Ben's Blog

Time to start blogging again

2011-01-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

I am a little embarrassed. I have not written in my blog for a long, long time. Part of the reason is because I started a new one as part of my applying to PhD programs, but it cost money so I stopped using it.

I am also starting back up again because I have a new position at Westminster College. Sadly this means that I do not work as part of the Division of New Learning anymore; however, I am excited to be part of the IS department once again! My new title is "Learning Technology Facilitator". If you are like most people you are thinking "huh?" Well, I'm not sure yet what it means either.

As part of starting this new position I am trying a few things. I would like to be in more contact with faculty and students at Westminster. I'd also like to help push the amazing learning technologies that are available. My first big project will likely be to help the nursing program develop a better online presence.

I have moved my desk (this is my 4th desk at Westminster). Here you can see a picture of me in my new cubicle. Not very exciting, but I am happy with what I've got.

So, for those of you who started following this blog a long time ago, get use to seeing a new post every so often. If you are new, you'll see that my topics often relate to what I am working on, but I'll often share personal things as well. If you are interested in only one or the other, just get use to skimming the stuff you aren't interested in. But I'm sure everything I say is interesting so I doubt many people will do that.

Lessons learned in China

2009-10-28T20:45:00.000-07:00

My trip to China was amazing. I had a great time and learned a lot. Overall I'd say our learning system will work in China. Sight seeing was fun, but mostly Terrie and I enjoyed the shopping. Below are some of the lessons I learned while in China.

Lesson one- All the web 2.0 sites I use (such as this blog) don't work in China. I was planning on updating my blog on a daily basis as well as my Facebook and Twitter status. Of course if I had thought for a minute I would have remembered that none of these sites work in China.

Lesson two- Video sucks in China. YouTube didn't work, but Viddler did. Well, it wasn't blocked, but it still took at least 30 seconds for videos to play. I should not have been surprised by this, but I still found it weird that the people I talked to haven’t ever heard of YouTube. Although Viddler worked, it did not work very fast. Our biggest challenge seems to be streaming video.

Lesson three- There are decent server hosting solutions in China. China telecom is the hosting company run by the government. It basically hosts everything. We got a price from them equal to about 10K/year which does not include any service at all. if something goes wrong and we need a hard reboot- we have to hire somebody to go in for us and turn it off. We then met with a sub contractor who quoted us a price that was only a third of the price and included 24/7 support. So, what should we choose; cheap with service, or expensive with no service? Seemed like an easy decision for me- but apparently China Telecom is what everybody uses because it is so much more secure.

Lesson four- Test speeds indicate that most of our Westminster specific tools work great in China. Some of the test speeds are a little hard to interpret. Some of our wiki pages loaded in less than 3 seconds, and most less than 10 seconds. The video’s we tried to play took between 15-30 seconds to begin playing. The results were pretty consistent between testing on campus, in the hotel, and an internet café. Unfortunately things were noticeably slower when we ran our tests at our interpreter’s house (it was a DSL line but only got speeds of about 500 kbps which might explain the slow load time).

Lesson five- Shopping in the bargain markets is fun especially once you realize how to play the barter game. Always offer 25% of their first offer and stick with it. I love how many of them would finally break down and give me the price I wanted because we were “friends”.

China: Browser tests

2009-10-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

While in China I'm going to be testing how quickly our Westminster sites load- particularly our LMS, wiki, and web conferencing tools. To do this test we are going to be taking at three laptops and we will purchase one there. We will be running tests from the hotel, on campus, at a student home, and from an internet cafe.

I have assumed that I should be performing these tests with Internet Explorer. I've heard that China tends to use mostly Microsoft products, but I thought before I go that I'd do a speed test while still in Utah so I have a comparison. I don't use I.E. very often, so I decided to run my own browser comparison to see what is the best browser for the Westminster IT system.

The browsers I've used to compare are:

Internet Explorer 8.0.6
Firefox 3.5.3
Google Chrome 3.0.1
Safari 4.0.3

The complete results can be seen on this Google Doc: Division of New Learning Browser Test.

There were 27 sites that got tested. Here is a table which shows the total number of sites where each browser was best and worse.

Browser	Best	Worst
Internet Explorer	3	17
Firefox	9	3
Chrome	7	2
Safari	8	5

I find it interesting that IE is the most popular browser in the world, but from what I've seen it has the worst performance.

I'm going to China!

2009-10-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be in China the next week and I'm going to try to blog about this as much as possible. My wife is going to be blogging about more of the fun/sight seeing stuff that we do, so you might want to check it out if you are wanting the fun stuff. I'm going to try to blog as many of the technical lessons that I learn about. My hope is that by recording my thoughts while I'm there I won't forget some of the valuable lessons I'm sure to learn while there.

At Westminster we have been building a relationship with a University in Shanghai. The relationship is going to come into fruition next fall when we launch a partner degree.I get to go on a visit to their campus so I can see what their technology systems are like. I'll be testing our online learning tools and trying to figure out how well our servers work from China.

Basically I know very little at this point. I have a few assumptions, but I'm basically going into this without knowing what to expect. I've got a list of tests that I'm going to be running while I'm there, but if anybody reading this has any suggestions or questions that I should be researching while I'm there feel free to ask them in the comments.

Is Tech-Addiction Bad for Learning?

2009-09-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

I was just trying out Google Fast-Flip (http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/) which is a new "labs" project by google. Their attempt to rule the world, er um, I mean make information easier to view on the web. Looks nice. The first article that really stuck out at me that I came across was: Tech Addiction Harms Learning which was posted in the education section of the BBC UK website.

The article begins by saying:

"Technology addiction among young people is having a disruptive effect on their learning, researchers have warned. Their report concluded that modern gadgets worsened pupils' spelling and concentration, encouraged plagiarism and disrupted lessons."

The beginning of this article already has me upset. I can just picture the researchers who came up with this study are old-brown-elbow-patch types who hate that they are becoming irrelevant because their lectures aren't as interesting as cell phones. To prove their point- get this- they actually handed out paper surveys!

Ring!!!! Ring !!!!! Um, excuse me, it's for you, 1999 wants their paper survey back.

Of course paying attention to a lecturer is difficult while texting. Of course spelling is worse when people are use to spell-checkers. Of course technology makes it easy to plagiarize. I'm dissapointed that the study did not find that their cursive handwriting and abacus skills are also waning due to technology. Why did we need to get a survey to tell us these things?

From the article: "The research said technology drove a social lifestyle that involved a strong desire to keep in touch with friends." How dare people want to socialize more! I wonder if these are the same people who say that Facebook/Twitter/texting are the cause of our society becoming more antisocial? What is it? Too social or too antisocial?

It doesn't matter. Why does it matter if technology makes us too social (or too antisocial)? Or if it makes us bad at speling (yes, I'm being funny, not dumb)? The technology is not going away, the youth who use the technology are not going away. Instead of pointing at the negative aspects of technology use in the old paradigm, we should be focusing on how we can use it to increase learning in the new paradigm.

Learning doesn't just happen in a classroom. Learning happens when information is applied and synthesized. Today's learners are capable of multi-tasking and quickly digesting massive amounts of information. It is the job of education institutions to create better digital citizens, who can navigate these incredible learning tools, contribute to learning communities, and filter the information that has little worth.

TTIX Conference

2009-06-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

I am attending the TTIX conference today, (Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange). Yesterday I attended the pre-conference workshop on Personal Learning Environments (PLE). So far so good, I am excited to learn some more today. I'm doing most of my notes on Twitter, so if you want to see my notes you can go to Twitter -bneiswender- and see what I've posted so far.

It is refreshing to interact with people who do the same things that I do, and are trying to figure out the things I'm trying to figure out. What is really great is that this conference is only about 35 minutes from home- so I don't have to leave my family.

My New favorite Internet Comedians: Rhett and Link

2009-05-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this isn't very edu-tech heavy, but I have enjoyed their goofy music videos I just had to post a couple.

Blackboard this is ANGEL, ANGEL this is Blackboard

2009-05-06T14:28:00.001-07:00

My world just got rocked!

I just found out that Blackboard will be acquiring ANGEL. If you have no idea what I am talking about- then you probably do not work in the education technology industry. Blackboard is the "Microsoft" of learning management systems (LMS). ANGEL is the "Apple" of LMS's. A learning management system makes it easy for faculty to create online learning experiences for their learners with tools such as discussion boards, live chats, document sharing, assessments, surveys and online grade-books.

A few years ago Westminster was a user of WebCT which was at the time only slightly smaller in market share than Blackboard. Blackboard purchased WebCT- thus becoming the largest LMS provider by a long shot. There were only a few small companies- that basically had to compete with Blackboard.

You would think these other small companies wouldn't stand a chance. We began to shop around and came across ANGEL and were blown away by the simplicity of their system, their customer service and their vision for where on-line-learning was heading. There were two factors that were very important to us:

1-Modern. ANGEL doesn't look like it was built in some dude's basement in 1997. Because of it being built with better technology it has stayed current better than WebCT/Blackboard.

2- Flexibility. ANGEL only had a small handful of clients. We liked that because we were a small school but got treated like we were a big school. We could make product recommendations and they actually listened to us. What made it even better was they could actually change their product every year and make it better. WebCT rarely made big changes that improved the product because there were too many big schools who couldn't deal with big changes every year.

It was an easy choice to drop WebCT/Blackboard and move to ANGEL- and although our transition wasn't perfect- it was surprisingly smooth. ANGEL is sooooo much easier for faculty to understand and use. I have been proud that I played a big role in moving Westminster to ANGEL.

I'm not sure how to react to the news of the merger- but I am certainly shocked. I feel like I did when Blackboard bought WebCT- "oh no- how can I get out of this?!?" My guess is that there is going to be at least 1-2 years before anything drastic happens with our version of ANGEL, but I would anticipate higher prices, a name change, and being asked lots of questions that I don't know the answer to yet.

It is clear to me that it is time to start looking at new solutions for LMS's- there are so many tools that do similar things but are much less expensive, more flexible, and easier to use. For example, I've found it very easy to do many of the same curriculum type things using a free wiki tool such as http://wik.is. Why pay for an LMS when a wiki does many of the same things, but better? If you are looking for an online gradebook/assessment tool- why not use a tool like Foliotek (http://foliotek.com). In fact- there are even some great open source LMS's available such as Moodle and Sakai.

Interesting enough- yesterday I already started my investigation into Moodle. I also signed up for a webinar from Blackboard on what they plan to do to support smaller institutions better.

I look forward to finding out more details and geek-ing out even more over the changes that are going to come.

Screen Casting

2009-04-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Screen casting is when you capture your computer screen in a video format to share with others at a later time. This is a fantastic way to instruct others on how to do things on a computer. I've been using screen casting for years now to show people how to do things on their computer so I don't have to re-demonstrate that particular task over and over. Screen casting is nothing new, it has been happening for a while- what is new is how easy it is and the vast amount of content that has been created. For a more technical explanation check out the wikipedia page about screen casting.

There is a screen cast for almost everything now. If you know where to find the screen casts- you can teach yourself how to do almost anything on the computer without paying for an instructor. Some of my favorite sites for screen casts (and many other instructional videos) are ehow.com and howcast.com

I recently found two great tools for free screen casting: CamStudio and ScreenCastle. CamStudio is a program that has been around for a while and has been used a lot. I've encouraged my students in the MED class I've been teaching to use it. Screencastle is my new favorite free tool. It is very easy to use and requires almost no technical skill to do it- and as soon as you are finished using it- it is live on the net. There are a few drawbacks such as it makes every screencast available to the world. It also does not have the ability to delete the junky stuff you upload. Below is a video of how to use it from the Screencastle website.

What is happening to the technology classroom?

2009-04-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, I teach as an adjunct professor at Westminster College in the School of Education. I teach the "Teaching with Technology" and/or the "Instructional Technology" courses. It isn't something that I do all the time but usually once or twice a year I get to teach a course. I love doing this! It helps me to keep current, and gives me the satisfaction of passing along some of the lessons I've learned.

Yesterday I was told that there is a good chance that the technology classes in the Westminster School of Education will be going away. There is a big push at Westminster (and many other schools) to help students be able to graduate in 4 years. This is particularly hard in the Westminster School of Education- there is a lot of "fat". I applaud the administration for making the choice to trim the fat.

I'm not happy that the technology classes are the first thing that the School of Education administration thought of slashing. This is a crushing blow to me personally, just because I enjoy teaching these classes, but mostly it makes me sad for the state of teaching. I think this shows a mentality that many educators have about technology. Typically decisions like this are made by people who don't understand technology. I think we should cut out all classes that I don't understand- let's cut all chemistry classes because I don't understand it- so it must not help anybody (I'm being sarcastic).

A colleague of mine has a mother who teaches in Arizona as a computer teacher. She has recently lost her job because the school district decided to integrate technology into the classroom- thus not needing the computer class anymore. While I find it fantastic that a school district would encourage technology integration into the classroom- it saddens me to think of removing these important classes from the school.

Here are some of the reasons why I am concerned by the trend of removing technology courses and the technology teacher from the classroom:

1. Technology needs an advocate. Without the technology teacher, there are very few faculty who will be innovative and push for technology integration in the classroom.

2. Faculty won't integrate unless they are given the resources. Obviously this is not true of all educators, but most of the faculty I know do not see the value of integrating technology in their courses. There is a reason why they teach and are not computer programmers.

3. Administrators often assume that students know technology "We don't need to teach them technology, they already know it". These students are often more technologically skilled; however, it isn't focused. Just because a kid knows how to use a cell phone, play video games and surf the internet does not mean they know how to use technology appropriately. Students need to be taught information literacy, ethical use of technology, and technology application relating to careers not just entertainment. Faculty need to be taught to be more like their students and explore and implement technology without fear.

4. The schools and teachers who turn their head at technology are the ones who are going to struggle in the years ahead. To those administrators who think technology can be cut- you clearly are out of touch with your profession. If you don't embrace it, you are going to be beaten by it.

I hope that Westminster does not cut the education technology classes, I hope I can still make a difference!

I'm Tweeting Now

2009-03-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

So, I've decided to try out Twitter. For those of you who aren't familiar with it- it is micro-blogging, which basically means that I post 1-2 sentences throughout the day describing what I am doing.

I know what many of you are thinking, "why?!?!". I'll tell you why, because everybody else is. I know that sounds like a terrible reason- but I am very curious to see why it has become such a big thing. I know it is really big in the tech community- so it is time I started to participate.

I can't imagine that anybody out there really wants to follow my daily thoughts and activities beyond what this blog does, but if you are so inclined to do this with me, sign up at http://twitter.com or just follow me at: http://twitter.com/bneiswender

On Friday March 27th, I'll be attending "PodCampSLC" and I'll try to "tweet" my activities and anything interesting that I come across.

Top Ten Education Technology Innovations

2009-03-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

I thought it would be interesting to give my list of the innovations that I believe have changed education the most in the last few years. In other words- these are being used by almost everybody and have had a direct relation to engaged learning.

10. Wireless Networking
9. Blogs
8. Classroom control systems/Smart Boards/Star Boards
7. Online Discussions and Chat Rooms
6. E-Portfolios
5. Web Conferencing and Lecture Capture
4. Podcasting
3. Email
2. Wikis
1. Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Honorable Mention: Online Exams and Surveys, Clickers (polling devices), Virtual Learning Environments (second life).

Here is my list of the top 5 innovations that will change education in the near future. In other words, if your school is not utilizing these technologies in the next two years you will be behind!

5. Cloud Computing
4. Personal Learning Environments
3. Social Networks
2. E-Book Readers
1. Mobile Devices

Honorable mentions: Netbooks, Mashups, Faculty Robots, Hover desks, and gym socks that don't get dirty.

If you think I've missed something, or disagree with something, leave a comment and in a week or two I'll give an updated version of my list.

Wiki Wiki Wiki

2009-03-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

The topic of wikis has been on my mind a lot lately. For those of you who are not familiar with the term wiki- here is my simple definition: A website that allows the typical viewer to become a contributer and editor of the site. At the bottom of this post I've embedded a video that explains wikis really well.

There are many different wiki companies. A year ago I did quite a bit of research and determined that the best wiki for my needs was done by a company called MindTouch Deki. The wiki they create is called DekiWiki. I've used their services for probably 5 different wikis. The thing that is so great about it is that anybody can create content. Here is a link to my family wiki: http://neis.wik.is.

While my family wiki is cute and nice for my family stuff, there is much greater application that I see. Wikis have changed my perception of teaching and learning. In the Bachelor of Business Administration program at Westminster College we have developed a wiki to host the entire curriculum. I'm amazed at the amount of information that has been composed for this wiki by a relative small group of people. My hope is that it will grow and grow over the next couple of years to the point where faculty don't have to do all the contributions- the community behind it will.

One last thought. Most people think of wikis are Wikipedia- wikis are not necessarily wikipedia. However, wikipedia is awesome, there is so much knowledge stored there it is mind boggling. However, there are many other wikis out there. The problem I see is that these wikis don't work together. I'd like to see somebody write a search engine that searches all wikis. Maybe it already exists? Maybe that should be my million dollar idea? Look out Google, here I come!

Cool new technology: Google Doc Forms

2009-02-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

This week I've learned about a cool tool called Google Doc Forms. Google Docs are a really cool tool that comes with a gmail account. It is basically online storage for your documents. The cool thing about it is you can create, edit, share these documents with other people and even see edits happen live. Google docs supports spreadsheets, text documents, and presentations. I've been using these for a while. For example, at church I'm suppose to help collect information about visits made each month along with 3 other guys who help collect this information. We have a Google doc spreadsheet that we all have access to and just go into every month and update. It is so simple and easy to use.

So I recently tried out some new features of Google Docs- called "forms". A Google Doc Form will allow you to create an online form and then have the data that is put into the form populate a spreadsheet. This has all kind of implications and uses. Below is an example of a form I created. The thing that is great is it took me almost no time to create this (seriously- like less than 3 minutes).

If you want to know the basics of Google Docs, here is a great video:

Here is a quick video I made on using google forms:

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Starting my blog up again

2009-02-20T07:38:00.001-08:00

I've decided to start up my blog again. I'm not sure that anybody besides me will find it useful, but I've just got too many things in my mind that I want to share with the world. I'm hoping it will be therapeutic to pause once in a while and reflect on some of the things going on in my life.

I've wondered what I should blog about. I kind of thought this blog should have a theme- probably something work related since Terrie does a great job blogging about family stuff. However, I'm going to leave this wide open. I might blog about the latest cool technology thing I've learned about lately and the next maybe something about the latest movie I've watched in my theater room. So . . . here goes.

Conference Wrap-Up

2008-06-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

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)

EduComm Conference day 2

2008-06-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

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

EduComm Conference Notes

2008-06-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

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.

I need a Second Life because my life is so great.

2008-06-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

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?

MED 308: Class 2

2008-05-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

The second class went really well- for those that were there.

There are seven people in the class and 4 people showed up for class. By the end of class there were only 3. So, you might be thinking that class was a complete waste. Wrong! We talked about a lot of great things, and were able to get through some really important demonstrations.

To accommodate all of those that were gone (and to learn how to do a couple things) I tried to capture the class in two different formats: Adobe Connect, and just plain audio. Here is what I learned:

Adobe Connect: For those of you who don't know Adobe Connect is a web application that allows various forms of media to be streamed over the internet in virtual rooms or "meetings" as they call it. These meetings will allow for a video feed, audio feed, desktop sharing, document sharing, presentation sharing (it does a great job with PowerPoint files because it converts it to a flash format). It also has a built in chat tool, notes, polls, and it makes the most tasty salsa you have ever had. I have been trying to convince colleagues at various institutions to use Connect but without a lot of success. I love Connect, BUT . . . something always goes wrong. I don't know that I have ever recorded a meeting and though "that went off just the way it was suppose to". Wednesday night’s class was just the same. There were two important parts that didn't work. Neither of which were Connects fault. The web cam I used to get a video stream never worked. Second, the microphone that I used didn't pick up the audio from the class. I can deal with the web cam not working- I don't find web cam streams of classes to be all that useful, but I can't deal without the audio working. The thing that is frustrating is the microphone I used is a special array microphone that is designed for picking up audio in a classroom for Connect. It cost like $350! I'm not sure what went wrong, all I know at this point is that the Connect recording has very little audio. Lessons learned: get a better camera and don't try to set it up 30 minutes before class, don't rely on microphones that seem to good to be true.

Regular audio recording: Along with the array microphone I also used a cheap wireless lapel microphone from RadioShack. It cost about $50. I wore it the entire class. I had it plugged into my laptop which had Audacity running on it. It worked great! Well, it worked great at recording what I had to say. It didn’t do so well at recording when the learners were saying- and so much of class is the discussions and comments that are made. I was however able to use audacity to amplify the parts when the students spoke- so the mp3 that I made is a little more useable. Only problem was the amount of time it takes to select all of the quiet parts and amplify them- so I only did it on the second half of class. Lessons learned: if you are going to record audio a cheap lapel mic is better than a do-everything microphone, but still not good enough. I suppose the lapel mic would be great if this was a lecture class. It is difficult to lecture to 3 learners. The best way to do this is to probably increase the complexity- which doesn’t work for most educators. In a perfect scenario I would use two or three microphones, mix the signals from each of them and then output them.

At the beginning of class, the learners (I've been trying to say learner rather than student lately) asked me about what I thought was not going well with the class. I told them, with some discussion, that the class was going well and they were doing a great job of picking up on things early- I have been pleasantly surprised by that. My only two problems are: I wish the learners would take more ownership of the class wiki, and I’m concerned I have too many redundant assignment/activities. Right there we decided to put an end to one of the assignments: the personal blog. The purpose of the personal blog was to learn about various blogging tools and to help the students get in the habit of blogging. Both of these goals have been or will be met if we end that assignment right now (requiring 1-2 posts rather than 5). I’m not sure if changing the amount of work required is a great idea. I guess I’m concerned about losing credibility. However, I think back on some of my professors and I wish they had the humility to say “I think this is going in the wrong direction . . . I want to fix it by . . .”. So, I have tried to keep that attitude in my teaching.

Last part I promise. I have created an mp3 of the class. So, did I “podcast”? I do not believe that a podcast is just a recording of a class. A podcast is when multiple audio recordings (or video if it is a video podcast) are put into an RSS feed so that the listener can use an aggregator (such as iTunes) to allow for easy updates- so new sessions are automatically loaded onto an iPod (or similar device). I have asked the class to record some audio this week. This is not making a podcast, just record an mp3- which is the first part of creating a podcast. Hope that is clear.

1st class taught for MED 608G

2008-05-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday evening I taught the first of five classes for the MED608G course. There are seven students signed up for the class. They are all very bright and capable. It is always interesting to me getting to know students. I think that is what I miss most about teaching is the interaction with students and having the sense of helping somebody real learn something.

So much of my job lately has been about developing material for students who I might not ever meet or get to know. There is something satisfying about knowing students and seeing how the principles that are being taught can affect and help these students.

The class was not without a little tension. There are a couple students who are very assertive about their learning. In other words- they spoke up about halfway through the class and gave me feedback about the structure of the class and expressed some of their fears and concerns about a class like this. I actually am really grateful for comments like this.

The last year I have read a collection of books by Patrick Lencioni about leadership. One of my favorite books is one called "Death By Meeting" and another one called "The Five Dysfuctions of a Team". These books are written as fables. They have given me so much perspective on how people work together. One of the key principles in both of these books is that conflict or tension is a good thing. Simply put, when people have the opportunity to express their thoughts openly then it allows them to buy in better in the long run.

In "Death By Meeting" the principle of healthy conflict is brought up as a principle of a good meeting. I think the same principle applies to teaching adults. People become engaged in learning and in class when there is constructive contention. An example the book uses is that most people can sit through a movie for 2-3 hours. However, that same person if asked to sit still for 2-3 hours for a meeting or a class- it is torturous. The reason is because the movie has conflict which draws people in. So, if you can incorporate this principle into a class, the class is more productive because students are more engaged.

So, that was a long way of saying I am excited to teach this class because there are students who are not afraid to speak up and voice their opinions.

I'm also excited about this class because of a new approach to learning. All of our course materials is being developed in our course wiki. I anticipate the students contributing and helping to build the structure (and success) of this course.

If any of my students have made it through reading this entire post, please leave a comment and feel free to express your thoughts on our class up to this point.

Grand Princess Riviera 10 Year Anniversary

2008-05-12T19:52:00.001-07:00

My wife (Terrie) and I just returned from Mexico. We celebrated our 10 year anniversary and had a wonderful time. We have never done a vacation like this. Even though we have been married for ten years, we have always had an excuse to not go on a vacation. It is nice to finally be able to do something like this. After 10 years it is nice to not be in a "starving student" financial situation.

Welcome to my blog

2008-05-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hi. My name is Ben. I work at Westminster College in Salt Lake City as the Technology Architect for the Professional Bachelor of Business Administration Program (PBBA). I am also an Adjunct Professor for the School of Education where I teach classes on technology use in education.

This is going to be my professional personal blog. Entries on this site will be about my personal and professional life which often seem to get entertwined. If you would like to see a blog about my family that my wife maintains you can see it at: http://neiswender.blogspot.com.

Currently I am preparing to teach a course for the summer of 2008 called "Computer Based Instruction". I have decided to teach this class with a slightly different slant then what I think was originally intended for this class. I have decided to focus on the key advances in online learning that have changed the way we learn. Specifically the class will be focusing on wikis, blogs and podcasts as well as a host of other technologies.