:TeachTech

Please help us focus our efforts for continual improvement of our online teaching and learning:

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I have been thinking about this for several years now but some recent events have brought this to the forefront. The “camel meet straw” event was when our most recent course management upgrade was installed, it was extremely buggy with Internet Explorer 8, which had been installed on campus as a standard browser. Of course the CMS vendor was clear in their listing of supported browsers (and IE8 was not on that list). Still, we had to deal with MANY calls and frustrated users because they were trying to use their updated browser in our updated system and things just were not happy.

I see two major problems here:

1. it is time-consuming and expensive to continually develop a product and test it against ALL browser flavors available now so the supported browser list stays “dated” for longer than end users want or need
2. it is impossible to prevent end users from upgrading to the latest and greatest browser, (especially when Microsoft Software Update does the upgrade for the user)

So, I present the concept of the EDUbrowser.

It really is pretty simple. Take a browser engine like WebKit or Gecko and build your own browser around it. Using a plugin architecture (I know Gecko supports that – don’t know about WebKit), you can add features like HTML editing (like Xinha) , annotations (ala Scrapbook or Zotero), social networking options such as Flock has done and, perhaps, work with third party companies like Respondus to create optional secure browser features for online testing/quizzes much like Respondus LockDown Browser but within the EDUbrowser rather than using a totally separate product.

Add in some video editing capabilities (like Kaltura) and Audio Recording (such as the JetPack audio option from Mozilla labs) and student and faculty generated content and media becomes even easier.

And, of course, you can build a toolbar that “brands” your school so you can also provide access to support links, school event information and more. Something like Conduit would do the trick

Plus, if the LMS vendors take the EDUbrowser and test it against their products, then it can be come the ONLY supported browser greatly simplifying their QA testing and verification as well as the local school’s own technical support.

Thus, you simply tell faculty and students that they must use the EDUbrowser. Our experience with the RLDB has been that students are fine with downloading and installing something they need for class, so I don’t think asking them to use this particular browser will be an issue (except for those who are attending class at work and cannot install something on their computers there – I can see that being an issue).

What else does it take to get the EDUbrowser out in the wild? What else would you add to it?

Photo remixed from:

cc licensed flickr photo shared by kate e. did

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A major upgrade to the College electrical system is scheduled for Fall Break.  Many computer services will be down from Saturday, October 17th at 5:00 p.m. through Tuesday, October 20th at midnight.  If the contractor completes the project ahead of schedule, services may be available earlier in the day on Tuesday, October 20th .  Please review the information below concerning the availability of computer services at each campus during this upgrade.

A.     AVAILABLE
· Active Directory (login to desktop but some icons may not work)  Note: Due to Login scripts trying to map drives to servers that are down, initial login will be slow)
· internet service
· wireless service
· telephones local and long distance
· E911
· D2L access (Note: login to D2L from the homepage as myPellissippi will be down)
· official College website (pstcc15)
B.      UNAVAVAILABLE
· College email, including webmail
· Banner services
· Network drives (H drives, shared, etc.) Note: If you need to work on something that is located on your H drive during fall break, please move a copy to your C drive prior to the system going down.
· Voicemail
· Auto dialer
· Rightfax
· myPellissippi
· Other – any other data services not listed explicitly as “available” will be down
For your convenience, we will provide the project status on Pellissippi’s homepage during Fall Break.

If you have questions, please contact the Information Technology Support Center by sending e-mail to HELPDESK or by calling 694-6537.

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We blogged about the 2.0 version of this video WAY back in the golden ages of 2007. And, apparently totally missed the 3.0 version!  But, served up this week is version 4.0 of “Did You Know?” or as it is also sometimes called “Shift Happens”. It is now in widescreen format, has a great pop culture surprise reference and is now almost half the length and, as always, remains well worth watching.

For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com/ and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEW...[/youtube]

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Here are two handouts:
A More Complete Handout (Word)WPMU users guide

The Handout give out at the presentation: Getting Started with Pellissippi State Blogs

Also available in iPaper format:

[scribd id=18799545 key=key-ck0d9cai8oeeghfoxh2]

[scribd id=18799544 key=key-tv5j0r3ftjtq67kbc4l]

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Some of you might still be following the patent lawsuit filed by Blackboard against Desire2Learn several years ago.
The initial court decisions were for Blackboard but the US Patent Office also opened the patent claims for more investigation.
Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of Desire2Learn which basically overturned the lower court’s ruling. John Baker, Desire2Learn’s President, announced it on Twitter and the news spread pretty quickly.

As you can imagine, reaction from Blackboard is that of disappointment. Reaction from Desire2Learn is, well, happy.

There are still lawsuits in action here and in Canada but this is a major development in the saga. Steven Downes has a pretty complete history of the lawsuit at his site.

Reactions by others:
News: Blackboard Loses on Appeal – Inside Higher Ed

BohrerED – notes about academic technology: Great news for Desire2Learn

The Financial Impact of the Patent Loss on Blackboard

Patnt Law Blog (Patently-O): Blackboard: Federal Circuit Again Find Software-Related Means-Plus-Function Claims Invalid for Failing to Disclose Sufficient Structure

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I presented a session on the Pellissippi 2.0 and Pellissippi 2.1 experiences at the NISOD conference in Austin, TX and will be presenting a variation of it at the FUSION 2009 Desire2Learn Users Conference in St. Paul, MN.

NISOD -The presentation is at 1:30 pm on Monday, May 26.

FUSION – The presentation is at 10:45 am on Wednesday, July 15

Here is the handout – embedded from Scribd.
Pellissippi 2.0 – NISOD 2009

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If you are using Twitter, be sure to follow our new account to get announcements, campus news and other information.

  http://www.twitter.com/pellissippist

If you want to know more about Twitter, you can read what we said about it way back in the Fall of 2007 during our Web Wednesday talk on Microblogging.

Need something more current? Probably! Twitter has changed a lot. Check out these resources:
Why Everyone’s Talking about Twitter – TIME

tweeternet – What is Twitter?

7 Things You Should Know About Twitter | EDUCAUSE

Or, just watch this “Twitter in Common English” video to get things rolling. See you on Twitter!

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Looking over the 100 new works that have been added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary this week, it is interesting to note that about 20 or so are related to some kind of technology and many of the other words relate to the environment and popular culture.

So, you can now peruse the dictionary and find the official definitions of such words are (with my short definitions after):

Vlog: a video based blog (you could also call it a vodcast, I bet)

Webisode: An episode of a television series (or other video series, I suppose) that is viewed online

And, my favorite for this year: flash mob: when a group of folks organize, usually online via SMS texting or Twitter or something similar, to meet at a common spot at a certain time for some action and then they quickly dissolve away. For an example, check out the “silent rave” flash mob in London back in February 2009.

Maybe while you take your staycation this year, you can learn more about these words. We wonder when they will be entered into the spellcheck of our favorite word processors!

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We have played with Wordle in the past but someone reminded me of it today so I had to back and visit it again. Wordle is a Java based tool that creates a “word cloud” based on the frequency of a word being used in either a block of text, within an RSS feed or tags from a Delicious (social bookmarking) account.

Here is a Wordle from the feed of a blog called Falalala – all about Christmas vinyl records:

And finally, the Wordle from the tags used in the PSTCC ETS Delicious account:

Can you think of ways that Wordle could be used in your class?? Perhaps:

• Analyzing speeches (either theirs or someone elses)
• Analyzing essays or articles (again, theirs or another’s work)
• Determining the focus of a certain blog, news site or other RSS feed provider

What else?

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