Digital Ed

Testing IdeaJam Widget

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:53:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:27:00 +0000

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

IdeaScale III

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:48:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:30:00 +0000

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?

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:27:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:55:00 +0000

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?

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:25:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:43:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:01:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:50:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:07:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:31:00 +0000

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.

Daily Nebraskan v. University Administration

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:36:00 +0000

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.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:40:00 +0000

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!

VCU sites blocked

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:10:00 +0000

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.

Wow. That's one unhelpful voice-response system at VCU. I think it has exceeded my patience level. Sorry VCU. Good luck with the security issue!

Law Officers Harrass, Arrest ABC News Producer

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:17:00 +0000

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.

MobileMe

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:15:00 +0000

I spent most of last night working with Apple's new MobileMe service. Steve Jobs is right. It's not yet ready for prime time.

MobileMe is an interesting concept. It's meant to synchronize e-mail, contacts and calendars across multiple devices (Macs, PCs, phones), but my one evening with MobileMe was full enough of frustration to make me cancel my free trial account. Me? Cancel a free account? Yup.

Let's start with e-mail. Folks currently using Web-based e-mail (such as Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail) need not apply, as your e-mail generally doesn't require any synchronization. Folks using IMAP clients will find limited utility here as well, as IMAP handles most e-mail synchronization without help.

What about contacts. Sure, I would love to have my contacts updated automatically (and instantly) across all my devices. MobileMe doesn't quite do that. I waited 30 minutes for my iPhone to pick up even a single contact from MobileMe, then surrendered. I'm going back to Plaxo for (free!) syncing across computers and using my daily iPhone charge as an opportunity for contact synchronization via USB. Is Plaxo perfect? Heck, no. Among other things, it doesn't sync contact photos. But it does keep my names, addresses and phone numbers in sync.

And calendars? I had calendar sync across multiple computers, years ago on my Linux box. I still have no idea (except perhaps financial incentive) what has kept Apple from producing a calendar with quick, automatic syncing from one of our fine Unix-based boxes. iCal has been out for quite a while, but it's Google that provided omnipresent calendaring. Would I like to use an Apple product for my calendar? Something that doesn't require continual connection to the 'Net? You bet. But do I need to pay $99/year when I'm already using the Google product? I don't think so. We've been waiting so long for a decent Apple solution that I don't think calendaring will be Jobs' killer app any time soon.

What I'd really like is an Apple app to keep my iphoto libraries in sync. MobileMe doesn't do that, either.

So, why not keep playing with MobileMe? It was that 30-minute pause with no updates on my phone.

But give it a try for yourself. Perhaps you'll have better luck!

USPTO Rejects Blackboard Patent Claims

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:14:00 +0000

T.H.E. Journal has been regularly updating a story following the U.S. Patent and Trade Office's ongoing examinations of Blackboard patent #6,988,138 ("Alcorn").

I won't spoil the storytelling, such as it is, but perhaps Bb should grow accustomed to rejection...

Drive Crash

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:13:00 +0000

Welcome to my first external drive crash.

I've been doing some freelancing for a .org in DC, helping produce videos of seminars on Capitol Hill. The editing is all Final Cut Pro 6. I enhance some of the seminar slides with Keynote animations exported as Quicktime. Good work for good people.

Unfortunately, the 1.5-month-old drive I've been using for assets and editing has just gone Tango Uniform. Unmountable. Unfixable by OS X's Disk Utility.

Why, if I spec RAID systems for other folks, did I go with a single drive config for myself? Budget? Natural cheapness? Carelessness? I guess I just didn't figure the drive would die before the first project wrapped. I had planned to archive the works, right after post-production.

Bad plan. Never again.

So, now I have a NewerTech GMAX (Guardian Maximus -- an over-the-top name if I've ever heard one) 500GB 32M RAID-1 box on order from OWC. There's a copy of Data Rescue II from Prosoft. This will be my first GMax. I'll let you know how well it works.

Time to contact the warranty folks at Maxtor! I wonder what that will be like.

Matt Waite on Data Ghettos

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:37:00 +0000

I've been pointing colleagues to Matt Waite's recent blog entry on newspaper website data centers. I thought I should point the blog to it, as well.

I would love to write more about this subject, but I'm in a non-disclosure/non-conflict-of-interest mode at the moment. So, this is me -- not disclosing, not conflicting.

Let me think some more. I have a class tonight, so my brain isn't entirely free at the moment. Perhaps I'll be more thoughtful tomorrow.

Later!

IRBs and Free Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:12:00 +0000

I don't know how long this link will remain up, but "Threat Seen to Oral History," from last week's Chronicle.com provoked an interesting response from Ohio University's Joseph Bernt. Here's a snippet:

Moreover, there is that pesky often disrespected 1st Amendment right of free speech, which I assume gives me the right to ask questions as well as make statements and gives my “subjects” or sources the right to offer their views or not.

Bernt is not alone in asserting that IRBs and the ol' 1A are in conflict. A former boss of mine would refuse to deal with the university IRB on just those grounds. Why would a journalism professor or journalism student ask permission to ask questions?

What sort of example would that professor be setting ("Oh, I just need to ask 'Mother, may I' before I can conduct an interview")? Isn't there some problem with journalists kow-towing to authority already?

Just something to think about. Go JB!

David Lynch on cell phone cinema

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 02:55:00 +0000

In case anyone is wondering why digital video instructors harp on shooting/editing differently for micro-media, try this highly blogged snippet from writer, director, producer, etc. David Lynch.

Moodle Server

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:08:00 +0000

So, what's D-Ed up to, these days? I took a crack at installing a Moodle server the other day. I think this really deserves its own box, but I don't have a spare Mini and my old Linux boxen are noisy power-vacuums by today's standards.

That leaves me with the ol' family iMac. I just hope uninstalling isn't as involved as installing. Oy!

Blog o' DE

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:05:00 +0000

This could be cool: My Norwich University Experience

The author (according to the site) is 37-year-old Scott Davis, whose higher ed experience has been entirely via DE -- and now he's doing an MBA at Norwich U. Worth checking out.

Newt Speaks! SL Quakes!

noreply@blogger.com (Prof. G.) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:09:00 +0000

If, perchance, a person were to be considering a return to active blogging (work + school = no time), could that person ask for a better incentive than Newt Gingrich chatting about Second Life -- in Second Life?