iSean

this semester, i have been using podcasting even more than previous semesters. i have also been using podcasts and video enhanced podcasts this semester (using ProfCast for the video enhanced versions). i place the video enhanced versions on my .Mac site with iWeb. however, when I use a plain audio podcast, i have been making an mp3 version and a smaller iTunes version and giving my students an option to download either one. i survey my students weekly and the results (see below — click image to view larger version) indicate that most choose to listen to the mp3 even though most have downloaded iTunes to view my video enhanced podcasts. i find this strange.

okay, i just met with a student in one of my online sections as i was writing this. i showed him the results above and asked him which version he listened to. he said he listened to the mp3 version. i asked if he had iTunes on his computer. he did. he said that he listened to the mp3 version because he knew what to expect from it. the iTunes version had an extension of m4a and that was new to him. he wasn’t sure if it would just open automatically in iTunes or whether he’d have to figure out how to get it to play in iTunes. i am glad i asked. frankly, i don’t know how this works on a PC. perhaps someone can fill me in if you’ve downloaded an m4a (iTunes) audio file or podcast previously. that way i can better explain it in the future.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, mp3, podcast, profcast, iWeb

this isn’t really ed tech, but it’s geeky enough that i had to point it out. i have been using a custom google page as my starting point on the internet. on this page, i have Digg headlines; NY TImes headlines; Wired News; Stock Market; Weather; Sports Illustrated; Inside Higher Ed; my Gmail account; etc. on this front page. i have a 23″ display so it all fits nicely. i have thought about adding more, but stuff that falls below the main screen tends to get ignored as i don’t like scrolling.

well, Google has added a new feature borrowed from tabbed browsing. they added the ability to use tabs on this customized page. i just added a new tab that i titled “ed tech” — obviously, i placed ed tech feeds on this page. the Google pages make it easy to add RSS feeds as content on the custom pages. i added, “Stephen’s Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~ OLDaily RSS 2.0” which contains hundreds of various ed tech blogs. i added a bunch of other RSS feeds as well. pretty nifty to have it all on one page. sure, i get it all using NetNewsWire (an RSS / Atom news reader that’s really good), but that’s a completely different application and sometimes i get stuck in the web browser.

just quickly, since i am touting something from Google, i figured i’d explain how i use my gmail account . . . my university uses Groupwise (no link; it’s crummy). i use a few different computers (my laptop and desktop). well, my sent mail often gets lost. if i send something on my desktop, i rarely can find it on my laptop even though all machines are using IMAP with everything stored on the server. well, with Thunderbird you can have every email you send also automatically blind carbon copied to any email address you choose. i do this to my gmail account and then use a filter to have every email from me labeled as such and removed from the main inbox into it’s own little hideaway. anytime i want to see my sent mail from any computer, it’s easily accessible.

Technorati Tags: Google, NetNewsWire, email, Thunderbird, RSS

so, i teach 2 online classes that have 24 students; though, both classes were missing a student last week (one on wednesday and one on thursday). that’s 23 students/class if you’re keeping track at home.

in both classes, i had students log into my drupal site and sign up and post a message. both times, a screen came up and said that i was locked out for a few minutes because my site was using too much of the CPU.

23 users? compared to most websites on the internet i am extremely small time, yet i overloaded the CPU?

i guess i am just a bit shocked!

i have been extremely happy with bluehost up to this point, but this just seems a bit pathetic to me. 23 users on my site and i am shut down. having 30 GB of space and fantastico and cPanel and all of that jazz is great, but there comes a point when just being able to access the stuff you have online is even more important and that’s while i am teaching.

bluehost made changes in the last month or so that have caused the errors i am getting. and, i also realize they quickly added a new account for heavy users, but i have two small classes . . . $20/month for an educator with 2 small classes is a bit steep considering i pay $6.95/month now. thank gosh my students are online and that they login at different times; however, i am looking ahead to the date of my midterm and i am worried that they’ll all want to access my drupal site where the class content is located and i’ll get overloaded again. this is the kind of thing that never entered my thinking when choosing an online host. i still have an account with iPowerWeb, but i kept getting database errors with my drupal installation on their site. i do use them for my phpBB installation and it’s gone well. perhaps i’ll figure out how to get drupal installed there and leave bluehost for just my blog. my blog doesn’t get too much traffic. ;~)

Tags: bluehost, drupal, overloaded, teaching, online, hosting

i have finally made a sample of what Quicktime 7 looks like using an enhanced podcast (video images added to the audio). in a previous blog entry, i mentioned that i was creating enhanced podcasts this semester for my students and Chris Conway asked for a sample, so that’s where this blog entry comes in. this is a very small file at 228 KB. i will provide a link to the file for anyone who wants to fiddle with it. here’s how it looks:

Click here to download the file (228 KB) — you might need to right-click and save the file to your computer first.

make sure you fiddle with the chapters (click on the Enhanced Podcast box on the lower right side of the QT interface).

Tags: Quicktime, podcast, enhanced podcast, videocast, m4b

i am not a web designer by training, nor have i have spent much time learning about the intricacies of design. heck, i didn’t even stay at a holiday inn express last night. that being said, i think all educators are responsible for making their online learning content as accessible as is possible and that includes the design of the online materials we use. in that vein, i have always thought that black text on a white background is necessary on the web. i made no exceptions for the longest time. but, i have slowly decided that black text on a white background can have a darker background off to the side as seen here on my upcoming Drupal class website:

notice how i have dark blue around the edges? not much i admit, but the text is still black on white. my blog follows this principal as well. i notice many blogs have light text on a dark background and i think i get slightly annoyed when i see it, but only because i have ingrained in my head that this is bad design; not for any practical reason.

i had a display go bad on me recently. i bought a new dell 20 LCD and went about setting the desktop background (this is my secondary display as my main apple display is 22″, just FYI). i started thinking about the color of background that i’d use on the desktop and decided that a very dark (e.g., black) background would be best for the display because that uses less light (if any at all). come to think of it, a white background is really like turning on a light behind the screen — that can’t be as good for the display in the long run. a screen is not like paper because a screen is illuminated. i wonder how pleasing that is to our eyes to stare all day at illuminated screens? that got me to pondering things.

further, i use a tool on my Mac called TextMate for my text editing needs (particularly Ruby and web programming). i have found that i particularly enjoy the inverted colors for my text documents as seen in this file i am working on:

now i obviously use multiple colors, which helps me to see various elements of the file more easily, but i really like staring at the darker screen for long periods of time and i tried a white background with colors as well.

i even came across a blog that discusses using dark backgrounds and states:

When reversing color out, e.g., white text on black, make sure you increase the leading, tracking and decrease your font-weight. This applies to all widths of Measure. White text on a black background is a higher contrast to the opposite, so the letterforms need to be wider apart, lighter in weight and have more space between the lines.

i am not sure i know how to decrease a font’s weight from the default . . . actually much of what is stated on that blog is pretty easy to do in MS Word, but not as easy on a website. but, at least that’s a guide to try and figure out.

i am not arguing that one style is better than another; rather, i am just noting that many tools we use these days have various themes that can be turned on and off and installed, etc. why not provide your users with some options for the theme that they most prefer? i’ll have to check through the literature to see whether i am off-base on this thinking.

Tags: web design, TextMate, typography, background, readability

unbelievable. here it is 2006 and installing a mySQL database is still not simple for the average joe (or sean in this case). i have the process down with my regular hosting company. it took me a while to figure out their intricacies, but once i did i was golden. and, bluehost (my preferred hosting company) also provide fantastico, which is an auto installer for many mySQL databases (e.g., WordPress, PHPBB forums, Drupal, Moodle, etc.). many folks in the know don’t recommend fantastico, but for people like me who like to experiment, fantastico is a fantastic way to fiddle with various tools very quickly.

anyway, i have various domain names. my ed205.com domain hosted by another popular company (iPowerWeb). they don’t make installing mySQL databases very easy compared to bluehost. maybe if i’d started with iPowerWeb then i’d think differently. hmmm. anyway, i’ve spent the last hour trying to get a Drupal installation to work and i am getting errors up the whazoo.

Warning: Table ‘ed205com_drupal.sessions’ doesn’t exist query: SELECT sid FROM sessions WHERE sid = ‘d796da670a79fd58aba93924eff2d6b0′ in /addresstoinstallonmysystem/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 120

Warning: Table ‘ed205com_drupal.users’ doesn’t exist query: SELECT u.* FROM users u WHERE u.uid = 0 in /addresstoinstallonmysystem/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 120

the warnings/errors continue for a few pages. i’ve dabbled that way and this way to no avail. i’ll now head off to the drupal forums looking for a solution to what i am doing wrong. when i installed this stuff on bluehost earlier this summer, i don’t even recall giving any part of the install a second thought. hmph!

i am just amazed that something so common is still something so difficult. yeah, fantastico is a step in the right direction, but as i mentioned earlier, folks in the know seem to think a fantastico install is not as secure and not as healthy in the long run.  i know nobody is purposefully making this stuff difficult, but when a guy like me has trouble like this, there is still a huge gap to overcome with regard to using this kind of technology. that’s unfortunate.

then again, i’ll probably post this and find my solution in the next 30 seconds . . . and, it’ll be something super simple. such is life. ;~)

the past year or more, i have been supplying my students with podcasts. my podcasts are typically a way to present lecture-type material in a different format than text. as most folks are aware, online classes tend to be more text heavy than not (of course there are exceptions). so, i provided my students with a choice between an mp3 or an iTunes mp4 (smaller file). well, about 1/2 choose each option. i tend to make the podcasts about 20 minutes. why 20 minutes, you ask? well, our campus is located about 11 miles from downtown Grand Rapids. the College of Education is located on the smaller downtown campus, but many of the students live out on or near the main campus. every so many minutes, a free shuttle bus runs between the 2 campuses. so, a student could grab my podcast and listen on the shuttle they ride to their downtown classes (or in their cars) and the podcast would fit neatly into that span. i even explain that this is what i’d do with the podcast(s). at the end of each week, i survey my students. one of the questions i ask is how they listened to my podcast. nearly every student responds that they listen on their computer. in fact, i think in the last year (maybe year and a half), i have had only 2 students listen on an mp3 player (e.g., iPod). now, i should mention that my podcasts tend to have visual aids that can accompany the podcasts, but i also make the podcast audio stand-alone. in other words, if i am referring to a website or a slide then i describe it well enough that the visual aid isn’t necessary. i do provide the supplementary visual aids to my students, but it’s more in an effort to help them not have to take extra notes.

so that brings me to a decision i am making this semester. i am going to switch to enhanced podcasts. my university just upgraded to Quicktime 7. QT 7 adds a new feature where you can have chapters in your podcast. i think this is the perfect feature to improve podcasting. and, i just recently bought a product for Macs called ProfCast (version 1.5). rather than explain it to you, here’s how the company describes their product:

ProfCast is the ideal tool for recording and publishing your live Keynote or PowerPoint presentation. All elements of your presentation, including slide timing and voice narration, are recorded. You can then publish your complete presentation on the Web as a Podcast, complete with RSS support.

• Live Presentation Recording
• Synchronized Slides with Audio
• RSS Generation for Podcasting
• Publishing support via FTP, SFTP and .Mac
• Integration with GarageBand 3
• Integration with iWeb
• Support for Audio Playthrough
• File Size Control

i don’t really like using PowerPoint, but i don’t want to avoid it when it can play a role and i think it can help to organize notes associated with a lecture, especially when pictures can be used more effectively than word descriptors. with ProfCast, i simply drag my presentation into the window and i can start recording. as i switch to a new slide, the chapter is automatically created.

Quicktime 7 will allow the chapters to be easily accessed. if a student is thumbing through the notes and wants a quick refresher, he/she doesn’t have to try and find it in the mp3 file since the chapter feature can quickly locate the audio associate with any particular slide.

one of the disadvantages of technology is how quickly things can get dated. my podcasts are going to fall by the wayside as i upgrade to enhanced podcasts. i’ve read how the development of an online course is the biggest hurdle. our university even provides money for folks to develop online courses; though, i’ve never taken any money for this (not until intellectual property rules get worked out anyway). but, folks who think the development ends when the class gets taught are really doing their students a disservice.

Tags: quicktime, profcast, podcast, e-learning, education, teaching

more and more often i am noticing that educators are shifting to using moodle as their course management system (CMS) of choice. i think it’s great that a developer is working on moodle specifically for the education community. moodle is free and open source and provides an alternative to Blackboard/Web CT (BB recently bought it’s main competition — Web CT). my university provides BB as our CMS option. and, to let you in a little secret . . . i think i’d prefer BB to moodle as long as i am not paying for using BB. i have played with moodle on my servers. it’s a nice early attempt at a CMS, but BB is much more refined. we recently upgraded to a later BB version and there are things that are impressive. that being said, i think BB is built on an older technology and the negatives outweigh the positives. if you don’t have a choice then sure, it’s a dandy choice. however . . .

drupal recently came out with version 4.7, which makes drupal much more interactive and user friendly (e.g., AJAX supported). wow! what an improvement over each of the tools i’ve listed earlier. and, i know what you’re thinking . . . drupal isn’t built for higher education. of course not, but the underlying code is being supported by a much larger community of developers than moodle and drupal is even much bigger than BB, plus drupal is open source. further, there is an initiative to make drupal more like moodle, in that it has tools added on that make it conducive to learning.

a week or so ago, i learned about Google’s Summer of Code 2006. many of the projects that Google is helping to support are geared towards drupal (EDIT: i should also note that moodle is also a sponsoring company included in this SOC project). in fact, one of the most promising projects is an Assignment/Gradebook (snippet):

Assignment/ Gradebook suite
Drupal 4.7
The Assignment/Gradebook suite will allow instructors to create assignments. Students will be able to respond to assignments, and instructors will subsequently be able to provide both a grade and written feedback on student work. While the course instructor will be able to see all student work, students will only be able to see their own work. Additionally, teachers will have the option of showing students an in-progress grade, or just sharing comments. Teachers will also be able to export grade info in csv format (for use in spreadsheets) and all comments to txt files (for use in narrative grade reports). As a security measure, student grades will be protected behind an additional login.

this module/add-on isn’t going to make drupal a BB killer. however, i think drupal and the developers using drupal are making huge strides towards having drupal in place to make waves in education. in fact, i am now planning on adopting drupal in my classes in the very near future. Stay tuned for updates as i discover new uses for current modules and various workarounds to making the best Content MS available also the best Course MS available for the classroom.

Tags: Blackboard, Web CT, Moodle, Drupal, Google, CMS

i am surprised to learn that my comments on the insiderhighered website received so much attention. i found the site quite by accident. i had no clue that the site was getting such traffic when i started my little debate. well, come to find out, many more people than i expected found my discussion with James Farmer. i even had a librarian here at GVSU comment on my comments just the other day. i guess i need to be more careful about what i say when i think i am somewhere obscure. and, i didn’t say anything bad; i just wasn’t writing with a known audience in mind. as large as the internet is, the little niches can bring together many of the same faces.

anyway, i wanted to post some raw data from last semester. as i’ve mentioned before, i survey my students every week. on the last survey last semester, i asked about Blackboard and blogs and even the phpBB forums that I use. I posted the screenshot images at Flickr, but here’s the gist of the question that got right at the heart of my previous discussion:

i need to add a footnote — i put much more effort into the discussion forum and i wasn’t sure how to best use blogs . . . but, it’s nice to see my students appreciating the phpBB forums. The literature is not clear on best practices with regard to blogs and many professionals who write about blogs have varied ideas on how implementation should occur. That leaves folks like me guessing really.

here’s another question that compares the website I create (using html and CSS, etc.) versus Blackboard:

by and large, my students prefer to use learning tools outside of Blackboard. along these lines, my students overwhelmingly preferred my discussion forums much more than Blackboard.

i will have more entertainment with data in the future, but this was some of the stuff that struck out to me earlier today when i was looking through the data for the first time.

Tags: Blackboard, phpBB, interactive learning, online learning

i have been using phpBB forums for many, many years. these forums have suited my needs quite well over the years; however, i am starting to feel the age of the forums. phpBB forums were built in another era of the web and the code it getting larger and larger and they try and improve old code for the current internet. i have fiddled with MODs as you can read in my previous entry, but that’s not quite done the trick.

i have caught web 2.0 fever, i’ll admit. i love using gmail and hitting a keystroke and seeing changes without having to wait for a new webpage to load. i like the CSS designed sites that use scripting to be more interactive and responsive to what i want. phpBB forums don’t allow for this kind of look and feel. so, i started looking for a replacement about a month ago. i downloaded a new forum software package called Vanilla.

Vanilla is made by Lussumo and they call Vanilla the, "sweetest forum on the web." how can i resist having the sweetest forums on the internet? i couldn’t, obviously. i installed Vanilla a few weeks ago and finally got around to playing with it last night. I ended up staying up far too late trying to see if this forum could suite my needs. i think it can.

i should point out that Vanilla is not perfect. and, it’s only a .9.2.6 release; although, the 1.0 release is imminent from what i can tell. i have created groups and categories. i tried adding an avatar and i’ll have to change some underlying code so that the CSS knows where the avatar folder is located once the avatar gets uploaded. that won’t be hard, but that makes me wonder what other tweaks i’ll need to make when things go wrong. i also don’t like that the default size for avatars (called icons, fwiw) is 32 x 32 pixels. that’s awful small when i am using the avatars to try and learn faces with names. and, i notice that if i change the icon/avatar size that i’ll have to change the CSS because it will then overlap with the username, etc. how much work am i willing to put into something that might not even suite my needs until i really test it out? hmmm.

i created a dummy account that i use for testing what my students will see and i think this thing might be ready for prime time. my problem is that classes start in just a few days (Monday) and i am not sure i will time to make the course changes i’ve planned and run Vanilla through the battery of tests that i’d like to try. i’d love to beta test Vanilla with my 1 spring online class rather than introducing it in the fall semester with all of my classes. decisions, decisions.

Tags: vanilla, lussumo, phpbb, forums, online teaching