:TeachTech

I participated in this in 2007 and 2008 and just realized that I missed the deadline for 2009, darn it.

But, the work of Jane Hart at the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies to create the Top 100 Tools for Learning is always very helpful and informative for both seeing trends in popularity and discovering unknown gems.

My 2009 list is:
1. Firefox – same reasons as before. Free.
2. Tweetdeck – I have finally “gotten” Twitter and my personal learning network is pretty much based there now. Free.
3. Delicious – I have to have my bookmarks and I have to have them anywhere, searchable, tagged and shareable. Free
4. Keynote – I have been speaking more in the past year than I have in a long time. So, I have gone back to presentation mode and Keynote does the job for me. Not free.
5. Wordpress MU – We have it installed on campus and I am so tickled to see our blogging community growing bit by bit. Free!
6. MPEG Streamclip – handles most any video I throws its way and encodes, clips and more. Free!
7. Etherpad – I have been using it for collaborative work with faculty and ETS. I cannot believe it just got bought by Google but I have hope for the open source option.
8. Flip and Kodak Zx1/Zi8 cameras – these little web ready video cameras are great for creating quick content both for and by students
9. Google Video Chat – love it!
10. Vimeo – I like it better than YouTube because it has less ads, fewer crass comments and a nice privacy feature for sharing videos. For a while the encoding was better but I think YouTube has caught up with that.

Audrey J Williams’s Top Ten Tools (from 2007 and 2008)

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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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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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This crossed our radar last week as a post on the Fail blog (funny stuff, not always politically or even politely correct – you have been warned!). Now, Inside Higher Ed also picked it up. A new services called Corrupted-Files.com (not going to link to it) sells files to students (for around five bucks) that are intentionally corrupted. They turn those files into the instructor and then use the extra time to complete the assignment.

Hmmmm……a digital dog ate the homework kinda thing.

News: The New Student Excuse? – Inside Higher Ed

Image: ‘0.2E‘
www.flickr.com/photos/7326488@N08/2165206062

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An intrepid group of explorers joined me last semester for Pellissippi 2.0. We explored some of the concepts behind the definition of social software and Web 2.0 as well as took a whirlwind tour of some of the most popular social networking and social media sites (with a few esoteric detours).

If you didn’t have time to join us last semester or just want to do it all over again, consider joining in Pellissippi 2.1!

This time, we are going to work within our own little social network. So, if you were not really sure about joining Facebook or Flickr or any other social site just yet..this might be just the thing for you. It will be open just to our group but you can still learn about how social networking and social media sites work.

Once you are comfortable with the environment, you can expand out to other sites and see how they might fit in your own personal and professional worlds.

Join us!

Visit Pellissippi 2.1

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If you have a few minutes, you might want to participate in this survey. The results will be published by Elsevier Publishing in a series of papers this year.

Social Media in Higher Ed – Ward

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We are starting to explore the new Educator’s Accounts in Diigo. Feels good to be a pioneer!

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Most everybody here at PSTCC uses some form of learning technology. And anybody who uses technology has an opinion about it!! You can make yours known through the IMS Global Learning Consortium and their Learning Technology Satisfaction and Trends (LearnSAT) survey.

On the page below, scroll down to the table at the bottom and locate the survey(s) that most interest you. Click take survey by the topic and you are off!!

IMS Global Learning Consortium: LearnSat 2008 Survey

The Learning Technology Satisfaction and Trends ( LearnSAT) report and underlying research are conducted to help inform a new and rapidly evolving marketplace in the use of technology to support teaching and learning. Those responsible for implementing and supporting solutions in this new marketplace have very little information other than that supplied by vendors as to the level of satisfaction obtained.

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Thanks for taking the time to take this quick poll!!!

If you teach online courses, do you use proctoring for online exams?
( polls)

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