If you are planning some professional development this summer, keep the Desire2Learn users conference in mind. This year is is from July 11 – 16th in Chicago. It is always a good time with lots to learn and share with other colleges, schools and institutions who use D2L.
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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:
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
With the end of the semester growing near and many, many things taking our attention ,we want to try to make calculating your final grades as easy as possible. So, we announce, the Final Grades Xtreme Sweep this week with options, options, options for you!
To get the overview you need to make your final grade column work smoothly in your courses, you can choose from:
——-FACE TO FACE WORKHOPS (30-40 minutes in Goins 236)—————
THURSDAY – April 30 (2 choices – no registration needed: first come, first with a computer)
10 am
2 pm
FRIDAY – May 1 ( no registration needed: first come, first with a computer)
10 am
——–REMOTE SESSION via Elluminate (30-40 minutes online)———–
FRIDAY – May 1
12 pm
To get to the Elluminate session: http://elluminate.pstcc.edu
Click the name of the session you wish to enter (about 15 minutes before the start time, it will be available)
Enter the name you want to use in the environment, NO PASSWORD REQUIRED
——-SELF PACED ————————-
1. We have information covered in the workshops available on the D2L Instructor Tutorials page: http://www.pstcc.edu/online/faculty/tools/grades/finalgrades.html
2. The handout used in the workshops is also available as is the End of Semester Checklist: http://www.pstcc.edu/online/faculty/tools/grades/finalgrades/ as well as on the Final Grades page listed above.
3. For those who like brevity, the “short” version is on the blue laminated card we gave out during in-service. You can also download those cards on the page listed above.
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