That's why the show gets so long--a striving for
precision.
Today we have some interesting tech and
download news, especially with reference to backup
services. I am also expecting a news flash
from David about his new video podcast--or vodcast--series. We have
the usual training
opportunities news. Dave,
continuing his "getting ready for Fall" theme will
speak on "Anatomy of a Menu" where the Blackboard
menu system gets the precise treatment. Haydn will speak on
ontological reality. Well, sort of.
He kindles a fire under the objectivist vs.
constructivist approaches to education. My
tech-talk-topic will address the Horizon Wimba voice
tools, with how-tos on the voice recorder, a warning
about the voice announcement tool, and an evaluation
of several audio headsets. The Gizmo of the
week may strike many as the least practical ever,
but I have some practical suggestions for it.
Palomar Tech and Download News
-
Firefox 2 beta 1 is now available for public
download from
Mozilla (alternate
download.com site).
-
Microsoft will be pushing IE7 out as a 'high
priority' update through its automated update
system in Q4 this year (See
CNET news article). This is usually
how Windows and Office security updates are
pushed, and since IE7 contains so many browser
security enhancements, it will be distributed in
the same way. However, users will be
notified, the product explained in brief, and
then users will be given the ability to opt
out--something not given to those who have
configured automatic updates.
-
Online PC backup sites are coming into their
own. The leading contender is
Carbonite, a web service that will back up
any amount of data for only $5.00 per month.
There are other services, but nothing with such
a low price. This is not for work PC, for
which Palomar has the simple EZBack solution,
but for home. (See
MSNBC article). Symantec, Google and
Microsoft all have plans to release competing
products soon.
-
We have released 3 new web resources that we
think will be helpful to the Palomar technology
community:
- Video Podcasts - David is starting a new
video podcast series called "PCOnline Exposed,"
or PCOX, for short, which explains the peacock
pictures on his web site:
http://www.palomar.edu/pconline/video_podcast/.
You can subscribe to the standard PCOX video
podcast by
using this feed, or subscribe to the WMV
version by
using this feed.
The blog site where the podcast is posted is
accessible at
http://PCOExposed.blogspot.com/.
Training Opportunities
- Microsoft webcasts
- Thursday, Aug. 3, 9am - Experience the 2007
MS Office System (part
1)
- Tuesday, Aug. 8, 9am - Experience the 2007
MS Office System (part
2)
- Thursday, Aug. 17, 9am - Experience the 2007
MS Office System (part
3)
- The @ONE system announced three new desktop
seminars for August:
- For those just beginning to look at their
Fall 2006 Blackboard course shells, and perhaps
staring at the vacancy, there are a series of
screen videos created by the Academic Technology
department which will help you along your way.
Access them at the PCOnline
Faculty Services page.
Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray
David's topic today is "Anatomy of a Menu," where
he covers:
- How to add items to a course menu - content
areas, course links, tool links and external
links;
- What type of items can be on a course menu;
- How to control the appearance of course
menus;
- How enable/disable certain coursem menu
features.
Listen to this segment only [mp3 - play time =
9:19]
Teaching with Technology - Dr. Haydn Davis
Today Haydn takes at objectivist vs.
constructivist points of view by way of answering
the question "Is online teaching and learning
different?" He also applies the constructivist
point of view to the concept of "learning
contracts."
Resources
Notes from Haydn's presentation [pdf -
22K]
Listen to this segment only [mp3 - play time =
8:18]
Tech-Talk-Topic - Terry Gray
The Horizon Wimba Voice Recorder - Audio
Headsets
We have obtained, thanks to the generosity and
far-sightedness of Blaine Morrow at CCC Confer, the
Horizon Wimba voice tools building blocks for
our Blackboard implementation. This is good.
We want to promote the use of audio to enhance
learning over the web. The challenge is to
familiarize new audio users (faculty and
students--perhaps more so faculty) with the couple
of simple tools you need to make for audio
interaction. Today I am going to briefly
describe the Wimba voice tools, and then review
several headset/mic combos in order demonstrate the
type of equipment to use with these tools.
There are four tools in the Horizon Wimba voice
tool collection:
- Voice recorder (the one I will talk more
about today)
- Voice emails
- Voice direct (a voice chat tool)
- Voice boards (an audio discussion board)
They have two new voice tools coming online in
October, Voice Presenter, which allows for the
demonstration of a web page with an audio
description of it, including student comments on the
page; and Voice Podcaster, of which I have not seen
a demo, but suspect it is just what you would
think--a simple way to make an audio recording and
publish as an RSS enclosure.
They are all java applets that are accessed as a
Blackboard building block. They are available
in each instructor's Blackboard shell, but must be
enabled by the instructor to be made available to
students in that class.
No one is thrilled with java applets, they
require java runtime environments and are slow to
load, but it is the only universal way to present
audio in the cross-platform, cross-browser world.
It is simple, using the voice recorder to place
an audio announcement in any Blackboard content
area.
Click here for a description of how to do it.
More problematic is the voice announcement tool (click
here for instructions--and warnings--on using
this tool). I created several voice
announcements using the building block tool, and
then when I attempted to edit them, I lost the
recording and even lost the ability to delete the
announcement. The only way to get rid of it is
to recycle announcements--which deletes all
announcements, not just the offending one. We
are recommending that our faculty not use the voice
announcement tool, or at least be aware of the bug
and not attempt to edit voice announcements once
they are created.
Another complaint I have about the voice recorder
tool in general is that you cannot control the audio
quality. It uses a very low bandwidth to make
the recording and the resulting quality is pretty
poor. The voice discussion board gives you the
option of setting bit rate quality when setting up
the board, but the voice recorder does not.
Nor is this ability placed in the original
configuration of the building block. You just
have to live with pretty low quality audio.
What the voice recorder has going for it is
convenience. In my opinion, if you want to
leave a simple audio message for your students, it
would be easier to record the audio on your computer
using a good, free program like
Audacity, save the output as mp3, and then embed
the audio controls (or simply place a link) in a
Blackboard content area. Unfortunately, most
people won't go to the trouble of learning how to
use Audacity or any other audio recording program.
An alternative would be to use a convenient voice
recorder (we recommend the Olympus WS-100, which
records in wma format - about $79.00 at buy.com) and
then simply uploading (or embedding) the wma file to
Blackboard as is (the WS-100 is a USB device that
will plug directly into a USB port) or convert it to
mp3 format with a good, free conversion utility
(like
WMA to MP3 Converter from Jodix.com).
In any event, to effectively use the new voice
tools, or to do more general audio work and interact
with web multimedia, we recommend using a headset
with built in microphone. This is not strictly
necessary. Any microphone/speaker combo will work. A simple, low cost microphone,
like the AM-32 from Labtec (lapel mic for around
$5.00), and a set of computer speakers will work
just fine. Almost everyone gets a mic/speaker
combo along these lines when they buy a computer.
A headset can increase efficiency, though,
especially important when participating in a voice
board, where hands free motion is important for
typing.
Here are some audio samples from various headsets
we have evaluated, all variables being equal.
We recommend using a headset that plugs directly
into your sound card, and not a USB headset, which
can be much more problematic.
*Recommended
The built in mic was best on the Koss. The
sensitivity of the mics on the Labtec and Logitech
was very low, and probably would result in audio
volumes too low to control. The Logitech had
such a poor volume control built into its cable that
I would disqualify that one for consideration for no
other reason. The Plantronics microphone was
adequate, and this head set would be acceptable if
you like the behind the head style. The Koss
was best, and the earphones on the Koss were very
comfortable too. We would recommend the Koss,
followed by a simple Labtec AM-32 mic, followed by
the Plantronics Audio 70. We found the
Logitech and Labtec Mono 341 to be unacceptable.
Resources
Gizmo of the week
Water
Writer. Recently
a scientist has suggested that Jesus really did
not walk on water, but rather skated on ice formed
through a freak cold spell over the Sea of Galilee.
In fact, I think I saw the very skates for sale on
eBay the other day. (Why do University
professors have a proclivity for exposing themselves
to such ridicule?) Anyway, our gizmo this week
goes one better. Now a device which uses waves
to draw text and pictures on the surface of water
has been created:
"The device, called AMOEBA (Advanced Multiple
Organized Experimental Basin), consists of 50 water
wave generators encircling a cylindrical tank 1.6
meters in diameter and 30 cm deep (about the size of
a backyard kiddie pool). The wave generators move up
and down in controlled motions to simultaneously
produce a number of cylindrical waves that act as
pixels. The pixels, which measure 10 cm in diameter
and 4 cm in height, are combined to form lines and
shapes. AMOEBA is capable of spelling out the entire
roman alphabet, as well as some simple kanji
characters. Each letter or picture remains on the
water surface only for a moment, but they can be
produced in succession on the surface every 3
seconds."
Apparently data input load used to be the problem
with this device. It tool 15 minutes of data
input to generate a single letter, but researches
have cut that to around 15 seconds now.
You ask, why? Akisha labs, who developed
the device, admit that it is currently no practical
use, but hope to sell it to hotels and amusement
parks for their spectacular lights/audio/water
displays. Think advertising dollars too.
Imagine giant MacDonalds arches emblazoned on Lake
Tahoe. Imagine a giant Holiday Inn
advert emblazoned on the Pacific, greeting visitors
from space. I don't think I even have to
mention the movie The Abyss do I?. If we do
ever make contact with alien civilizations, it may
turn out that this is exactly the method they
developed for blogging. Talk about being
prepared...
No price data was provided by Akisha.
(Source:
Pink Tentacle)
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 "big
dipper" by
Drop Trio. "Drop
Trio is a melody-driven funk jazz band from Houston,
Texas. Their solid musicianship and incredible
energy on stage have been drawing kudos across
Houston and beyond."
We
used tracks 4: "Wallawalla;" 1: "Wreck of
the Zephyr;" 3: "Invisible Pants;" 7: "Wet Dog;" 12:
"Slapjack;" 10: "Abbey Rhodes;" 9: "Flux;" and 2:
"Second First."
Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity,
and if you like this album, buy it. Magnatune is not evil!
"A fellow who is
always declaring he's no fool usually has his
suspicions." ~
Wilson Mizner
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for July 28, 2006 - Episode 26
