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AnnE and the eggs |
We were on hiatus last week, but are back in the
saddle now, almost. The newborn Simon Gray is home
and well. Dave is still off, and still in
pursuit of a birth certificate for Simon. This
week we had presentations on the Tegrity System, and
the Blackboard community and content management
systems. We have reached crunch time in the
Spring semester, where the computer labs are full
and panic is just beneath the surface. Why o
why, the students say, didn't I start that paper
earlier. In any event, my granddaughter AnnE
was here all last week--which is why I was on
hiatus--and we had a wonderful Easter together.
She is in Texas, as we speak.
In Blackboard land all is well--at least, as well
as can be expected. Our test system is still
down because of network problems that were just
resolved yesterday. We will be buying new test
hardware, to make testing plugins and building
blocks easier. There was a major network
problem Saturday, April 9, and there are still some
lingering effects.
Our show today features tech news from around
campus, info on the latest downloads, a Blackboard
feature of the week from Dave, believe it or not,
remote from San Juan Capistrano, a teaching online feature from Haydn
titled "engaging the online student," a
tech-talk about the Tegrity system, and the gizmo of
the week: the Elvis spreader.
Campus Tech News
- The ominous Blackboard announcement we
received April 11 (see Campus tech news from
episode 13) turned out to be a complete
false alarm. No one had problems with the
April 11 patch from Microsoft. A
non-issue.
- Downloads this week (and over the past
couple of weeks):
-
SyncToy 1.2 (updating from 1.1) SyncToy is
used to easily synchronize files across
different computers, like the music or picture
files from your desktop to your laptop.
-
Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP,
with an MP3 audio converter (mp3 > wma),
PowerToys for Media Player, Visualizations,
Skins, and Windows Movie Maker creativity kit.
-
ActveSync 4.1 is now available, for Windows
Mobile 5.0-based devices. (I have version 4.21
so it doesn't help me).
-
NZ Bliss desktop backgrounds.
- An updated
MSG iFilter add-in to Windows desktop search
is available.
- Soundforge has been updated to version 8.0d.
If you are registered, click Help About to see
if you are running version d, if not, click Sony
on the web, on that same Help menu and select it
to download and install.
- That giant set of patches from Microsoft on
April 11 included:
- The cumulative update for IE (KB912812)
- The cumulative update for Outlook Express
(KB911567)
- A security update for Windows Media Player
10 for Win XP (KB911565)
- A security update for Windows XP (KB908531)
- A second security update for XP (KB911562)
- An update for the junk mail fileter in
Outlook 2003 (KB914454)
- The Windows malicious sofrtware removal tool
(KB890830)
- CCCConfer announced an April 26 webinar
which is mandatory for all those wishing to
apply for a MEET grant. This is an
immediate grant-funded opportunity for CCC
faculty and staff designed to support the
development of instructional materials to be
delivered via CCC Confer. Up to 10 grants
of $2,000 will be awarded as well as an
opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from
throughout the system at a MEET Grant retreat.
The deadline to apply for this grant is May 1,
2006.
Click here to register for a mandatory
informational MEET Grant Webinar hosted by
Blaine Morrow, CCC Confer Project Director,
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 at 10AM.
Click here to visit the CCCConfer web site
to learn more about the grant.
- The
fifth annual arboretum beautification day will
occur Saturday, April 29, hosted by the Cabinet
and Furniture Technology program. For
details on the arboretum see its
web site, and the outstanding site created
by prof. Wayne Armstrong detailing
the plants of the arboretum. For more
information,
click here.
-
The Concert Hour
for APRIL 27
is DUO CANTILENA.
Oboe virtuoso Susan Barrett and
guitarist Randy Pyle perform music ranging from
the Renaissance to modern times.
Upcoming Training Workshops
- Next week we will have the second part of
the Outlook workshop that was presented this
morning, 4/21. It will be on April 28,
from 10am-12noon in room LL-109 titled "Outlook
Calendar and Scheduling Skills." Terry
Gray will be leading the workshop.
-
@ONE and
FCCC have free online eLearning.
Microsoft and
Adobe both have excellent free training
materials online.
- Go to our
training schedule to get the details
of future training.
Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray
As
Blackboard says, "Educate. Innovate.
Everywhere." Dave is still out with the birth
of his new son Simon, but ever the hard worker, has
sent an on-location report from the beach at San
Juan Capistrano (see the view from his cell phone at
left). Maybe he can file a workman's comp
claim for the sunburn. His topic this week,
the "review status control."
Listen to this segment [mp3 - Play time
= 2:54]
Teaching with Technology - Dr. Haydn Davis
Haydn's topic this week is "engaging the online
learner." He provides some excellent practical
suggestions for how to engage your online students
and thereby increase retention in online classes.
Click here [pdf] for Haydn's presentation in pdf
format. We will be expanding this presentation
with screen captures from Blackboard, illustrating
the related tools that can be used, and illustrating
some of the other ideas.
Listen to this segment
[mp3 - Play time
= 12:28]
Tech-Talk-Topic
The Tegrity System
Tegrity is a system that allows multiple
means to capture and deliver class lecture and
illustrative materials (like PowerPoint).
The capture can be audio only, with or without
vga output (like PowerPoint--actually any vga
output will be captured); audio/video + vga; and
so on. The delivery is a "rich media
presentation," or simply a podcast, or a linked
presentation. Tegrity stands out in
indexing the lecture with the PowerPoint slides,
or simply chaptering it, if audio only.
The coolest part of the product is an add-on
that you can order from Tegrity called the
Tegrity pen. It is a digital pen, that
writes on specially watermaked paper. So
what's so cool about that? The notes you
take with the pen are synchronized with the rich
media presentation for the class, so by clicking
on any portion of the notes (once they are
uploaded to your computer as hand-written
electronic ink) you will be taken into the
Tegrity presentation to that exact part of the
lecture. This is really cool.
We have seen a number of rich media
presentation systems, and so far this is the
best thought out. It publishes
automatically to Blackboard, creates the RSS
feed and podcast as value added features, plays
the presentation embedded in a web browser, can
capture any sort of vga input, and excels at the
most important thing for us, ease of use.
The professor simply clicks a start/pause/stop
button, then uploads the encoded content once it
is ready, preferably during off hours to reduce
network traffic.
So what's the catch? The price, of
course, and the fact that it is software only
(though they sell hardware add-ons like the
digital pen and a Tegrity voice recorder).
They price it by FTE, and it is very rich for
our blood. We need to know if it is
really--I mean really--worth it to spend these
amounts. Before we invest, we need to see
some very convincing learning outcome and
retention data, and so far, that is not
available.
It looks to be a very good product, however.
Our plans are to seek out other Tegrity campuses
to get a take on their experience, and then, if
that report is positive, perhaps make a site
visit.
Links
Listen to this segment
[mp3 - Play time
= 7:05]
Gizmo of the week
The
Elvis spreader. "Here’s a kitchen
gadget that Elvis would have loved - a combined
peanut butter and jelly knife. If I had the habit of
eating sandwiches with jelly and peanut butter, I
would probably prefer having two knifes, but I
thought this one was a quite cool idea."
It retails $11.99 online from the
Home Marketplace.
(Source:
Fosfor gadgets)
Music
The
music for today's show was provided by
Magnatune.com, and is used through their
Creative Commons license for podcasts. Today's
album was
Potemkin Villages by
C. Layne, self
described as "1960s rock in a 21st century bedroom." Here
is what he says: "I
don't know if it was the Smashing Pumpkins or Rage
Against the Machine that saved my life, but
somewhere along the age of 15 I realized that it is
possible to write a song WITHOUT POWER CHORDS."
Yep.
We
used tracks 3: "I never got the syllabus;" 12: "Down
at the bottom;" 11: "Death of a mailman;" 1: "You
are the reason;" and 5: "Thinking of you."
Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity,
and if you like this album, buy it. Magnatune is not evil!
"Until you've lost
your reputation, you never realize what a burden
it was.”
--Margaret Mitchell
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for April 21, 2006 - Episode 14
