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Welcome to my occasional ruminations on digital media and its use in journalism and education.

Why "Digital Ed?" Double-entendere. The site is a place for discussion of digital education and my SL avatar's name is Ed. That's it.



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Thursday, June 18, 2009

DocumentCloud http://documentcloud.org/faq.php

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.

posted by Prof. G. at 12:01 PM (permalink) | 0 comments


 

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!

posted by Prof. G. at 12:50 AM (permalink) | 2 comments


 

Thursday, June 04, 2009

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.

posted by Prof. G. at 3:07 PM (permalink) | 0 comments


 

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

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
alt : Text to display if the audio code fails
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.

posted by Prof. G. at 11:31 AM (permalink) | 0 comments


 

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Daily Nebraskan v. University Administration

The buzz today surrounds the Daily Nebraskan and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. InsideHigherEd says the school's administration has responded to open records requests by freezing-out the newspaper from direct contact with officials apart from its PR folks.

Personally, I'm thinking of sending an open records request to the school myself.

posted by Prof. G. at 1:36 PM (permalink) | 0 comments


 

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Modern J-school, students, profs -- Old media thinking?

I'm a bit late to the party, but I really should point out Alana Taylor's article on MediaShift. She notes something that should be apparent to anyone in journalism education: neither students, nor teachers, necessarily show up to school with the skills/interest/experience in new media that one might expect.

Ouch!

posted by Prof. G. at 10:40 AM (permalink) | 0 comments


 

Friday, August 29, 2008

VCU sites blocked

I was looking for some information on the VCU pep band when I found the above link blocked by Google, flagged as potentially harmful. Firefox picked up on the Google rating, too. I'm going to phone VCU and let them know what's up.

Then again, it's VCU. They should know already.

posted by Prof. G. at 11:10 AM (permalink) | 0 comments


 

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Law Officers Harrass, Arrest ABC News Producer

Today, a nod to digital journalists and the cops who try to stop them from doing their jobs. Also, a Colbert-esque wag of the finger at the Denver Police Department and the Boulder County Sheriff's Office for what appears to be a touch of thuggery in their actions against an ABC News producer yesterday.

According to ABC News' own website, producer Asa Eslocker was arrested for doing his job, covering
Democratic senators and high-profile donors as they were leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

The video shows one officer (note the Boulder County Sheriff's Office uniform) shoving Eslocker into a street and (among other things) then telling Eslocker he was blocking traffic. Here's what it doesn't show: the events leading up to the situation. Kudos to ABC News for including at least a little of Eslocker mouthing-off, ever so delicately, to the cops (New rule: When a cop says, "Let's move," the correct answer isn't to turn away and say, "OK - Hold on" while on your cell phone. It makes you look like a smarta** and blunts our distaste for the cops' police-state behavior). I would like to see more of that exchange. I'm pretty sure ABC has the footage (New rule #2: If you're going to use video to help make the cops look like jackbooted jerks -- and they appear to deserve it here -- be fair and show what led up to it). How about posting it?

Side note to the Denver PD. Please, someone tell the sergeant with the cigar that his oral-phallic symbol does nothing positive for his image - especially in video. But do it gently. He doesn't seem like the type to take criticism well.

Side note to ABC News. Folks, you have one annoying video streaming system. Normally, I don't have much sympathy for folks swiping network footage and throwing it on YouTube, but putting a commercial before and after this tiny chunk of video -- every time I watched it. I now sympathize with the video pirates. I think this site has put me off ABC News for the next week.

Many thanks to the folks at MediaBistro for noting the story.

posted by Prof. G. at 11:17 AM (permalink) | 0 comments