Please complete the post class assessment

Now that the projects for this class have been completed, it's time to complete the post-class assessment (worth 1 credit). I've posted a link in BB and sent it to your Drake email.

Have a great holiday!
Robin

TWO ways to add audio to your blogger blog

OK, we learned in class that you can't add an audio file directly into your blog. That's true, the over all process to getting audio into your blogger blog is:

• Create audio file in mp3 format
• Upload to some serverspace (we used Googlepages)
• Create a link in your Blogger blog to take you to your server space.

When you add audio using Googlepages, it looks like this:

Click here to go to my audio file stored on Googlepages.

(Good news--100GB of storage. Bad news--it's kind of cumbersome for the user; a solution, but not an elegant solution.)

---

But I did just find another way to do this that is MUCH more elegant for the user, but a bit more complicated for you as the blogger (it involves adding some HTML code. Here's what it looks like: This audio file is linked using FileDen.com

(Good news--it's 1GB free storage and can be direct linked which looks MUCH more elegant. Bad news--you have to continue to PASS on the large number of "special offers" they throw at you before you get to the upload screen.)

The instructions to do this are on the Templates Tips and Tricks blog. It's a bit complicated, but the result is defintely more elegant looking and I'll probably do this from now on even if all the "special offers" drive me crazy.

GREAT Resource for Learning Computer Applications

As Drake students, you have access to a wonderful resource: a library of online tutorials to help you learn a variety of software programs. Check out this post on my advisee blog to learn more.

Charity, Volunteering & Fund-Raising Websites

While not specifically collaborative technologies, this Mashable blog post lists 20 to help you give of your time & money and tools to help you with your fundraising.

Obviously the purpose of these websites are to try to connect the people who want to give with the people who need donations and volunteers. My challenge: how can you take this similar concept of connect those who have (time, skill, knowledge, etc.) with those who need it in your environment?

Collaborative Technologies + Corporate Learning

October's Chief Learning Officer (CLO) magazine has an article on when Social Networking Meets Corporate Learning. At this point it's not new news to any of you, but you may want to share it with someone who hasn't been in this class! :-)

---

The November issue of CLO also has an interesting article on where the 2007 organizational learning budget is being spent and on what (according to a survey of the CLO magazine Business Intelligence Board members.) There are some interesting results according to this survey including:

• The learning budget growth is slowing in 2007 (continuing a slow down that started in 2006)
• The top learning investment areas are e-learning, and then a 3-way tie between leadership/executive development, performance management, and design/development of in-house training.
• The top learning technology investment is Learning Management System (LMS) at about 50% response rate compared to the next closest response at a little over 30%.
  
  

The November issue of CLO is not yet posted on the website, but you can access the Chief Learning Officer magazine throught the Drake online databases if you want to read this article.

Measures of the Ubiquity of Blogging?

Certainly some of the tests to check for the ubiquity of blogging might be to see if there exist:

• conferences (Blog World Expo),
• subspeciality conferences (God Blog Conference-"Helping Christians Engage New Media"),
• awards (The Best of the Blogs Award, The Weblog Awards),
• professional associations (International Blogging and New Media Association--although just in its infancy),
• a journal (Blogger & Podcasting),
• a related research organization/thinktank (Society for New Communications Research), or
• a $10,000 scholarship for college student bloggers (The Blogging Scholarship)

My point--blogging is here. And not a fringe activity; it's an integrated part of the communication patterns for many people. And we're seeing structure develop around blogging as it becomes even more prominent.

Here are some interesting statistics from the Blog World Expo website:

• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
• More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
• Over 57 million Americns read blogs.
• 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
• 9% of internet users say they have created blogs .
• 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
• Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
• over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
• 120,000 new blogs are created every day .
• 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
• 51% of blog readers shop online .
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week .

Jing (I'm really excited about this)

I admit I'm a big fan of the company TechSmith. I've used two of their products, SnagIt (screen captures) and Camtasia (video capturing + narration of anything that is happening on your computer screen) for years. They have a new "project," ProjectJing, that I want to mention for two reasons:

(1) it's a great example of a company taking advantage of the collaborative web in a alpha product state. As you can see, they're using collective knowledge to understand how to use this tool, why to use this tool, to determine bugs & enhancements to the tool, as well as anything else they can think of.

(2) I haven't played around with it much but I'm VERY excited about the tool itself. Take a look at the video at ProjectJing to get an idea of what the product it about. It looks like a combination of SnagIt & Camtasia (screen capture and screen video) plus the ability to quickly/easily share with others. Particularly, but not exclusively, for those of you who train people on info on the computer screen, it could be amazing. Take a look!

Three other things:

• First, the documents are stored on screencast.com so you'll need to register with them in order to save your Jing docs.
• Second, TechSmith has arranged for FREE memberships to screencast.com (there is usually a membership fee), so this means you have 200MB of free online storage you can use for anything.
• Finally, at some point TechSmith will likely turn this into a product and shut down the FREE access; so enjoy it while you can!

Images on Wikipedia

In light of our conversation this weekend on copyright, I thought you might be interested in Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia (from Wikipedia).

Several of the items have to do with the copyright issues related to using their images (#10: "You can use (free) images from Wikipedia on your own site, or anywhere you like..." but don't forget to read the rest of the numbers too!)

Using Photos as Your Blog Background

I'm not sure if any of you are reading the blogger.com blog, but here's a post on how to modify your blog template to include your own picture in the background.

Robin's Note: Since the whole point of your blog is to have people read what you have to say, please consider readability as you think about which pictures to put in the background of your blog! (and remember, you can change the color of the various fonts if that would help.)

A few new collaborative sites & tools

Here are a few interesting things I picked up over the last few days from the Mashable blog (blog on social networking, and one of my personal daily "must read" blogs).

Here's a blog post from Mashable on how companies (HP is described here) are using wikis to gather data for market research.

Following in the spirit of our class (all our applications are free), the Mashable blog has a post listing LOTS of no-cost graphic software and a post on a new-ish (free) web-based photo editor.

I also recently read one of their posts on Ask500people. It's a mashup site where users can submit questions and poll the subscribers. Although not really useful (to me, anyway), I did spend a few minutes looking through the old/live questions. (FYI: most people voting believe the egg came before the chicken.) It took me a few minutes to figure out the layout: the questions in the center of the screen are questions that are queued up to be voted on, they don't contain any data yet.

Thanks for a good (and full!) weekend. (good thing we had chocolate! :-)

Here are the dates we agreed on for the OPTIONAL sessions:

• Thursday, Nov 1, 5:00p-7:00-ish: audio working session in the computer lab
• Monday, Nov 5, 7:30p-9:30-ish: audio working session in the computer lab

***NOTE: if no one is here after 45 minutes I'm going home. So if you're going to be late call me!

• Tuesday, Nov 6, 7:30-9:30-ish: Bonus Learning Session(including: Google documents, creating narrated powerpoint slideshows, delicious, skype)
  

Homework recap:

• Podcast (audio file) posted to your blog: DUE Nov 11
• Final paper or other final project: DUE Dec 2(Other project needs to be approved by me)
• Post class assessment (I'll send the link to you Dec 3): DUE Dec 10

Of course, feel free to call me with questions.

New Feature in Blogger

Blogger has implemented a new feature that I thought I'd pass on.


The first, is the ability to sign up to get email notification of additional comments on a particular blog post. Here's a blog post describing it. Basically, when you go to comment, you now have the option to click a box and have all the subsequent comments on this post emailed to you. (it's like following the conversation without having to keep checking back to the blog (see left).

For class on Saturday...

Here's a brief audio file to serve as your introduction to podcasting!

Podcast Directories

We're going to be talking about podcasting during weekend 2. Here are some podcast directories:

These are clients downloaded to your computer:

• Juice
• iTunes

These are web-based directories:

• Podcast Central
• Podcast.net
• Podcastpickle

(I have to confess, I use iTunes almost exclusively)

Haunted Houses in Second Life (SL)

OK, not educational, but since I see from your blogs that a few of you are exploring SL, I thought I'd share this list of SL Haunted Houses!

College Fair in Second Life (SL)

Since at least one of you are working in college administration, I thought you'd be interested to know that last weekend the first ever college fair was held in SL. Here's one review of the college fair, but you can also google it for more news or check flickr for photos.

Research Article: Wikipedia, Quality & Contributor Motivation

In the last class we were talking about the challenging to accuracy of information in an open system (like wikipedia). Although in theory a self-correcting system, we had at least one example of where incorrect information was spotted on wikipedia and speculated at the various motivations contributors may bring to their contributions.

Although not exactly the same thing...I did come across an interesting study by a couple of professor's at Dartmouth who looked at how contributor motivations affect the quality of contributions to Wikipedia. If you're interested, you can take a look at their study The Quality of Open Source Production: Zealots and Good Samaritans in the Case of Wikipedia

Blog Directories

Several of you have mentioned in your posts that you had trouble finding blogs. Here's a list of some blog directories. It's written from blog marketing perspective, but obviously you can use these to find blogs as well!

I have to confess that I don't use most of these. I find most of my blogs by finding a reference to them in something else I'm ready (the electronic version of 'word of mouth'), or else I tend to just use the yahoo or google blog directories. Let us all know if you find any of these particularly useful!

Google Translator

Since we have several bi/multi-lingual people in our class, I thought you might have fun exploring Google Translator. Not only does it translate words/phrases in eight languages, it also translates webpages (maybe test it on your blog?).

Web 2.0 Summit

Since it ties in to class, I thought I'd mention that the Web 2.0 Summit is going on right now in San Francisco. It's a conference filled with many of the most innovative thinkers (and productizers) about the internet. This is the conference where they meet with their peers and dare to dream and discuss 'what's next.'

PC Magazine's 100 Favorite Blogs of 2007

Nope...they're not all geek blogs. Check out the list. While mostly not educational blogs, you'll still probably find a few to add to your reader!

Creating Books Together?

Some of you may be familar with Blurb (if not, it's a FANTASTIC website that let's you create pretty high quality soft and hard cover 4-color printed books. For moderate prices. You can even easily create a book of your blog! OK, maybe you don't want to print up your blog for this class, but if you were doing a travel blog?...)

Of course, I'm not here to help you think of holiday gifts :-) I recently saw a post that says Blurb is in beta with Community Books which allows groups of people to collaborate on books. Intriguing idea! Applications for learning?

Tokbox

OK, I hate to (once again) pass on a technology I haven't really looked at; but here goes...

Ken (the SOE tech guy) sent me the link to Tokbox. I won't have a chance to play with it before class, but wanted to pass it on because it's pretty intriguing looking. From their website:

Tokbox is a free service that lets you talk with your friends over live video. Here's how it works: you sign up and we give you a link. When you want to talk with anyone, just give them the link - they click and you chat.

Here are a few things that excite me about this so far:

• no chat client needed. For example, we'll be looking at Skype in our next class which is VoIP and also just added video conferencing. But when we do this in class, you'll see that we all have to sign up, then the PC people will need to use the macs or download the SKype client on their computers, etc. This sounds SO much easier (although Skype does allow 4-way video conferencing which is pretty dang cool!)


• Apparently you can add Tokboxes to your social networking sites, websites, and BLOGS! (if we combine this with ideas of informal, non-classroom-based learning...the mind boggles!)


• It's free

So if you get a chance to try it before I do (and I hope you do!) I'd love to see a demo in our next class.

(by the way...macintoshes need USB headset/mics, but PCs can use either headset/mics with either USB or the "stereo" plug connections--like where you plug speakers in to your PC. I have some non-USB headset/mics I can loan out if you want to explore.)

Article: Learning and Networking with a Blog

I'm still poking around Tony Karrer's blog (Thanks Carol) and saw this post where he refers to an article he wrote in T&D Magazine called Learning and Networking with a Blog. I can't post it here (copyright) but did put a link to it in BB-->course documents in case you want to take a look at it. I'd love to see your thoughts on it in your blogs or in class.

(plus, in this article you'll learn the definition of the word flogging...a term I've specifically kept out of this class for obvious reasons! ;-)

By the way, you might also want to check out the first time visitor's page in Tony Karrer's blog for some great links on web2.0/collaborative technologies, elearning and other related topics.

The 1% Rule and You

I was reading Carol's Oct 15 blog post, checked out the blog she referenced and starting reading around it. What captured my attention was the blogger's definition of the 1% Rule. His describes the 1% Rule as:

This rule tells us roughly that in online communities:
90% will read-only
9% will make limited contributions (comment)
1% will actively contribute content

Of course I can make a link to online communities, and to our class and the collaborative technologies we've been exploring. But instead, my mind goes to the more traditional face-to-face formal or informal learning experience--the non-online educational communities we're all a part of. Does some version of the 1% Rule hold for communities and groups in general? (Maybe it's the 10% Rule instead, but I'm reluctant to believe it's anything like the 80% Rule).

So to me, regardless of the technology or situation, does the 1% rule still apply. So then, the real question is:

When you think of learning experiences...
what kind of participant are YOU?

• Reading (in a f2f class, the equivilant of listening and letting everyone else do the participating)
• Limited contributions (in f2f, you rarely participate or extend the learning for yourself and others, maybe only if it's assigned or required?)
• Or actively taking a part in any and all of your learning experiences?

Revised Spring/Summer Schedule

I've posted a Spring/Summer class schedule on BB in Course Documents-->Other Drake-Related Resources. This schedule is revised as of Oct 4, so if you received a copy of the schedule in a class last weekend, this is a new schedule (we added one additional class: ALOP 298 Recreation Services in Higher Education, 1 cr, Feb 22 & 23)

Registration will start the week of Oct 22 (once I know the final date I'll pass it along, plus you'll receive a notice in your Drake email).

Feel free to meet with your advisor if you want to talk through which classes to take this spring/summer. If you don't have an advisor, I'm happy to meet with you!

Widgets in Wikispaces

We talked briefly about widgets in class last Saturday. Here's an entry from the wikispaces e-newsletter:

2. Widgets and User Statistics
------------------------------
Our new Widget tool. Why it's awesome.
Wikispaces now has Widgets! What does this mean? You can now put a
video, calendar, spreadsheet, poll, chat room, slideshow, map, or any
other tool, gadget, or plugin on your Wikispace. You want to put that
YouTube video on lunar eclipses directly on your wiki or share your
Google calendar? You can. To add a Widget, click on the Widget button
on our toolbar (it looks like a little TV) which leads you to a handy
list of widgets that you can use, along with helpful instructions
where necessary.

To learn more on how to easily add these Widgets to
your wiki, read our blog post at
http://blog.wikispaces.com/2007/09/widgets.html .

Member statistics. Very handy for teachers.
We have added the capability for you to view member statistics for
your space. When you go to your "Usage Statistics" page, there is a
tab at the top labeled "members." By clicking on it, you can find out
how many page edits and messages each member of the site has made over
a period of time. This is especially handy for teachers, as you can
now more easily follow how each student is contributing to your space,
providing you will the ability to measure the progress of each
individual in the class. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Social Networking + Language Learning=Effective Practice?

You have read in your text about social networking with sites like myspace and facebook. Since we have at least one ESL teacher in the class and several multi-lingual students, I thought you might be interested in this post about LiveMocha. It's a site that's using the power of collaborative technologies to help people learn a foreign language.

Here's what I like about thinking of LiveMocha. It reminds me that although in our class we need to learn these technologies, and practice using them; then, in our blogs and in our discussions, we need to continue past "how to use it" and continue on to "how can I use it effective for development and performance improvement?" To consider how we can capitalize on the potential presented by these emerging technologies to more easily/more effectively/more efficiently develop the people with whom we work.

As always, I'll be interested in your thoughts.

Follow up to Weekend 1

Thanks for a good weekend full of new information and technical skills. (Hopefully we've started to make a dent on the "I want to be able to do it" expectation!)

A few things (mostly about BB):

• Week 1 folder--the list of items was starting to get kind of long, so I put everything from this weekend, including Jean's documents, in the Week 1 folder in course documents.


• I also moved the pre-assignment into its' own folder so it would not take up so much visual space in the course documents folder.


• I've added the list of expectations and concerns to the Week 1 folder.


• I've started a "misc. class related resources" folder. Most of what I'll put in here has been prompted by class or 1:1 discussions.


• Don't forget there are three wikis to which you need to add information (links are all in the Course Documents folder): your blog URL, your contact info, and who's reading whose blog.

I'm looking forward to reading your blogs between now and the next class!
Be sure to let me know if you have any questions!

Adding HTML text to your blog

I realize (even after class) some of you still may be a bit unsure how to add HTML text to your blog to spiff it up. In particular, I want to be sure you know how to add the HTML tag that allows your links to open up in new browser windows.

(Remember, if you just add the link in blogger and leave it that way; when someone clicks on a link it opens up in the current browser window replacing your blog! We definitely don't want that. It's better that the link opens up in a new browser window. When that happens, your readers can follow the link and still have a window open with your blog in it!)

Click the start box on the video screen at the end of this post to see a presentation reminding you how to do this! (I created this presentation as a way to start getting familar with Splashcast. See my previous post Splashcast for more information on this.)

A few hints:

1. There is audio, so be sure you're wearing headphones or somewhere where it's OK to play audio!


2. You need to double-click on the start bar to start the show (I can't explain why, but it's what I had to do)


3. This powerpoint presentation contains screenshots of the blogger editing window...it's pretty small...so you may want to click the fullscreen button on the video control bar. It says "full" and has a little picture of a video screen. This will open a new window with a fullscreen view of the show.


4. Unfortunately, going to a fullscreen seems to stop the show. So you'll need to click on the left arrow on the video navigation bar (below the video, near the left bottom corner of the screen) to go back to the beginning and have the show start over. Sometimes this takes you back to the table of contents for the shows. If it does, just double click on the show to start it.


5. At the end of the show it will take you to a table of contents (there's only one show right now), but if there were more than one you could double-click to start any of the shows!


6. Just close the window with the fullscreen when you're done. The blog is still open in another window.


7. whew...seems like a lot of hints are required just to use this viewer! (Hopefully I'll figure out ways around some of this as I get more familiar with Splashcast. )On with the show!

Splashcast

I've been playing around today with a new (for me) website called Splashcast. Apparently Splashcast allows you to create a streaming media channel that is hosted on their servers (which is good, because all servers--like ours at Drake--are not set up to handle streaming media), but which you can present on your blog, website, or social networking page (like myspace).

You can import lots of different items into your splashcast including video, photos, audio files, .pdf files and powerpoint. You can also record audio in Splashcast for these various items. I'm going to include a Splashcast in my next post.

I'm still not sure what I think about Splashcast, but I'll keep playing with it and we may talk about it in class. Of course you are welcome to start playing with it now as well!

Resource: Drake Writing Workshop

Here's information on the Drake writing workshop It's called a "workshop" because it's a place for you to "work" on your papers/writing, but they work with you one-on-one (it's not a class). It is a great resource! (and one that I think is really underused by our students!)
-----------------------------------------------------------

The WRITING WORKSHOP is now open for student appointments.

There is a new sign-up procedure. Students can sign up online at the following website: http://turing.cs.drake.edu/wws.html

Students may also phone the workshop 271-2729, Elizabeth Robertson (the director) 271-3806 or the English Department, 271-3777 with questions, or if they are having difficulty making an appointment.

• Writing workshop hours:
• M-Th: 225 Howard Hall (various morning and afternoon hours available.)
• M-TH: Room 23 Cowles Library 7-10 pm
• Sunday: Basement, Herriot Hall 7-10 pm

Quechup

We'll be looking at several social networking sites as a part of class (linkedin, myspace, facebook, ning) and you may already have experimented with them outside of class or as a result of your pre-reading. I did want to bring you a "watch out" for a fairly new social networking site called Quechup. Apparently, in an effort to be helpful, Quechup looks at all the people in your address book to see if anyone is already a member of Quechup...to give a head start to your social network. Unfortunately, it also automatically sends invitations to join your Quechup network to everyone in your address book who is not already a member, and it does this without your knowledge, permission or control. (essentially you're SPAMming everyone in your contact list. So my advice, and based on the experience of others ...stay away from Quechup or you'll be sending emails to everyone in your contact list as well...apologizing!

This brings up a series of questions about software you "expose" yourself to, and the precautions you need to take for the safety of you, your computer and your privacy. And your reputation (as in this case where Quechup does not indicate that this is a result of a bot , but makes is seem as if it comes from you!) It also brings up the bigger ethical issue of exposing (involving?) someone else in an activity that has the potential for negative reprocussions for them (Quechup example: if someone responds to the automated invitation to join your network...when they join their entire address book is SPAMmed too! Getting them in potential hot water with their friends, family, customers, contacts, etc)

Trouble with the survey

As several of you pointed out to me (thanks!), there was a problem with the pre-assessment.

My dad, who is an auto mechanic, used to say that most of the problems he saw in his garage were a result of the nut behind the wheel.
:-)

Well, apparently that was the problem with the pre-assessment...but I took care of it and it's working now. So if you had a problem selected the rating you wanted in the pre-assessment, give it another try and it should work like a charm!

It's an interesting way to start a class on technology! But as always, there's a lesson: there may not necessarily be any more "opps" with technology supported learning than with face to face learning, but it is likely that with technology you won't be around the "opps" when it happens. What are the implications of this for students in terms of their learning process, motivation, and engagement? What is the implication for you (or in this case me) and your credibility as a leader of the learning and/or SME? Or the way(s) in which you need to stay involved in the learning intervention?

Welcome!

OK, here's my first Emerging Tech post. Check the Blackboard site for the pre-assignment, and syllabus.

Definitely more later! I'm looking forward to a great semester!