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 Podcast
for November 17, 2006 - Episode 41
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Play time 65 minutes - Program Notes
"We
got a little too little and a lot too much. That's
enough of that stuff."
~Marcia Ball
Welcome on PS3 Friday. Once again, the volume
of tech and download news has grown. From the CVC
and Blackboard we have news of awards for best online
courses; from HHMI news of their holiday lectures
webcasts; the Microsoft Zune went on sale this week; it
was also Patch Tuesday week, and Office Live came out of
beta and is publicly available; the Google Book project
added the U. of Virginia; Google, Yahoo! and
Microsoft announced a new search engine metadata
standard this week; and Sun announced the release of the
source code for Java to the public under a GPL license. David's Blackboard Feature
of the Week is titled "Support Call Roundup," where he
takes on "known issues" and frequently asked support
questions.
Haydn's Teaching
with Technology segment is titled "Time Management
Strategies for Online Instructors and Students." He will recommend a couple of ways to
get students more involved in discussions, both
in-person and online. My Tech Talk Topic deals
with tabbed browsing in IE7. Our gizmo this week
extends last week's discussion of runaway alarm clocks
in an interesting way.
Palomar Tech and Download News
-
The California Virtual Campus (CVC)) is sponsoring
an Online Education Awards Program.
 A
$1,000.00 stipend and an opportunity to compete for
additional compensation will be awarded "...to
faculty members who submit winning proposals for
improving an existing online course or for
developing an online course that has been approved
through the curriculum peer-review process of their
college."
Click here to find out more and
apply online. Applications will be accepted
through December 8, 2006.
-
 We
are repeating this announcement from two episodes
ago: Blackboard
released its official "call for proposals" this week
for the 2007 Blackboard Greenhouse Grant Program.
Winners will receive a $25,000 Greenhouse Grant:
"These
$25,000 grants are designed to help build a
collective body of knowledge, and rewards clients
who have successfully developed and deployed
initiatives that promote best practices in the
adoption of Internet technology in the educational
environment."
Click here [PDF] to get the official rules and
call for proposals.
Click here for an explanatory web page with
links to the 2006 winners. Filing deadline is
February 16, 2007.
-
iTunes has been updated to version 7.0.2.
Click here for the download site.
According to Apple, " iTunes 7.0.2 adds support for
the Second Generation iPod shuffle and addresses a
variety of stability and performance issues found in
iTunes 7 and 7.0.1."
-
The
Howard Hughes Medical Institute has announced
its 2006 Holiday Lectures on Science.
 There
will be four lectures, as usual, by Douglas A.
Melton, HHMI Investigator at Harvard University, and
Nadia Rosenthal, Senior Scientist at EMBL
Monterontondo, under the title "Potent Biology: Stem
Cells, Cloning and Regeneration." The lectures
will be delivered via live webcast, lectures 1 and 2
on November 30 at 7am (PT) and lectures 3 and 4 on
December 1 at 7am (PT).
Click here to register. The lectures will
also be available via
on-demand webcast beginning December 4, and
distributed free on DVD in the Spring of 2007.
If you are not familiar with the outstanding medical
and biology educational materials distributed free
through HHMI,
click here for their catalog.
-
A start page has been added to the collection of
Google Apps. Google Apps are a collection
of free, hosted web applications including Gmail,
Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Page Creator
that can be branded for any organization. The
new Start Page feature "...lets you easily create a
unique, dynamic place for internal or external users
to find relevant, essential information, preview
their inboxes and calendars, and search the web.
You customize the layout, header information and
color scheme, as well as the page's default content,
which can include Google Personalized Homepage
modules, your organization's custom content and
links, and RSS feeds."
-
 Microsoft's new Zune Digital Media Player was
released to store shelves on Tuesday, November 14.
Click here for the Microsoft press release,
here for the Zune home page,
here for the CNet
review,
here for the slashdot review. (To
see the RooTV video,
click here). Early general technology
press has not been good, judged by these snippets
from
Podcasting News:
- Engadget has a blow-by-blow walkthrough of
installing the Zune software, saying that “Installing
the Zune sucked.”
-
PC World says it’s a good first effort, but “the
Zune’s features don’t seem compelling enough to make
it a serious threat to take a big chunk out of iPod
sales.”
-
Popular Mechanics calls the Zune “the
husky, ugly cousin of the iPod”.
- Gizmodo says
the brown Zune looks like it’s made of swamp water
jello. We’re not sure what that means, but it
sounds ugly.
- USA Today says “it’s
no iPod.” Reviewer Edward C. Baig adds “I’d like
to see more offerings in the store, and less
stringent wireless restrictions. And Microsoft
should rethink the silly points system. For now, I’m
sticking with iPod.”
- The New York Times review, by David Pogue,
agrees, noting that a list of things that iPods do
that Zunes don’t
could stretch to Steve Ballmer’s house and back 10
times.
-
SeattlePI’s review is one of more the positive
reviews, but concludes “We hate to send a Dear Zune
after such a brief courtship, but at the end of the
night there is no doubt who we’re going to go home
with” (an iPod).
- WSJ’s
Walt Mossberg liked several aspects of the Zune,
but concludes that the “first Zune has too many
compromises and missing features to be as good a
choice as the iPod for most users.”
- Business Week calls the Zune “a
dismal failure“.
It is very early days for the Zune, and it is worth remembering that Microsoft never gives
up. Rumors of the resurfacing of
Microsoft Bob still run rampant. Bill
Gates has
already announced that the wireless features of
the Zune will soon be updated, "adding
interoperability with Xbox 360 and PCs.
-
It was Patch Tuesday this week from Microsoft.
The following patches were issued in their automatic
update:
- Security patch for MS XML 4.0 SP2: "A
vulnerability exists in the XMLHTTP ActiveX control
within Microsoft XML Core Services that could allow
for remote code execution"
(KB927978)
- Security patch for MS XML 6.0 RTM: "A
vulnerability exists in the XMLHTTP ActiveX control
within Microsoft XML Core Services that could allow
for remote code execution" (KB927977).
- Three similar security patches for Windows XP:
"A security issue has been identified that could
allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based
system and gain control over it." (KB920213),
(KB923980)
and (KB924270)
- An Office 2003 patch: "Microsoft has released an
update for Microsoft Office 2003 that fixes a
problem in the Local Cache Cleanup Wizard plug-in
for the Disk Cleanup Wizard" (KB919029).
- The standard updates for Windows Defender
signatures (KB915597),
the Outlook 2003 junk mail filter (KB921587),
and the malicious software removal tool (KB890830).
Read more about the patches
from CNet.
- While on the subject of Microsoft, on November
15
Office Live left beta, where it had been for
nine months, and became a public offering. In
spite of the name, Office Live is a set of web tools
and services aimed at small businesses (take note
Business department) to assist them in creating a
web presence (with your own domain name registered
through Office Live) and attracting new customers.
There is a tiered set of products and services, the
basic level being free. Rajesh Jha, corporate
vice president for Microsoft Office Live said: “Most
small businesses lack IT expertise...Office Live is
a one-stop shop that levels the playing field for
companies with 10 or fewer employees by providing
software and services that make a big difference;
Office Live can impact business growth and
profitability. Small businesses that sign up for
Microsoft Office Live will now find it easier and
cheaper than ever before to build and manage their
business online" (bink).
-
Internet Explorer 7 is
being
distributed slowly via the Automatic Update
process. Microsoft stresses that "...users
will not be forced to accept IE7 nor will we
silently install IE7. .. users will see a dialog box
offering IE7. Users can choose “Install”, “Don’t
Install”, or “Ask me later”. If you have
automatic updates turned on, watch for these choices
some Wednesday morning in the near future. (Source:
IEBlog)
- The University of Virginia has joined the
Google Books Library Project. "Google
will digitize hundreds of thousands of books from
the Library, including selected portions of the
Library's American history, literature, and
humanities works collections, and make them
searchable online through Google Book Search" (Google
Press Release).
the Google Books project also includes "...the
University of California, Harvard University,
University Complutense of Madrid, University of
Michigan, the New York Public Library, Oxford
University, Stanford University and the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. Google is also conducting a
pilot project with the Library of Congress."
Click here to learn how Google Book Search
works.
-
For the first time ever, the
three major search engines, Google, Yahoo! and
Microsoft have agreed to support a common way for
"...webmasters to notify search engines about their
websites and be indexed more comprehensively and
efficiently..." The standard is called
Sitemaps (http://www.sitemaps.org).
"A
Sitemap is an XML file that can be made available on
a website and acts as a marker for search engines to
crawl certain pages" (Google).
Basically, it is a singe, easy to manipulate method
for providing metadata to the search engines.
-
From the
EFF: "This week, Sun Microsystems
announced that it is releasing the Java source code
under the GPL [General Public License] free software
license, meaning anyone is free to copy,
redistribute, modify, and make many other uses of
the code. Free Software Foundation founder Richard
Stallman hailed the release as one of the most
significant software contributions by any company to
the free software community." Sun's web site
has more details at:
http://www.sun.com/2006-1113/feature/index.jsp
Listen to the news [mp3 -
13:11]
Training Opportunities
Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray
The Support Call Roundup
- The Digital Drop Box yields an ugly error
message when a file is submitted, only if the
file name contains the pound symbol (#).
- Discussion Board posts contain no text if
submitted using Safari or Firefox on a Mac with
the Visual Text Box Editor. If the user disables
the Visual Text Box Editor and re-posts to the
Discussion Board, posting will be successful.
- Students should log in using the same
information as for eServices; username is their
nine-digit Palomar student ID number. If the
Blackboard login attempt returns an error, go to
eServices and reset the password, as shown in
this online demonstration at
http://www.palomar.edu/pconline/tutorials/eServicesPassword.asp
.
- Courses are created as Unavailable to
students, and students will be unable to access
the course site until the instructor manually
makes the course available. A demonstration of
the course availability change may be viewed
online at
http://www.palomar.edu/pconline/facultyservices/MakingYourCourseAvailable.asp
.
- Course materials can be copied into your
next semester’s Bb course using the Course Copy
tool, as shown in the online demonstration at
http://www.palomar.edu/pconline/facultyservices/CopyCourseContent.asp
.
- Course materials can be backed up using the
Export Course or Archive Course functions. An
example of this is given online at
http://www.palomar.edu/pconline/facultyservices/ExportImport.asp
.
And that’s what’s ringing our phone these days.
Note: To get to David's vodcast site,
click here.
Teaching with Technology - Dr. Haydn Davis
Time Management Strategies for Online
Instructors and Students
With the current semester winding down, it seemed
like a good time to address something that probably
seems especially pressing to many these days: Time
Management. My comments in this podcast will be
particularly geared to the online community but many
of the ideas will apply equally well to the
on-campus community.
Online instructors appreciate the flexibility
inherent in online teaching but many discover,
sometimes to their surprise, that their workload
actually increases - often significantly, when they
begin teaching online. Online instructors quickly
realize that their workload is different from
teaching on-campus and, because the difference is
often time-related, they need new time management
strategies. Two differences in particular stand out.
First, the course planning stage is different: f2f
instructors often plan the overall structure of the
course and rough dates when they’ll cover certain
topics but develop the details as the class
progresses. Online instructors need to develop more
of the course documents and other materials in
advance as technology-related materials require more
time to develop. Second, the level of interaction is
different. In a f2f class it is typical for an
instructor to lecture and answer questions during
class. Interaction occurs only during class times
and office hours (although more students are
emailing their f2f instructors these days).
Interaction is different for an online instructor –
while real-time interaction can occur via Chat or
IM, most of the interaction occurs through the class
discussion board and email. There is much more of an
expectation from students that the online instructor
will respond to them individually – and quickly.
For these reasons and more, an online instructor
is well served to learn strategies to manage time
and the online class well. The ideas I’ll present
here come from an article published in the February
2006 International Journal of Instructional
Technology & Distance Learning. (http://itdl.org/Journal/Feb_06/article01.htm)
The article was based on a study done with a group
of online instructors who taught in Indiana
University’s online program. From the article:
“Below are six proven strategies for time management
in teaching an online course.”
1. write concisely and clearly – keep it short,
highlight key words & phrases, use bullet lists
2. organize information in an easy-to-follow order –
chunk into weekly modules
3. be explicit about time requirements – provide
clear due dates
4. manage asynchronous discussions – be explicit
about participation rules
5. take advantage of the technical tools – many Bb
tools are underutilized (DB grading, Assignment
tool)
6. utilize other resources – MERLOT, colleagues
What about students? There are some excellent
resources to help students manage their time. A site
maintained by Virginia Tech is particularly
interesting as it contains a wealth of very
practical tips and strategies to ensure student
success (http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/stdyhlp.html).
Among the tools I liked at this site was the time
management quiz that assessed one’s time management
skills. After taking the quiz you can discover four
steps to improve your time management and learn
about seven strategies for making your schedule
work.
A couple of other sites also contained practical
advice for students (or anyone for that matter).
Tech-Talk-Topic - Terry Gray
Tabbed Browsing in IE7
Firefox has long had tabbed browsing, and in fact
that is the single feature that has gained it the
market share it has among browsers (anywhere between
10 and 40% of browser users, depending on who you
believe). In any event, now IE7 is out and it
also has tabbed browsing. Since IE7 is
compatible with Blackboard, and Firefox versions
since 1.0 have not been compatible, we will cover
the use of tabbed browsing in the approved browser
in this article.
For those of you completely new to tabbed
browsing, it is a feature within the browser which
permits simultaneously open web pages "located" on a
system of tabs within the overall browser window.
No longer do you have to guess at which browser
session is represented by a confusing set of icons
on the taskbar. To access any of the open web
pages, simply click its tab:
Any tab acts like an independent browser window,
but the power of tabbed browsing is in having
multiple tabs containing the various web sites you
are using for your research open simultaneously.
It makes it extremely easy to click back and forth
between sites when gathering materials or searching
for information. If you click on a standard
link on a tabbed page, the link will open in that
tab, but if you Ctrl-click the link, it will open in
a new tab of its own (clicking it with the middle
mouse button (or wheel) will do the same thing).
Any tab can be closed by clicking the little X on
the tab itself, or clicking the tab anywhere with
the middle mouse button (or wheel). To close
all but the current tab, press Ctrl-Alt-F4.
Another way to open a new page on a tab of its
own is to click the new tab button and then open the
page in the standard manner (ie, type its address in
the address bar, pick it from the drop-down list on
the address bar, pick it from your favorites (Ctrl-I
opens the new "favorites center"), press Ctrl-O then
type its URL, etc). A shortcut to opening a
new tab is to press Ctrl-T.
If you are searching with the new IE7 search box,
pressing Alt-Enter after your search term will open
the search results on a new tab. This can be
especially useful. You can open search result
links on new tabs to evaluate them, and easily
return to your search results tab without having to
backtrack multiple pages.
An extremely convenient feature of tabbed
browsing is the ability to save a group of tabs
which can then be opened simultaneously. To do
so, first open all the tabs you wish to save as a
group, click the new "Add to Favorites" button ( ),
from the menu choose "Add Tab Group to Favorites..."
Give the group a folder name:
And click Add.
To open the group of tabs simultaneously, open
the favorites center (Ctrl-I), hover your mouse over
the folder containing the group, and click the arrow
to the right of the folder name. The pages
will open each on their own tab.
IE7 has a very nice feature called "Quick Tabs"
which makes it simple to jump to any open tab using
a system of thumbnails of the various pages
currently open. To activate Quick Tabs click
the Quick Tabs button ( )
or press Ctrl-Q. To open any of the tabs,
simply click its thumbnail from the Quick Tabs View.
To close it, right click its thumbnail and choose
"Close." To return to the open tab you were on
when you entered Quick Tab mode, click the Quick Tab
button again or press Ctrl-Q again.
The drop-down next to the Quick Tab button will
display a list of web pages on the various tabs.
You can also jump to one by clicking its title from
this drop-down.,
To set a group of tabs as your home page, first
open the pages on a set of tabs, then click the
drop-down next to the Home button and choose Add or
Change Home Page...
Then select "Use the current tab set as your home
page" and click Yes.
The active tab when you next open your browser
will be the leftmost, first in the series of tabs.
You may also manually enter URLs to be part of your
home page tab set using the Internet Options choice
on the Tools menu:
To change the default IE7 behavior of tabs, use
the Settings button in the Tabs area on the General
tab of those same Internet Options:
The settings you see illustrated above are the
IE7 default settings. If you decide you do not
like the change you have made, re-enter this area
and click the "Restore defaults" button.
Once you become used to tabbed browsing, you will
wonder how you ever got along without it.
Gizmo of the week
Dark Pursuit
Last week we reported on an ingenious alarm clock
named "Clocky" that allows you to hit snooze one
time and one time only. After your snooze
period expires (it can be up to 9 minutes) Clocky
leaps off the night stand and scurries around the
room in a random path, finding a safe haven from
which it can blare at the benumbed sleeper.
Clocky wails until the sleeper arises, pursues, and
disables him. By that time, the sleeper no
longer is.
 This week,
it is Clocky redux. We note a product which improves on Clocky, or at least forms a second line of
arousal
for those with serious oversleeping issues. It
is the
flying alarm clock. "You'll have to get up
when this little baby starts, because it takes off
and flies round the room, making a really annoying
noise like a mosquito..." There is, of course,
some slight danger that the alarm clock will fly
into something it is not supposed to, or that it
will fail to awake you and drop who knows where when
its batteries die, but the flying alarm clock is
really not our gizmo this week.
 Our gizmo this week solves the problem
of what to do if Clocky or its airborne ally should
escape you in a darkened room. Many of us need
to arise before sunup, others have such heavy
drapery their bedrooms are cave-black at all hours.
So what to do if you need to pursue one of these
"arousal aids" in pitch blackness? The answer
is "Brightfeet
Lighted Slippers:"
Brightfeet Lighted Slippers ($40) offers a
very convenient solution, they are equipped with
a light-sensitive LED that will illuminate an
area 20 to 25 feet in front of you and help you
walk hands-free and without the fear of
stumbling with objects.
Two nice things about Brightfeet is that it’s
both touch and light sensitive, so the LED won’t
turn on if it’s midday, nor will it turn at
night before you wear it, but it has a
delay-time after you remove them so you can
navigate back to your bed. (Me,
My Coke & I)
If the alarm clock flies or scurries, you can
always hurl a Bright Foot missile at it. There
are other advantages to using Bright Feet.
This year, if you watch sports TV (and what
50-something does not), you will notice that Viagra
has been replaced with anti-enlarged prostrate drug
advertising. Need I say more? And
further, is nothing sacred? In any event, if
you do have the urinary problems suggested by these
ads (sometimes suggested with alarming anatomical
drawings) Bright Feet are probably for you.
So, young or old, oversleeper or undersleeper, we
think Bright Feet are the most helpful gizmo we have
featured yet.
(Source: Me,
My Coke & I,
www.clocky.net,
boystuff)
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 "Cezanne"
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 3: "abbey rhodes;" 7: "simthee's
second;" 10: "robot suit i;" 8: "shelby;" 4: "luna;" 9:
"wet dog;" 6: "mothership;" 11: "invisible pants."
Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity,
and if you like this album, buy it. Magnatune is not evil!
"It
was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up." ~
W. Somerset Maugham
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