimdim.com Free web meeting where you can share your desktop, show slides, collaborate, chat, talk and broadcast via webcam with absolutely no download required for attendees.
http://.www.acroflip.com Create 3D virtual page turning flash brochures and catalogues instantly, online - FREE!
http://flock.com A browser for people who like to social network.
http://www.wayfaring.com/ Create personalized maps that you can share with friends, or collaborate with others.
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ A fantastic way to manage your to-do lists online. It works with google, twitter, outlook, iPhone/iPod Touch, etc.
http://www.commoncraft.com -Great explanation videos about many different web 2.0 technologies
http://readthewords.com Application that will read the text of a web page, see an example of it here: http://thinkingmachine.pbwiki.com
http://voicethread.com Collaborate online with a contributing to a discussion using almost any media (cell phone, text, video, mic, etc.)
http://jumpspot.com This site keeps track of all of your bookmarks / favorites on the web so you can get to them on any computer at any time. It gives you a way to organize your favorite web sites into easy to use categories such as shopping, travel, or email. This way you can group the sites together that you use most often.
http://polleverywhere.com Vote with your phone or web, great for live classroom polls. No need to buy clickers anymore!
http://zohopolls.com Another free polling site.
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o (a vision of students today)
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
EduComm Conference day 2
Today was another good day at the conference, but there weren't as many interesting sessions today. The one that I was really excited for ended up being a bit of a bore. I did discover a whole bunch of great web 2.0 sites and got some great ideas about how to use them. I'm on my way to a comedy club tonight so I don't think I'll have time to write as detailed a post for today.
For my wife (and anybody who wants to be jealous of my accommodations) here is a short video I made of my hotel room I'm staying at. I thought it was a mistake when I walked in the room. I don't think I paid for this nice of a room, but hey I'll take it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pW184N9rIno
For my wife (and anybody who wants to be jealous of my accommodations) here is a short video I made of my hotel room I'm staying at. I thought it was a mistake when I walked in the room. I don't think I paid for this nice of a room, but hey I'll take it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pW184N9rIno
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
EduComm Conference Notes
Here are my notes and thoughts from the first day of the EduComm 2008 conference in Las Vegas:
Arrival: June 17th, 2008
I arrived at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada for the Educomm Conference and was amazed by the service and lavishness of the hotel. It is quite nice. I’ve taken some video and photos so I can remember (and show off) how nice it is. Needless to say I was not expecting such comfortable surroundings for the amount that is being paid. I think Trump is trying to get people to say nice things about the hotel by upgrading their room. Well it worked.
June 18th, 2008: Day One
Today was a great day. There were several very valuable things that I learned.
Key note speaker: David Pogue
David Pogue works for the NYTimes and writes their technology reviews. He has also authored several “Dummies” books and also has a video podcast where he reviews technology gadgets. He is a former drama guy so everything he does is a performance. He obviously puts a lot of thought and effort into making technology information fun and easy for the regular guy to understand.
His presentation was fairly interesting- he spoke about web 2.0- mostly blogs and podcasts. I was a little frustrated because the conference usually supplies a nice little notebook and pen, but not this year. So, my notes are mostly in my mind. He ended his presentation with a couple spoof-songs, such as “I bought an iPod” (to the tune of “I did it my way”), and “Imagine there’s no podcasts” (yup, you guessed it, “Imagine all the people”-Jon Lennon should roll over in his grave). Actually these songs are pretty funny, but they have already made it on the Youtube circuit so I was already familiar with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vniMR6Ez9cE –Ipod song.
So, I really like David Pogue because he was the keynote speaker last year and I thought he was funny. This year, he delivered pretty much the exact same thing. Yes, he was funny, but I didn’t learn very much this time around. I commented to a co-worker “that speech was so two years ago”. He did mention a couple of websites I haven’t heard of before:
•http://propser.com -get and receive loans as an alternative to high interest rate credit cards.
•http://goloco.com -Find people to do the jobs you don't want to (or find odd jobs you can do to earn some extra money).
•http://kiva.com -lend money to those in developing countries to help them get out of poverty.
•http://whoissick.com -put your symptoms in and find out how many people in your area are sick like you.
1st session: Podcasting-
Next up was a session about podcasting which I was anxious to see so I could get some magical way to podcast without any thought. So, there was some good news and some bad news. First the bad: no matter what it is either easy and expensive or it is cheap and difficult (but not impossible). The good news is that I am not alone, this was a jam packed session, and everybody was dealing with the same kind of issues. I also found out about a great web site that is free and is such an amazing idea. It is a podcast driven by cell phones. It is at http://gabcast.com . After you set up an account you will be given a phone number. When you call in and leave a message, it goes directly to a podcast. You can also give the number to other participants (like students) and they can add their voice to the podcast. This idea floored me. Oh, and by the way it is FREE! Of course you have to sign up for a new channel every time your podcast is almost to its maximum allowed size (before you start getting charged).
The presentation had quite a few good websites and links. A funny one was a David Letterman video here: http://sleepy.gcsu.edu/iPod/Letterman/
The presentation can be found here: http://ids.truman.edu/presentations/educomm2008
Booths and vendors:
I wandered around the EduComm booths and the InfoComm booths next to see what kind of new products are out there. There were a couple that I found interesting:
http://getchunkit.com This is such a cool idea. It will allow you to take your search results from Google, craigslist, ebay, whatever and then you run a search on those results and it finds the text on all of the pages and puts it in a side navigation pane (you still see the original site you were on in the main frame) where you can better see what the search results are. I think this tool is pretty neat, but it needs to partner with a tool like stumbleupon.com to really become amazing. Plus, I’m getting tired of all of these programs that keep on adding new toolbars to my browser.
Echo360 (formerly Apreso). This company has spent a fortune getting a huge room set up with an island vacation theme (they are calling it the aptly named “Echo-oasis”). First off, I have not been very impressed with Apreso in the past, basically it was a Microsoft based classroom capture software. There were some major drawbacks to it (besides price)- for example it was very proprietary- and required a Microsoft OS, a server, and hardware for the classroom. Plus, there was no ability to edit the capture. Well, they fixed all of these things with their latest version. I think they are a legitimate option for doing classroom capture. It also has an automated podcasting tool which I was pretty impressed with. My main problem with it is that I think most classes aren’t worth capturing. Seriously, it could be an amazing lecture and it gets captured in an amazing way, but students aren’t going to watch it because it is boring to stare at your computer for 1-2 hours. I see the value as a review tool, but not something to rely on. I guess it kind of comes back to the idea that I don’t like lecture classes. If you just lecture, then sure, record it (in your office) and then suddenly you have lots of time where you can re-enforce learning during class time.
Last Session of the Day:
I went to a session by Mississippi state about Digital Asset Management. I was fascinated by what they have done. They have created software that will allow faculty to automatically podcast their entire course with virtually no effort (put microphone on- that’s all!). They realized that what they did with podcasts would actually be a valuable tool for other types of documents. So, they created a content management system that interacts with their course management system and ther student information system. The key to their success was some superstar programmer who has written this program for them. Too bad Westminster doesn’t have the man power to create something like this from scratch. However, I think that there are open source products and even affordable Microsoft (SharePoint) products that can accomplish the same tasks, but much more. The only thing you give up is the nifty podcasting application, and easy integration with the student information system.
Lastly:
I met with Chris (my fellow PBBA techy) after a session that he attended on Second Life and we had one of the most passionate, interesting conversations about the direction of educational technology I have ever had. We talked about the need for students to be involved in the development of the content of their learning. Specifically we think that the wiki tool that we are developing for the PBBA program at Westminster needs to be made available to students to edit. Currently, to keep faculty happy we have been saying that students will not have ability to edit our wiki. This is like a “I’m the teacher and I know more than the students”. The truth is, that having a PHD or a teaching license does not make you smarter than a collective group of learners. There are so many benefits by allowing students equal opportunity to contribute to as the teacher. The teacher than takes on a mentor or coach role rather than the expert role. Perhaps the best idea we had was the idea of giving students access to the pbba wiki for life, that way when they contribute something they are contributing to something that is going to be around for a long time, and how great would that be if they came back later as a professional and contributed to the knowledge of the wiki so new students get the benefit of their experience. Another nice side benefit is that alumni will be attached to the school for a longer period of time. What if every time they have a business problem, they consult the wiki? Or, what if every time they come up with an innovative solution to a problem, they share that with all the other PBBA wiki alumni? Ok, this list is getting long, but one last benefit. By encouraging student participation you are teaching students how to learn and teach themselves- a skill that will help them their entire life. Plus, the students will retain and apply the material better if they have spent the time sorting through search data and analyzing the validity of the material.
Arrival: June 17th, 2008
I arrived at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada for the Educomm Conference and was amazed by the service and lavishness of the hotel. It is quite nice. I’ve taken some video and photos so I can remember (and show off) how nice it is. Needless to say I was not expecting such comfortable surroundings for the amount that is being paid. I think Trump is trying to get people to say nice things about the hotel by upgrading their room. Well it worked.
June 18th, 2008: Day One
Today was a great day. There were several very valuable things that I learned.
Key note speaker: David Pogue
David Pogue works for the NYTimes and writes their technology reviews. He has also authored several “Dummies” books and also has a video podcast where he reviews technology gadgets. He is a former drama guy so everything he does is a performance. He obviously puts a lot of thought and effort into making technology information fun and easy for the regular guy to understand.
His presentation was fairly interesting- he spoke about web 2.0- mostly blogs and podcasts. I was a little frustrated because the conference usually supplies a nice little notebook and pen, but not this year. So, my notes are mostly in my mind. He ended his presentation with a couple spoof-songs, such as “I bought an iPod” (to the tune of “I did it my way”), and “Imagine there’s no podcasts” (yup, you guessed it, “Imagine all the people”-Jon Lennon should roll over in his grave). Actually these songs are pretty funny, but they have already made it on the Youtube circuit so I was already familiar with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vniMR6Ez9cE –Ipod song.
So, I really like David Pogue because he was the keynote speaker last year and I thought he was funny. This year, he delivered pretty much the exact same thing. Yes, he was funny, but I didn’t learn very much this time around. I commented to a co-worker “that speech was so two years ago”. He did mention a couple of websites I haven’t heard of before:
•http://propser.com -get and receive loans as an alternative to high interest rate credit cards.
•http://goloco.com -Find people to do the jobs you don't want to (or find odd jobs you can do to earn some extra money).
•http://kiva.com -lend money to those in developing countries to help them get out of poverty.
•http://whoissick.com -put your symptoms in and find out how many people in your area are sick like you.
1st session: Podcasting-
Next up was a session about podcasting which I was anxious to see so I could get some magical way to podcast without any thought. So, there was some good news and some bad news. First the bad: no matter what it is either easy and expensive or it is cheap and difficult (but not impossible). The good news is that I am not alone, this was a jam packed session, and everybody was dealing with the same kind of issues. I also found out about a great web site that is free and is such an amazing idea. It is a podcast driven by cell phones. It is at http://gabcast.com . After you set up an account you will be given a phone number. When you call in and leave a message, it goes directly to a podcast. You can also give the number to other participants (like students) and they can add their voice to the podcast. This idea floored me. Oh, and by the way it is FREE! Of course you have to sign up for a new channel every time your podcast is almost to its maximum allowed size (before you start getting charged).
The presentation had quite a few good websites and links. A funny one was a David Letterman video here: http://sleepy.gcsu.edu/iPod/Letterman/
The presentation can be found here: http://ids.truman.edu/presentations/educomm2008
Booths and vendors:
I wandered around the EduComm booths and the InfoComm booths next to see what kind of new products are out there. There were a couple that I found interesting:
http://getchunkit.com This is such a cool idea. It will allow you to take your search results from Google, craigslist, ebay, whatever and then you run a search on those results and it finds the text on all of the pages and puts it in a side navigation pane (you still see the original site you were on in the main frame) where you can better see what the search results are. I think this tool is pretty neat, but it needs to partner with a tool like stumbleupon.com to really become amazing. Plus, I’m getting tired of all of these programs that keep on adding new toolbars to my browser.
Echo360 (formerly Apreso). This company has spent a fortune getting a huge room set up with an island vacation theme (they are calling it the aptly named “Echo-oasis”). First off, I have not been very impressed with Apreso in the past, basically it was a Microsoft based classroom capture software. There were some major drawbacks to it (besides price)- for example it was very proprietary- and required a Microsoft OS, a server, and hardware for the classroom. Plus, there was no ability to edit the capture. Well, they fixed all of these things with their latest version. I think they are a legitimate option for doing classroom capture. It also has an automated podcasting tool which I was pretty impressed with. My main problem with it is that I think most classes aren’t worth capturing. Seriously, it could be an amazing lecture and it gets captured in an amazing way, but students aren’t going to watch it because it is boring to stare at your computer for 1-2 hours. I see the value as a review tool, but not something to rely on. I guess it kind of comes back to the idea that I don’t like lecture classes. If you just lecture, then sure, record it (in your office) and then suddenly you have lots of time where you can re-enforce learning during class time.
Last Session of the Day:
I went to a session by Mississippi state about Digital Asset Management. I was fascinated by what they have done. They have created software that will allow faculty to automatically podcast their entire course with virtually no effort (put microphone on- that’s all!). They realized that what they did with podcasts would actually be a valuable tool for other types of documents. So, they created a content management system that interacts with their course management system and ther student information system. The key to their success was some superstar programmer who has written this program for them. Too bad Westminster doesn’t have the man power to create something like this from scratch. However, I think that there are open source products and even affordable Microsoft (SharePoint) products that can accomplish the same tasks, but much more. The only thing you give up is the nifty podcasting application, and easy integration with the student information system.
Lastly:
I met with Chris (my fellow PBBA techy) after a session that he attended on Second Life and we had one of the most passionate, interesting conversations about the direction of educational technology I have ever had. We talked about the need for students to be involved in the development of the content of their learning. Specifically we think that the wiki tool that we are developing for the PBBA program at Westminster needs to be made available to students to edit. Currently, to keep faculty happy we have been saying that students will not have ability to edit our wiki. This is like a “I’m the teacher and I know more than the students”. The truth is, that having a PHD or a teaching license does not make you smarter than a collective group of learners. There are so many benefits by allowing students equal opportunity to contribute to as the teacher. The teacher than takes on a mentor or coach role rather than the expert role. Perhaps the best idea we had was the idea of giving students access to the pbba wiki for life, that way when they contribute something they are contributing to something that is going to be around for a long time, and how great would that be if they came back later as a professional and contributed to the knowledge of the wiki so new students get the benefit of their experience. Another nice side benefit is that alumni will be attached to the school for a longer period of time. What if every time they have a business problem, they consult the wiki? Or, what if every time they come up with an innovative solution to a problem, they share that with all the other PBBA wiki alumni? Ok, this list is getting long, but one last benefit. By encouraging student participation you are teaching students how to learn and teach themselves- a skill that will help them their entire life. Plus, the students will retain and apply the material better if they have spent the time sorting through search data and analyzing the validity of the material.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
I need a Second Life because my life is so great.
For those who don't know what Second Life is, it is an online community that tries very hard to imitate real life by using virtual reality. Here is a video from one of my favorite shows The Office:
Second Life has become very popular in the last few years. It has also become a trendy tool to use in higher education. I have spent many hours in second life and have even attended a workshop about S.L. in education. I don't claim to be an expert on it by any means, but I have used it just enough to have some opinions. Every so often I'll have a professor come up to me and ask me "Should I be using Second Life?" Well, I don't have a great answer, but I believe that it is a tool with tremendous potential, but I don't think most faculty and teachers are ready for it. Second life has potential to someday change the way online education works, but it requires some effort. The next generation of teachers is likely to be equipped to take advantage of it.
People take on a different personality online then they do in real life- obviously the anonymity of being online makes peoples inhibitions disappear. The question is: is this a good thing or a bad thing? It can be great for the shy individual who can overcome their fears. It can be bad because people can spend so much time in the virtual world that the skills needed in the real world aren't developed.
I've been considering holding a virtual class this summer in Second Life. What do you think, is this a good idea? If you are one of my students, would you like to do this?
Second Life has become very popular in the last few years. It has also become a trendy tool to use in higher education. I have spent many hours in second life and have even attended a workshop about S.L. in education. I don't claim to be an expert on it by any means, but I have used it just enough to have some opinions. Every so often I'll have a professor come up to me and ask me "Should I be using Second Life?" Well, I don't have a great answer, but I believe that it is a tool with tremendous potential, but I don't think most faculty and teachers are ready for it. Second life has potential to someday change the way online education works, but it requires some effort. The next generation of teachers is likely to be equipped to take advantage of it.
People take on a different personality online then they do in real life- obviously the anonymity of being online makes peoples inhibitions disappear. The question is: is this a good thing or a bad thing? It can be great for the shy individual who can overcome their fears. It can be bad because people can spend so much time in the virtual world that the skills needed in the real world aren't developed.
I've been considering holding a virtual class this summer in Second Life. What do you think, is this a good idea? If you are one of my students, would you like to do this?
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