How about a Zoho Chat window? Can it fit in a blog post?

Apparently, yes, it can. But it looks ugly here. I'm going to move this experiment to the projects tab.

IdeaScale III

First impressions:

It helps to understand HTML/CSS, prior to using IdeaScale. UserVoice is a bit more goof-proof (It comes with more obvious, easy-to-use instructions). Also, the IdeaScale site that you link to is aggravatingly slow. Be warned, I can't be the only person without the patience for this wait.

So far, I think it's a bit like SNL, not quite ready for prime time.

IdeaScale II

Will a feedback box fit in a blog post?

Ah, no. Not in a blogger blog post. Perhaps off to the left, above the Amazon ad.

IdeaScale?

Here's another feedback system -- again on a recommendation: IdeaScale. It appears to work much like UserVoice, for the end-users. Setup feels very different.

Here's a link to an IdeaScale feedback page for DEd.

UserVoice

Well, that was almost too simple. It took about a minute to create a free account on UserVoice and about another 20 seconds to change my blog template to include the javascript that adds the Feedback tab. Very nice.

My next task is to experiment with formatting the tab.

Here's my first attempt at embedding a feedback link in a blog post.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to have both a feedback tab and a feedback link. A flaw in the scheme, or a feature?

I'll put back the feedback tab when this post drops from the top of the screen.

Where's Ed?

That's a very good question.

As some of you know, I am doing a bit less teaching these days and a bit more work with the Feds. As a precaution, I have been pulling back on my social media use, just to be sure I didn't cross any ethical or legal lines while getting my feet wet.

The feet are now damp.

So, if you don't mind, I'm going to use the blog to experiment a bit. A colleague recommended UserVoice, so I'm going to see if I can embed it here.

Let's find out.

Press TV burns a source - Me!

For the past few years, I have been making irregular appearances on Iran's Press TV. In fact, I was on their inaugural programming, opining on the subject of "media today," back on June 3, 2007.

Are the Press TV crew propagandists? At times, sure. But, as Affra Haj, my point of contact at the DC office reminded me on Monday, the DC production office has never treated me poorly -- never treated me in a non-journalistic way.

So, despite Press TV's less-than-stellar post-Iran-election coverage, I agreed to sit for an interview for Iran Today. I should have been more circumspect, perhaps more suspicious.

Yesterday, Press TV burned me.

You may recall words attributed to Winston Churchill:

Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried.

What Press TV did to me is the equivalent of using just

Democracy is the worst form of Government.

Needless to say, I am not happy.

So, to my friends at Voice of America and the BBC, I apologize. I have great respect for your work, and anyone who saw the whole interview would know that. The selective editing used by Press TV makes it look otherwise.

This is journalism of a particularly insidious sort, using true fragments of conversations to make a person appear to hold a position not his own. It is dishonest and should be beneath the integrity of anyone who aspires to the title Journalist.

DocumentCloud

First, let me say that I applaud the DocumentCloud team and its efforts and congratulate them on their recent Knight News Challenge funding.

I'm just not so sure about how it will work in the long run. I asked this question during their Poynter live-chat:

Hey there guys. Any concern that document contributors will be so outnumbered by document users that frustration will result and only committed institutional contributors (not-for-profits, perhaps?) will continue using the DocumentCloud?

This is a common concern/problem with groupsourced projects. Think of every group homework project you did in school, or the open source software community. Plenty of users. Few contributors. So, I think it was a reasonable question.

Scott, Eric, and Aron: We think there will be a vibrant community of users and contributors.

Well, OK. I suppose Knight thinks so, too, or they wouldn't have contributed $719,500 to the effort. I stand corrected.

Best of luck, guys.

Apple's (silent) Exchange Upgrade

I hope the Shenandoah University MUG won't mind my posting here first, but with the university's website upgrades, the MUG page has fallen off the Web -- for now -- and I can't see delaying this discovery.

One OS 3.0 advance that hasn't made the Top 10 lists is a fix for its Exchange contacts sync. Now, you can sync your iPhone (and probably iPod Touch) with an Exchange server without deleting the contacts already on the device.

IMHO, this incredibly useful upgrade hasn't received the play it deserves. SU folks -- please, give it a try!

Choosing and Using Textbooks

Just a quick plug today for this article from Chronicle.com on how students do or do not use the added features in "modern" textbooks. Hint: they often don't.

Blackboard 8 - Embedding media in quizzes

A colleague approached me this week with a question about Blackboard (currently v8.0.307.0) and assessments. He's a music prof and wants to put music in his quizzes and tests. One can imagine questions along the lines of "Which of the following selections is Hip Hop?" followed by three or four audio selections.

Bb currently lacks an easy way to add audio (or video) to questions, even with the <HTML> option active. Among other issues, Bb does a yeoman's job of tearing up old-school embeds.

Here's what we came up with, after mixing and matching bits of code from various sites (Bb shredded several other solutions):

<p>Text before the audio</p>
<object type="audio/mpeg" data="http://www.music-webclass.com/MULTsnds/Q1Ex1.mp3" width="200" height="30">
<param name="src" value="http://www.music-webclass.com/MULTsnds/Q1Ex1.mp3">
<param name="autoplay" value="false">
<param name="autoStart" value="0">
alt : <a href="http://www.music-webclass.com/MULTsnds/Q1Ex1.mp3">Text to display if the audio code fails</a>
</object>
<p>Text after the audio</p>

Here's the result (I'll put it in a <div> box for clarity):

Text before the audio

Text after the audio

IE users may need to give permission for ActiveX, which could cause the quiz to reset; so, if you're considering using this XHTML, please keep that in mind. It's an IE thing.

A variation on the code should be usable for video. Just remember to change the object type from audio/mpeg (which works for MP3s) to something appropriate for your media.

We tested this solution with the latest Firefox 3, Safari 3.2 and a fairly recent IE that we found on a student's laptop (perhaps not the most rigorous method of testing). My colleague and I both run Macs -- in a Mac lab -- so IE isn't considered a priority here. Any problems -- let me know.

Coders may wonder about the 30-pixel height of the object. A bit tall for an audio controller, eh? That's what I thought until I noticed the oversized play button on my IE-using student's Windows Media Player. Oy.

Good luck with the code. I'm happy to take suggestions for upgrades, but please -- they must run in Blackboard assessments (questions, answers and feedback). Thanks.