New Mac Mini has Audio Input

Big deal, right?

Actually it is a big deal. The thing about the old Mac Mini was that is was a very capable machine, albeit a little slow, but that wasn’t the real killer … the new Mini comes with a simple audio in jack for mics … now this thing can be dropped into a podium and be the ultimate custom lecture podcasting machine available. GarageBand, QuickTime, iMovie, or a third party tool turns this sub $600.00 machine into a serious podium machine that can handle media cration, podcasting, or just about anything.

Odeo and Some Early Results

I have been using Odeo in my IST 110 class this semester.  I am actually very impressed with it and it appears as though a good majority of my students are as well.  I have been looking at the early results of my latest class survey and of those who have responded almost all of them like the service (I will share the best later this weekend when they are all in).  So far, the results have really surprised me — students are liking all the technology I am throwing at them and they really like Odeo and del.icio.us … Outside of the survey the thing that really surprised me was that my outstnading TA, Helena, reported to me that she felt grading the podcasted Discussion Activities was easier/faster than grading the written ones.  Cool … we’ll test that again this semester to see if we were right.

Speaking of podcasts, I just added another one to the class blog … and speaking of Odeo, you’ll notice the ugly badge in my sidebar … that is an Odeo powered thing.  I am thinkng of tons of ways to integrate mobile devices and th Odeo service.  I am going to be talking more to them soon and I can share what I come up with.  For now, leave me a message.

Podcasting and Accessibility

Here I am late on a Friday afternoon that has been filled with meetings … all of them left a good taste in my mouth however … and trust me, that is strange.  Things kicked off this morning at 8 with a great conversation that I will save for another day … left that and went to the Web 2006 Conference Planning Committee meeting to discuss a proposal that a colleague and I are discussing — we’re actually thinking of a position paper we are working on as a talk — Web 2.0 and the Higher Education Enterprise.  From there it was off to a meeting with two members of our Emerging Technologies group to discuss the position paper and just geek out a while on social software, where we are headed, and that sort of thing.  Last meeting of the morning was a lunch meeting with members of my staff at the Penn State World Campus that jumped all over the place, but left me feeling really good about what they are thinking about — the whole morning was fun and enlightening.

The afternoon kicked off with a race back to the building where all my stuff was this morning to meet with the Office of Disabilities Services to discuss podcasting.  As we look to address this growing need at an enterprise level I am talking to everyone to make sure we play nicely with all the kids (we are talking enterprise at the end of the day).  A few people here in my group have been very vocal about the issue of accessibility and how it relates to podcasting.  At first it makes you wonder how people can be bent out of shape that when are offering another way to get at content … but then step back and the picture looks a little different.  If I am a student with a distinct disability and I can’t take advantage of the service, does it place me in a negative position in class?  If my classmates can review lectures before an exam and I can’t take advantage of them then we have just created a nasty situation?

The people here at the University take these questions very seriously.  They are very accommodating to all members of our audiences and that is great.  We walked away agreeing to aggressively pursue options, answers, and ultimately a solution.

I guess this is a recount of a long day, but also a shot over the bow of the “podcasting in education” ship to get us talking about this as a community.  What is happening at other schools to overcome this?  How do we provide additional channels for content in rich media format, while addressing the needs of our audiences?  I am very curious to hear responses … ideas, or just conversation on the topic.  Any takers … and please stop making me look pathetic (no jokes) when I beg for reaction and get nothing.  This is a serious issue.  Any help?

WordPress Lightbox Plugin

Maybe you’ve seen the lightbox effect that has been in use around the web lately … I started exploring and was actually thinking of writing some code — but in the end, I decided to spare the world of my abilities. Who would guess it, but I came across the WordPress Lightbox effect plugin. Sort of cool, what do you think?
Just testing it out here … a while back I posted an image of the building number for my new job … click on the image below to see inside.

Long Tail & Social Music

While I was traveling last month, I spent some time reading the Berkman/Gartner report about how social activities will shape the future of online music purcahses got me thinking about how that is relevant to what is going on a couple of fronts … the first is obviously a discussion and lesson for IST 110 this semester. The second is how it could relate to the sharing of eLearning options. Let’s explore both … What follows come right out of my personal content management system I installed on my laptop — fancy words for local install of MovableType.

For class I could clearly have the teams read the report and respond … it might be interesting for them to use it as the basis for a team podcasting assignment. I think Odeo limits podcasts to 3 minutes, so it would require them to pull their ideas together. I really like the idea of having them get together, distill their thoughts, abd articualte them in a concise way.

As it relates to eLearning objects it goes back to something my wife, Kristin and I were really starting to look at when she was still with the Solutions Institute — community based reviews and recommendations of eLearning objects. I’m not going to spend a whole bunch of time reflecting on the merits of eLearning objects, but I will say that I just saw the results of the PSU FACAC survey for faculty and TAs and an overwhelming number of respondendents claimed that they would not only use objects built by other faculty (at PSU and beyond) in their own classrooms, but would be willing to share their own stuff. That is interesting to me and a major shift in the thinking here … but you would think that we as designers of these things we’d want to create environments that mimic the best of what industry is doing to really encourage this.

I have been saying for years that eLearning and eCommerce are so similar in so many ways. I used to think that it was limited to just the design, development, and storage of the objects … but, I am seeing now more than ever that the concepts of the iTunes Mix Store’s iMix and Amazon’s customer reviews (as well as the “this is what others bought” concept) are as relevenat and important to the adoption of eLearning objects as anything else.

The basics of adoption and diffusion of innovation theory talks about getting leaders of your target audience to become part of your diffusion efforts … these early adopters can do more for your cause than hours and hours of marketing. When we released Online IST we brought out our early faculty adopters — those who were respected among our target audiences and let them talk about why it was good … this lead to a huge jump in our adoption efforts. The same is true at the next level … as objects become more widely used and shared, the thought of faculty publishing “playlists” with teaching notes will create new adoption of the pieces … just my opinion, but I think as faculty figure it out and start to share their thoughts about what worked and didn’t work we’ll see more uptake of objects that are quality.

The quality part of this is the big piece. We have all sorts of repositories out there, but most of them ignore the notion of quality — obviously a few get it right … I think allowing the community to establish the quality metrics and share their thoughts about them is key. We shall see, but the notion of letting faculty share playlists of their selected objects in context could encourage uptake … just like the Berkman report discusses how community based playlists will drive 25% of online music sales by 2010, maybe community based eLeanring object playlists can help drive adoption in our space. Sorry for the stream of typing on that one.

ProfCast Thoughts … The Podcast

After I posted about the missing podcasting link last week I got a couple of comments asking for my ProfCast thoughts … I am not going to do an all out review, but instead thought I’d share my thoughts as a Podcast … surprisingly not using ProfCast. Not that it isn’t a good tool, its just I needed to edit it a bit and that is the big hang up with that tool for me right now. I did have a chance to speak to the founder of the company that makes ProfCast and he assured me that good things are coming.

At any rate, take a listen to the podcast … it is only about 13 minutes long and weighs in around 7 MB.

5 Signs the Apocalypse is Upon Us

I’m not saying I am jinxed when it comes to sports, but let’s just say my teams DO NOT win things (or even do well) … consider this strange run in the course of a year:

1. Philadelphia Eagles make it to the Super Bowl
2. Penn State wins Orange Bowl in Football
3. WVU makes it to the Elite Eight in Men’s Basketball
4. WVU wins the Sugar Bowl in Football
5. The Steelers win the Super Bowl

The all scares the shit out of me. Can anyone say WTF?

Update: From ESPN.com, this is what I am talking about … it just aint natural:

Interesting Thoughts

I had the honor of meeting Lanny Arvan at a CIC meeting in Indy a few months ago … we sat next to each other and he pointed me to his blog.  I instantly added it to my bloglines and I keep a close eye on what he has to say.  I have to say that it is refreshing to see such a well connected, well respected adminstrator taking the time to open the door and share thoughts is cool.  I just finished reading his thoughts about the most recent ELI conference.

I should say that I went to NLII last year and actually thought the world of it … I missed ELI this year becuase my wife is expecting and I thought a second week on the west coast this month was a bit much.  Either way, I have heard and read stories about the event that sit on both ends.  I guess Lanny’s take speaks so much to me.  I just thought I’d share.