Archive for the ‘’ Category

BuzzLion for the week of July 22

A look at what has ETS staff abuzz and gets people talking for the week of July 22…..

Vicki Williams is looking for your thoughts on the question What should we measure?.

“When we begin a project or initiative, we should always determine in advance what we want to accomplish and how will we know whether it is successful or not. Often, though, we are at a loss to know what it is we should measure or what data to collect to help make that determination.”

Pat Besong talks about how he FINALLY learned XML and how that helped him with a fairly complicated project.

“What I learned about XML is that it will create an array of nodes automatically if you ask it for all the childNodes at a given level of the XML file. I was able to easily home in on the data I needed once I understood this concept. XML had always sort of escaped me before, but now I can really appreciate what you can do with it.”

Michael France tells us some of the things you can do on an iPhone while stuck at the airport.

“This week, I am attending O’Reilly’s Open Source Conference (OSCON 2007) in Portland, OR. This is the first opportunity that I have had to travel with the iPhone. So far, it has been an invaluable travel companion.”

So you just started a blog; but how do you make it interesting? Elizabeth Pyatt gives some tips that will build your readership.

“Once you pick a theme for your blog, you may find it is easier to start writing. One of the nice features of the Blogs at Penn State is that you can begin more than one blog, so you can decide if you want to separate different aspects of your life or keep them together.”

Cole Camplese ponders life and thinks out loud about some great things coming out of ETS in the very near future.

“I am thinking about things from space design to new tools to support faculty and student collaborative opportunities. Much more on that in the coming weeks. I am in the midst of writing up several new project descriptions … there are some exciting things on the horizon!”

ETS Talk 29

So we sat down and pulled off another ETS Talk — this one a whole day early.  I haven’t yet posted the show notes, but will try to do that this weekend after I listen to it.  Cole, Allan, Brad, and Chris talk about a whole host of topics.  Most notable are new hot teams and responding to some comments made by D’Arcy Norman about the Digital Commons project.  Jump over to Podcasts at Penn State and take a listen.

ETS Talk 28: The Digital Commons

We’ve been a little lazy about posting links to the ETS Talk Podcast here at the ETS Blog … I know it doesn’t make much sense, but just getting the show out the door is a lot of work. Thanks to D’Arcy Norman for reminding us and for the post! We’ll have answers for you in Number 29 — maybe he’d like to be a guest? We podcast Thursday 7/26 at 2 PM eastern.Number 28 was a lot of fun … iPhone, Digital Commons, Hot Teams, and a little more iPhone. Jump over to the show notes and get the podcast.

The ETS BuzzLion for the Week of July 15

A look at what has ETS staff abuzz and gets people talking for the week of July 15…..

Cole Camplese talks about the fear of Web 2.0 and why it is misplaced.

“The article, ‘Facing Web 2.0 Fear in the Enterprise’, paints a picture that we all need to understand what is happening in this space and we really ought to embrace it because it is critical to communicate, collaboration is key and our future colleagues are growing up with it.”

Dave Stong talks about the iPhone and some of its unique CSS challenges.

“iPhone is sized kind of like a handheld, it functions kind of like a handheld, but it doesn’t display like a handheld since its screen is wider. Safari on an iPhone is an adult scale browser with robust capabilities.”

Tim Perry looks at pros and cons of the iPhone after three weeks of ownership.

“I am still a bit irritated at some of the features, but I believe with a few software/firmware updates (ARE YOU LISTENING APPLE!?) that some of the bugs will be worked out.”

Wendy Mahan discovered that Penn State’s library services and the iPhone is a match made in heaven.

“First, I was able to use CAT to locate a book, a specific journal, and an e-journal using both the basic and advance search (drop down menu makes scrolling half-screen appear)…..To locate a specific full-text article, I was connected to the Ebscohost Professional Development database. I located the article by entering the year, volume, issue and starting page. Once the article was located, I had the option of downloading a PDF or emailing it.”

Gary Chinn talks about his work redesigning a Penn State algebra course

“The main issue that the department is looking to address is the diverse skill levels of the students in the course; it’s too difficult to teach to the ends of the spectrum simultaneously.”

Mary Janzen tells us when the next ANGEL Town Halls will occur and encourages us to register today.

Did you know you can create mock Web sites in ANGEL? Allan Gyorke tells you how.

“John Harwood was asking for some ways that he could have teams of students in his course create mock Web sites. I told him that this could be done using Team File Space in ANGEL. I wrote this summary, which I thought might be helpful, especially the part where teams can share their file space with the rest of their class (an obscure, but useful feature).”

The debut of The ETS BuzzLion

Each week, The ETS BuzzLion will take a look at a sampling of what has the Penn State education technology community talking. It can include a trend we are noticing, a new project, a new product, how faculty are using technology in their courses and in research, opinion pieces, success stories at Penn State, and more.

So, without further ado, here is the The ETS BuzzLion for the week of July 9, 2007…..

Chris Millet has some exciting news for students and faculty who use digital media at Penn State, the Digital Commons Pilot Program.

“…..the Digital Commons initiative has been designed to provide every location of the University with a centrally managed digital media studio that can support both faculty and students in their use of digital media. We have committed to installing up to 15 Digital Commons Studios during the 2007-2008 fiscal year, with the remainder of campuses being completed during the 2008-2009 fiscal year.”

Elizabeth Pyatt takes a look at accessibility issues regarding blogs.

“How accessible were the blogs? Fairly accessibile, but with some quirks.”

Can you access podcasts online via the new Apple iPhone? Cole Camplese says of course you can, and Wendy Mahan, a fellow ETS staffer, agrees.
”
“…..when I actually clicked over and read her (Wendy’s) post I was interested to see that she was actually not talking about following th path of download to iTunes and sync to the iPhone over the cable. She was instead talking about going to the Podcasts at Penn State site live via Safari and listening over the air.”

Okay….but is it possible to access ANGEL on an iPhone? Wendy says yes…….and no.

“Decided to see what iPhone is able to do with ANGEL. My main interest was quizzes, since this little device could be a good tool for ‘dishonest behavior.’”

Gary Chinn notes a trend toward the creation of simple-to-use tools that enables quick and easy multimedia content creation and gives his thoughts on what it means for education and beyond.

“The development of such tools moves content creation toward ownership by the content expert. This has several advantages, the most obvious being efficiency and accuracy.”

Holodecks soon may be used in education. No, this really has nothing to do with Star Trek, but an interesting idea in the virtual world Second Life. Brett Bixler takes a look at the possibilities for education and includes some samples.

“In SL (Second Life), due to server load, you are limited by the amount of prims (3D graphic shapes) you can place in a given location……More educators are running up against their prim limits. Holodecks seem to be a viable solution.”

Next Page →