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BuzzLion for Week of October 19

Welcome to this week’s BuzzLion, from the suddenly chilly environs of Happy Valley. Before we get into this week’s edition, BuzzLion would like to say that there is something profoundly weird about scraping off your windshield before work and then arriving on campus to the sight of students in shorts and flipflops. Oh, if only their mother could see.

Anyways, lots going on this week, so let’s jump right in. Cole Camplese, ETS director, has been prolific in his blog writing this week, with three very interesting blog posts.

Cole wrote about a recent blog post by Dr. Michael Wesch of Kansas State. Dr. Wesch’s students produced a provocative video last year about their attitudes and experiences regarding higher learning. Wesch updates his thinking on this video, and Cole puts in his two cents on the matter.

Cole also blogged on the Blogs at Penn State project, and raised a question – is it simply blogging…..or something more? Cole explores the possibilities that the Blogs project may have in the future.

And finally, he issues a call for courseware to be put into iTunes, in the spirit of open education.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, is talking about embroidery. Really? What can that have to do with learning? Well, Elizabeth notes that embroidery involves a lot of math, and talks about how embroidery gave her a very cool teaching moment.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, recently discussed machinima in the Educational Gaming Commons. What on earth is machinima? Find out and see a great example (be warned, an R-rated one at that).

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, recently posted on the eLearning Guild 360 report on Web 2.0. You can both read the report and view a Webinar on the report in Yvonne’s post to the Learning Design Community Hub.

Okay, now for a bit of news about a very cool event – the Digital Commons Tailgate:

On Friday and Saturday, November 7th-8th at Penn State Schuylkill campus, Teaching and Learning with Technology will be hosting the Digital Commons Tailgate, the first of a series of community-designed unconferences* aimed at exploring all aspects of digital media in teaching and learning. Topics include (but are certainly not limited to) ePortfolio, digital literacy, and design and assessment of multimedia projects, and will delve into both pedagogy and technology. Sessions will be driven by attendees and everyone’s expertise will enrich the conversation. Our goal will be to share ideas and collectively develop a series of best practices which will inform how we all use digital media in the classroom.

If you were able to attend the Learning Design Summer Camp this August, you’ll be familiar with how this event will be run. Creativity and conversation are paramount, and the mood is intended to be relaxed but intellectually stimulating. Since this is a Fall weekend we’re going with a Tailgate theme, so expect lots of good food, and dress appropriately (i.e. however you want!).

You are invited to attended this free two-day event starting with an optional day of workshops and dinner on Friday November 7th, with the main conference sessions on Saturday November 8th.

You are also invited to help design the conference! Check out the wiki at: http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Digital_Commons_Camp. Anyone with a PSU access account can edit this. So if you have an idea for a session, or you want to expand on what’s already been suggested, just hit the [edit] button.

I would also like to announce the Digital Commons Research Partner program: http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/DC_Research_Partner. This is an opportunity to obtain funding to cover all of part of your travel expenses. Available spots are very limited, so send an email to digitalcommons@psu.edu ASAP if you are interested.

Please pass this invitation along to any faculty or staff who may be interested in this opportunity!

To register, simply jump to the Registration section of the wiki and add your name to the list.

That’s all for this week for the BuzzLion. Thanks for reading!

ETS Podcast: Pulse survey on academic integrity at Penn State

During the spring 2008 semester, Penn State’s division of student affairs conducted a Pulse survey of 1,232 students that focused on academic integrity.

To learn more about the findings, Jamie Oberdick of ETS interviewed John Harwood, senior director of TLT, and Andrea Dowhower, director of student affairs research and assessment about the survey and some of the surprising findings.

Listen to the podcast here: Academic Integrity Pulse survey

BuzzLion for the week of September 21

The first full week of fall is upon us (the season, certainly not the semester as we are well into it). On a gloomy autumn Friday, BuzzLion has a fair amount to cover, so let’s get to it.

Dave Stong, ETS graphics guru, wrote two recent posts about pdf’s and what frustrates him about them. He also offers potential solutions. Here is his first, then his follow-up.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, talks about her teaching experiences. Namely, getting students to understand all those assignments are not done to torture them.

Cole Camplese, ETS director, has talked before about what is going on with the Schreyer Honors College’s portfolio project. He offers an update to the project, including a very cool mashup that allows you to see their progress.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, found a great book on serious gaming and education put out by our Pittsburgh peers at the Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. He provides a link to more information about the book here.

Brett also posted this week on the potential found in iPhones and education gaming.

Now time for some news:

Adobe Connect Demonstration Sessions for October, 2008

Below are the dates and times for our October Adobe Connect Demonstration sessions. We’ve extended the sessions to include what’s new with Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro (version 7), demonstrate the primary features of the meeting room and answer questions that you might have. No registration or RSVP necessary.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008, 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Friday, October 17, 2008, 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Here is the link to the meeting room: https://breeze.psu.edu/r54559680/. Please come when you like, learn about the new features, different ways to use Adobe Connect, ask questions, stay for a few minutes or for the 90 minutes; feel free to pass this on to friends and colleagues. Members of the Penn State community can arrange for an on-site demonstration by contacting your ITS Consultant.

If you plan to join our demonstration session through Adobe Connect, please read through the Getting Started information at http://meeting.psu.edu/quickstart and test your connection in advance with our generic test meeting room at https://breeze.psu.edu/testmeetingroom/.

If you have any questions or problems entering the test meeting room, help is available by emailing breeze@psu.edu.

New stats demonstrate popularity of Blogs at Penn State

System wide stats of the Blogs at Penn State Project (as of 11:39 AM on 9/26/2008):

* 3,837 blogs
* 18,225 entries
* 2,509 pages
* 3,502 users
* 7,297 comments
* 10,169 assets
* 5,880 unique tags

That’s all for this week of the BuzzLion. Thanks for reading!

BuzzLion for Week of August 31

A short week here at Penn State with the Labor Day holiday, but of course quite busy. The beginning of the semester crunch stops for no end-of-summer holiday.

Cole Camplese, ETS director, lives on a cloud – that is, cloud computing. Google’s Chrome open source browser project has Cole interested due to the potential is holds for cloud computing in education.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, has two interesting posts in the Educational Gaming Commons. The first is on browser-based gaming, which is exactly what it sounds – games played off an Internet browser. He weighs the pedagogical possibilities and links to a great article about browser games.

Brett also talks about a new wiki on Virtual Worlds that is a treasure trove of information on these worlds.

Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer, posted the latest ANGELshorts to the ANGEL Community Hub. This one is titled Five Things Instructors Should Know about Downloading All Drop Box Submissions. If you are not familiar with ANGELshorts, they are very handy brief guides to doing specific actions on ANGEL, and are produced by Jeff and Mary Janzen, ETS writer/editor.

Allan Gyorke, ETS education technology manager, goes Zen on us this week. More specifically, he talks about when things and people take on roles other than what they are “supposed” to do.

Looking for training? ITS Training Services just issued the following announcement:

Technology workshops and overviews now open for registration

Registration is open for the technology workshops and overviews offered by Information Technology Services this fall.

Registration is open for the technology workshops and overviews offered by Information Technology Services this fall. This semester, students, faculty, and staff at all Penn State campuses can take advantage of live or recorded sessions that are being offered online through Adobe Connect meeting software. Popular overview and hands-on topics include Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Data Warehouse, ANGEL, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, podcasting, cascading style sheets, and many more. Visit the Web site for details on all available training options or to register for training at http://its.psu.edu/training/.

That’s it for this week’s BuzzLion.

BuzzLion for the Week of June 22

Despite the muggy weather that makes the BuzzLion exist in a sort of a torpor, things are rolling right along in Educational Technology Services these days. So let’s get right to our look at the week that was….

You don’t need an invitation to participate in Web 2.0, so says Chris Stubbs, ETS programmer. In fact, he even declares this Stubb’s First Law of the Social Web: No Invitation Required. He urges more participation in things like wikis, blogs, etc. on his outstanding blog, and even somehow manages to use a John Mayer quote (yeah, the musician, that one) to good effect. Go to the blog, and consider it an invitation, er, opportunity to participate by offering your thoughts on this subject (Cole Camplese, ETS director, offers sort of a companion piece to Mr. Stubbs’ thinking on his blog, as does Allan Gyorke, ETS manager of educational technology, on the Learning Design Community Hub).

Brett Bixler talks about the challenges of getting faculty and administrators to learn more about and accept gaming in education. Given so many people think of gaming as pong or Grand Theft Auto, this is a challenge. Read the suggestions Brett offers to overcome this challenge on the Educational Gaming Commons.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, invites everyone to go to the Adobe Connect Community Hub and complete the analogy “Adobe Connect is to holding a meeting as Microsoft Word is to ________________.” Go to her post there and offer your ideas.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, recently posted on Information Sciences and Technology students from Penn State who are blogging about their summer internship using blogs set up via Blogs at Penn State. Sounds mundane, but they are doing it in Bangalore, India. Find links to their blogs here.

Elizabeth also offers a muse on Personal Learning Environments titled “Lifelong Learning or Lifelong Research”. What on earth is a “Personal Learning Environment?” Elizabeth explains that and more in an excellent blog post.

A quick reminder, ANGEL, Penn State’s Course Management System will be unavailable during the upgrade to version 7.2 from 6:00 p.m. (EDT) Friday, July 18 to 6:00 p.m. (EDT) Sunday, July 20.

BuzzLion will end with another note on participation. ETS is planning a Learning Design Summer Camp August 12 and 13 here at University Park and would like your input and planning help. Go to the Learning Design Summer Camp wiki to find out how you can participate in this great event.

That is all for BuzzLion for this week. Thanks for reading!

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