What is really different about this content is that it was built with Apple’s iTunesU Course Manager and uses a combination of videos, apps, a multi-touch iBook, and an electronic textbook from McGraw-Hill. All of the course materials (aside from the electronic textbook) are designed to be used on an iPad and are completely free. This course was highlighted in iTunesU and has been a popular item. One week after being released, the course had nearly 4,000 downloads.

So if you have an iPad and would like to learn more about art, download the course!

If you’re still struggling with the idea, the following videos may help:

What is a MOOC?

Success in a MOOC:

If you would like to learn more about this topic, you may want to read our whitepaper or you can attend the upcoming Media Common Tailgate.

It is a topic that is getting a lot of attention. The Educause Learning Initiative will be releasing a future “7 Things…” paper on gamification and running a focus session on the topic toward the end of 2011. At Penn State, we are have tentative plans to hold a one-day event on gamification at the end of May, 2012.

If you have questions or comments about this topic or suggestions for future episodes, please contact us through etstalk@psu.edu or calling our voicemail number: 815-531-5387 and leaving a message (under 3 minutes please or Google Voice will cut you off!).

Here is an example of how that looks today and what we’re trying to do to rebalance things a bit:

For the 2011 TLT Symposium, we asked if any of the attendees would produce videos around the theme “community engagement”. I was surprised that most of the videos that we received were from Commonwealth Campuses [see all video submissions here]. That make sense though – those campuses have strong ties to the people, governments, and businesses in their areas.

What we also heard was that producing these videos was difficult because Commonwealth Campuses don’t have access to services like Media and Technology Support Services where they can borrow video cameras and other production equipment. So during a planning meeting for the Learning Design Summer Camp, Jackie Ritzko asked if we could have a raffle or something so people from Commonwealth Campuses had a chance to win something like the equipment that people at University Park can access.

I said no. If the instructional designers at Commonwealth Campuses are disadvantaged by not having this kind of equipment, then we can’t solve the problem by raffling off one device. I talked to Chris Millet and Nick Smerker. I asked them to put together a kit that would include some basic audio and video recording capabilities. They had been working with iPod Touches for this kind of purpose, so this would be an extension. So here’s what they came up with:

The Mobile Media Kit contains an iPod Touch, a tripod, an external microphone, a sheet of support information, and a carrying bag. I believe the total cost of each kit is about $400.

The next question was: If the campus instructional designers had this kit, how would they use it? We weren’t sure and Jackie didn’t want to speak for all of them, so we sent out a survey and got back some really interesting ideas including ones like these:

• To record and share case studies for faculty development purposes
• To interview students about how they learn or their reactions to different kinds of course activities
• To create audio and video content for hybrid and online courses
• To create just-in-time video tutorials for things like solving difficult math equations
• To document the design of learning spaces and reactions of faculty and students who use those spaces
• To capture guest speakers so their presentations can be seen by future students
• To record the stories about diversity from LGBT and minority students
• To collect evidence of the impact of a campus on its local community through efforts like service learning projects
• To record student presentations in ESL and foreign language courses so students can hear their speech

I am impressed with the breadth of proposed projects and the creativity of these designers. I’m also hoping that they will share ways that they are using the kit with each other so the overall impact of the kit increases. And if a half of these projects are successful, then it has been a worthwhile investment. We’ll be following up with the people who receive the kits to see how they are working out and possibly expand the program in a second round that would include campuses who didn’t respond or didn’t see a need for the kit.

I wrote “Pitch Session Ideas” on the whiteboard in the hallway. If you have an idea for something that you think we should be doing, please add it to the list. I’d like to schedule another Pitch Session in June and have a group of us review some 30-minute (or shorter) pitches. If we get enough ideas going, this could turn into something that we do every month or two. The pitches could also be a lot shorter, depending on the complexity of the topic.

Who should be there?
I’d like to have no more than 15 people at each one. More than that could get pretty intimidating for someone who isn’t used to presenting, especially since this is a new thing. Those 15 people should be a mix of people from across ETS. I should definitely be there. Beyond that, the people attending the session should be people who are interested or will be affected by the idea. If it affects people from other TLT units, we’ll invite some of them as well.

What about everyone else?
I thought about having these at the ETS Staff meeting, but that’s probably too many people – and again, I’ve thought about the intimidation factor. We could record the sessions though, which would give everyone a chance to see what has been pitched. I’m open to ideas. The recording may turn out to be more intimidating than having a larger live audience.

What kinds of topics?
Just about anything. New ideas for hot teams, new ETS events, new partnerships, revising the way we handle equipment requests, a new strategy for our web sites, etc…

Why do this?
When I had my job talk, I said that I want to see leadership at every level at ETS. Part of being a leader is being able to propose ideas in a way that makes sense for our unit. That means having a reasonable budget and resources, timeline with milestones, outcomes, an assessment plan, etc… And like I said above, I need to have a good sense of what a project idea is before we start using resources. I’m also hoping this is a way to make our project decisions more transparent.

Will everything that is pitched be approved?
Nope. We have to be very aware of resource issues (both money and people) as well as the mission of ETS. Something may be approved right away. We may decide to put it off until more resources are available. It could be a flat-out no or a smaller version of what you have in mind to test the waters. I promise to hear you out and take serious requests seriously.

What if I’m not sure if an idea is good for a pitch session?
Talk it over with your supervisor. I’d also be happy to talk about your ideas with you.

So that’s the general idea – and it’s still being shaped. In a sense, this is my pitch of the pitch session, so I invite comments.

Laura Guertin, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at Penn State Brandywine

During this past summer, Chris Stubbs, Chris Millet, and TK Lee worked together with Laura Guertin (Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at Penn State Brandywine) as a part of an ETS Faculty Fellowship. The original aim of the fellowship was to explore the use of Google Earth as a framework to create and deliver choose your own adventure style narratives, with an end goal of helping to improvement students’ sense of geographic awareness. Though Laura did have a specific Google Earth based choose your own adventure style story that she wanted to create for her own courses, the primary focus of the team’s efforts was to create a template that could be used by students or faculty to create their own adventures in an approachable way that minimized the need for technical expertise. The Google Earth Spreadsheet Mapper provided exactly that template – a tool which allows users to enter data into a google spreadsheet, then pull it directly into Google Earth into a number of easy to customize, prebuilt, professional looking templates. In an effort to refine and confirm the applicability of our efforts, the team traveled to Penn State Brandywine and met with several former students of Laura to discuss what we had developed, as well as other opportunities for course improvement.

Based on the student feedback, as well as our own ideas, the team then worked to develop a course Blog for Laura’s Earth 400 course, where the students will be taking advantage of Google Earth’s capabilities this semester. The blog was developed not only as course HUB for Laura’s teaching, but also as a public portfolio for her student’s work – a place to share their Google Earth projects, as well as podcasts, videos, and reflections from the experiences over the course of the semester.

Finally, the team developed a browser game based on Google Earth’s web plugin designed to assess student’s awareness of domestic and world locations. Not only does “Penn State’s Amazing Race” provide a fast paced alternative to map pointing, but it will also play a key role in Laura’s research regarding the success of Google Earth’s ability to impact locational understanding. Laura will be running a pilot study in the Fall 2010 semester with her Earth 400 class, while a larger, full study will be delivered in the Spring 2010 academic year.

Dr. Sam Richards, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, College of the Liberal Arts

Sam Richards, Laurie Mulvey, Allan Gyorke, Erin Long, and Jeff Swain spent the summer working on the Race Relations Project and Sociology 119. Initially, Sam and Laurie wanted to create some activities for students in Soc 119 who were not able to participate in small group discussion sessions. The team realized that a bigger issue was refocusing the Race Relations Project to include the new kinds of activities that Sam and Laurie were taking that deal with issues such as prison life, drug and alcohol use, and West-Middle East relations.

The new umbrella project was dubbed “World in Conversation” (see http://worldinconversation.org). After re-conceptualizing the Race Relations Project, the team moved on to redesigning aspects of the Soc 119 course. The new version of the course will give all students the opportunity to participate in small group discussions and will include two blog-based activities that should help students understand the cultural background of the other students in their discussion groups. It will also include a group multimedia project that addresses course themes: identity, future, relationships, lens, and conflict. These activities will replace some of the current dependence on multiple-choice exams. The new design will be tested during the peer leader training course this fall and then modified for use during the Spring 2011 semester.

Dr. Richard Devon, Professor of Engineering Design, College of Engineering

The tangible outcomes of the fellowship were centered around redesigning Dr. Devon’s EDSGN 100 course. Dr. Devon was already using Google Apps to author, organize, and deliver course content. Google Apps were also the tool used by students to collaborate on teamwork and present their final works to the rest of the class. The faculty fellow team worked with Dr. Devon to redesign the google sites-powered course website, making the layout cleaner and making information easier to find and consume. The team also worked with Dr. Devon to redesign some of the course assignments. An early assignment where students were to survey their friends for design ideas will now use google forms and the students’ existing social networks. This will hopefully allow the students to collect far more data and make the assignment more meaningful.

Another element of the course was a student portfolio requirement. After talking with Jeff Swain and seeing the faculty fellow work of Carla Zembal-Saul, Dr. Devon decided to work with the team to redesign the portfolio assignment to include a blog. Previously the portfolio assignment was created as a static web site that was checked once and graded. Now the portfolio will be checked multiple times throughout the semester and students are expected to include ongoing reflections and reactions to developments in the field of design. This student blogging will be facilitated with google reader. Now students will be required to have a google reader account and use it to follow relevant design-related blogs as well their teammates’ blogs. These changes to the course (Reader, Portfolio, Blog) all relate to Devon’s view of a changing epistemology in a web-based culture. Devon is “concerned with the abilities to search, choose, organize, synthesize, and reference web-based knowledge” as well as how students contribute knowledge to the web (Devon, 2010).

Devon, R. (2010). Web Epistemology. Retrieved from http://blogs.tlt.psu.edu/fellows/2010/08/web-epistemology.html

Ann Clements, Associate Professor of Music Education, College of Arts and Architecture

Ann Clements is Associate Professor of Music Education in The Pennsylvania State University School of Music. An active researcher and clinician, Clements has directed ensembles and given presentations throughout the United States and in New Zealand, Japan, Australia, and Canada. Her primary areas of interest include secondary general music, middle school/junior high choral music, music participation, and ethnomusicology, particularly within the Pacific Rim and Polynesia.

The primary goal of this fellowship is the completion of a theoretical/phenomenological research study that would include the creation of a new theoretical model of children’s musical play based on video game playing and the influence of technology on children’s musical practices. The results of this study would have an impact on the ways in with K-12 music teacher think about and use gaming and technology in the classroom impact the ways in which musical gaming is used in the undergraduate music education curriculum on the Penn State campus.

Project 1 – Contributions to a EGC Gaming Research Warehouse/Archive

Construction of a site for Ann to place her research, media, etc. http://blogs.tlt.psu.edu/projects/musicalplay/ is complete. This content for this site will be under continuous development for some time to come.

Project 2 – Modern Musical Play Research

The study is ready to run, subjects are chosen, and all technology is in place and researchers are trained on its use. IRB has approved the study, and Ann will begin the process in early September.

All presentations revolved around Ann’s interest in children’s musical play.

• Teaching Music with Games, July 14, 2010, Learning Design Summer Camp, Penn State University
• Pennsylvania Music Educator’s Association, July 19-20, 2010, Penn State University
• American Choir Director’s Association (ACDA), August 2, 2010, Penn State University

Related Media

• Project Description – ttp://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Children’s_Music_Play
• Blog – http://blogs.tlt.psu.edu/fellows/ann-clements/
• ITS Writeup – http://news.its.psu.edu/story-1219
• TLT Writeup – http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/news/2010/annclementsff
• ACDA Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZtuivRJGCA
• Slideshow – http://www.slideshare.net/brettbixler/ann-clements-2010-ets-faculty-fellowship-background

The award recognizes exemplary programs that support emerging technologies, faculty innovation, and online learning. Some of the programs the NMC found exciting at PSU are Blogs at Penn State, the Media Commons, TLT Faculty Fellows, the TLT Symposium, and the Educational Gaming Commons. It is a great honor to be recognized by the people at the NMC and we are thrilled to be in such great company.

Photo credit, cogdogblog via flickr.

The presentation can include any form of digital media. VoiceThread allows an entire group conversation to be collected from anywhere in the world and then shared for playback in one place. The application is designed to be user-friendly and require minimum technical ability. VoiceThread allows instructors to tap into the trend toward collaboration, group interaction, and teamwork that is becoming the norm in education and the modern workplace. Faculty hot team member Dan Berman used VoiceThread in his Roman archaeology course. He created instructional slides, then required students to add comments. He then had students produce their own VoiceThreads.

Based on the outcomes of this Hot Team, VoiceThread has been licensed by Penn State and should be available for all members of the University starting in the Fall of 2010.

VoiceThread is a Web-based application that allows users to create a shared presentation as a media album that visitors can comment on by text, voice, or video.

Download the white paper.

Hosting both physical and virtual events that are designed to bring members of the teaching and learning community together to engage in meaningful activities.

Managing University-wide technology implementations that are designed to support teaching, learning, and research

Enhancing curricula through the use of instructional design

Leslie, Shannon, and I worked together on this. Leslie wanted a video to show adult learners and practitioners the possibilities for SL at the 2009 Hendrick Best Practices for Adult Learners Conference. Shannon and I wanted a video to show anyone what’s happening in the space.

Kim Winck of ETS did a great job advising us and producing the final video. We now have a great video for all to watch and learn about Penn State and Second Life. Enjoy!

As of the spring 2009 semester, there are nine SHC bloggers taking part in the pilot program. ETS representatives meet with them approximately once a month to discuss the project and form ideas to move forward. Christian Brady, Dean of the Schreyer Honors College, has included setting up Web space as part of FTCAP and creating blogs during the freshmen orientation training for incoming SHC students this August. While not mandating, Dean Brady will highly encourage all incoming SHC freshmen to set up their portfolios and maintain a blog.

To keep up with the pilot group and their blog postings, you can look at or subscribe to the PSUHonors tag.  Other categories (tags) that are being used in this project are: academic excellence, civic engagement, global perspective, honor, integrity, and leadership.

Participating in research opportunities to better educate faculty, staff, and students in the use of emerging technologies as they relate to teaching and learning.

Supporting technology innovation and adoption to support teaching and learning

Creating opportunities to engage faculty to further their use of technology for teaching and learning.

Our primary mission is to provide leadership and support in the appropriate use of technology for teaching, learning, and research. We do this by:

1. Creating opportunities to engage faculty to further their use of technology for teaching and learning
2. Supporting technology innovation and adoption to support teaching and learning
3. Participating in research opportunities to better educate faculty, staff, and students in the use of emerging technologies as they relate to teaching and learning
4. Enhancing curricula through the use of instructional design
5. Managing University-wide technology implementations that are designed to support teaching, learning, and research
6. Hosting both physical and virtual events that are designed to bring members of the teaching and learning community together to engage in meaningful activities

So on Monday you’ll see a post that will ask for some feedback on our first path towards our mission. Please take a little time to help us think critically about our organization and cite examples of where we are doing well and areas where improvement is needed. I thank you in advance!

My argument is that Web 2.0 environments have begun to recast the instruction set in concrete and meaningful ways. The relevance of the instruction set has been amplified and widened by an online participatory culture that encourages involvement, collaboration, and information exchange. More than simply a good example, the instruction set has become something of a metonym for the complex world of Web 2.0.

Faculty Fellows engage with ETS to integrate technology within emerging educational projects that can be shared and implemented widely throughout Penn State. To be considered for a Fellowship please visit our Faculty Fellowship page.

How does grassroots video work and what are the implications for teaching and learning?  To answer these types of questions, we formed a Hot Team, which wrote a Grassroots Video White Paper.

As we did last year, the LDSC09 is an open event — planning happens by the community, for the community. What that means is that the planning wiki is now live and you are invited to not only sign up, but also help design the event! So please take the time to get involved … we all are responsible for making LDSC09 as powerful and memorable as last year.

Faculty Fellows engage with ETS to integrate technology within emerging educational projects that can be shared and implemented widely throughout Penn State. To be considered for a Fellowship please visit our Faculty Fellowship page.

Edward Lee Lamoureux has published
Intellectual Property Law and Interactive Media: Free for a Fee (with Steve Baron and Clair Stewart), Peter Lang Pub., 2009.

The digitizing of intellectual property and the ease and speed with which it can be copied, transmitted, and globally shared poses legal challenges for traditional owners of content rights, for those who create new media, and for those who consume new media content.

This informative and accessible introductory text, written for students of media and communication, provides a comprehensive overview of the complex legal landscape surrounding new media and intellectual property rights. The authors present theoretical backgrounds, legislative developments, and legal case histories in intellectual property law. Copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, personal torts (rights of publicity, defamation, privacy) are examined in U.S., international, and virtual contexts. Suitable as a primary text for courses focusing on intellectual property law in multimedia/new media, this book will also be useful for courses in media law. The information presented in the book is supplemented by freeforafee.com, a blog providing updates to students and instructors alike. A glossary of key terms is also provided.

Edward Lee Lamoureux is Associate Professor of Multimedia and Communication at Bradley University. He received a Ph.D. in rhetoric and communication from the University of Oregon. He has testified as an expert in Library of Congress-sponsored intellectual property law hearings, has served as the editor of the Journal of Communication and Religion, and has published and presented numerous academic papers.

Steven L. Baron is a partner at the Chicago law firm of Mandell Menkes. He received his J.D. from the University of Minnesota. He is a frequent author and lecturer on topics involving media and intellectual property and is an adjunct professor at Bradley University, teaching a course on intellectual property law at the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts.

Claire Stewart is Head of Digital Collections at the Northwestern University Library. She holds a B.A. in English Literature from Saint Mary’s College, and an M.L.I.S. from Dominican University. She is a campus expert on copyright, digitization, and multimedia collections.

Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D.
Associate Professor, Multimedia Program
and Department of Communication
Co-Director, Bradley University New Media Center
1501 W. Bradley, Peoria IL 61625
office: 309-677-2378 cell: 309-635-2605
AIM/IM & skype: dredleelam
Second Life: Professor Beliveau

I know Ed – Great guy, great rock singer, knows his stuff!

The English 202 faculty would like to transform the course to a digital format. This will involve publishing student assignments online through students’ personal Web space, making multimedia versions of certain assignments, and having students work in teams.

As of Spring 2009, we are piloting a new course design in eight sections of English 202C. In these sections, we have updated five of the traditional paper assignments to a digital format. Early reports from the instructors indicate that while the students need additional help learning the blogging platform, they are getting more out of their experience and the assignments are “much more rich than in the way the course was previously taught.” If all goes well, the redesigned course will be implemented in all sections of English 202C in Fall 2009.

In addition to the redesign, ETS will assist with obtaining the technology required for successful implementation of the pilot project. We are working to integrate both the Blogs at Penn State and Digital Commons into this and future English courses. This project has started with a focus on English 202C with the intention of making similar changes in English 202A, B, and D, as well as English 15 and 30.

At the moment, the focus is on the integration of student blogging into the course flow. As we progress, we will examine several core learning activities, integrate digital media, and enhance discussions related to new forms of public media. The exciting thing about this project is that Comm 180 is a large-enrollment course, with about 350 students per section. Our challenge is to integrate blogging and digital media production (via the Digital Commons) while not producing any increased load on Dr. Jackson or his TAs.

As of the Spring 2009 semester, students are required to submit new entries, comments, and/or new resources to the Comm. 180 Class Blog. These posts determine the class participation grade for the semester. Students can also choose to maintain their own blog (with a minimum of one reflective entry per week) for extra credit. By the Fall 2009 semester, Dr. Jackson hopes to do away with the course textbook and rely solely on resources generated by the class and posted to the blogs. This will accomplish his goal to create an “open classroom” for students both inside and outside of Penn State.

At the beginning of the project, a short survey was given to all students and each Guitar Hero class session (as well as optional, after class Guitar Hero tutorial sessions) are being recorded as a part of a research agenda associated with the project. Assuming all goes well, the hope is to develop the project into a larger part of the course in the Fall, as well as potentially expanding it into the more advanced guitar techniques courses. The head of the music composition program, Paul Barsom, has also expressed interest in possibly incorporating the music games into his class in the future.

Faculty Fellows engage with ETS to integrate technology within emerging educational projects that can be shared and implemented widely throughout Penn State. To be considered for a Fellowship please visit our Faculty Fellowship page.

The article says that Wii music has great potential for music education. Are there any other potential pedagogical uses.

An interesting article about early adopters, including products such as Boxee.

“Move over, Facebook. There’s a new networking site in town. But it’s not a place to post your birthday party photos or keep your friends updated on your every move. In fact, the only thing that the Intrepid Innovations Networking Club and Facebook have in common is the “social network” tag.”

We start things with Cole Camplese, ETS director, who looks back at a year in the cloud. Cole is not being metaphysical or talking about how many frequent flyer miles he has logged, but cloud computing. More specifically, netbooks and how they might influence education. Find out what a netbook is and how you use it by going to his blog.

Mike Halm, who leads the WebLion group, recently posted on the WebLion blog about the presentation himself and Glenn Johnson, project manager of Penn State’s e-Portfolio Initiative, gave at this year’s EDUCAUSE mid-Atlantic conference. They discussed how WebLion helps the Penn State community develop e-portfolios, and you can read about the presentation here. Please note, they are looking for additional departments to work with them on this project.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, has posted an actual educational game that you can check out on the Educational Gaming Commons. He not only posts the game, but offers a hand if you want to incorporate it into your class but are not sure how.

Elizabeth Pyatt is not only an ETS instructional designer but a Unicode guru. Her latest Unicode post on her blog is on how to encode right to left scripts such as Arabic or Hebrew.

Eric Steele, programmer with WebLion, has announced the worm has turned at WebLion! Well, at least the Gloworm. Read about a very cool tool for Web content management here.

Brad Kozlek, senior programmer with ETS, shares with us a great article and video on collaborative editing and social voting.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!

Michigan professor uses cell phones in interesting, innovative ways.

We are pleased to welcome Maggie Tsai, co-founder and Vice President of diigo - http://www.diigo.com – a free tool that does Social Bookmarking, but much much more- it is a research and collaboration tools that many of you likely use now. Maggie will share with us how educators are using diigo and hopefully share some new features coming in the next version. To learn more about diigo, please see their YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RvAkTuL02A

Also, we are making access to these sessions by dropping registration! So you can go directly next week to the NMC Connect Seminar Room at http://nmc.na3.acrobat.com/diigo/

Before then, we hope you will complete out new Two Minute Survey on Social Bookmarking  — and share it with your colleagues!

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pag7Bc_zGya4MSj4bfBz_cQ

Also, for future planning, we are pleased to welcome Howard Rheingold as a guest for a Connect@NMC session Monday, Feb 10 (9AM Pacific) for a conversation about his Social Media Classroom.

“Educational games are too obviously educational. The best way to learn is to do it when you’re having fun. Indeed, that’s the very idea behind educating through gaming. However most, if not all, educational games have a very direct and obvious educational slant which kids will pick up on immediately, and then they’ll switch off. Games have to be fun first, educational second.”

A UA-led team of researchers has just earned a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to create a tutoring system that can tailor teachings based on individual progress.

There is, however, some evidence that e-books are not helping learning.

Mobiles in schools are not necessarily bad, says columnist Bill Thompson, but they need careful management.

Cole Camplese, ETS director, has been recording a video that asks a question, then invites you to record a video response. This week, it’s “How Do You Define Identity?”. Please feel free to participate.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, talks this week about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Elizabeth points out is a provision in the act that every three years, the community can petition for exemptions to the no-hacking clause.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, posted in the Educational Gaming Commons about several interesting events:

- One that recently happened including a game showcase and its winner, a medical simulation game that has huge educational possibilities.

- Less an event and more of a request, Brett would like you to read a report on Second Life.

- Finally, Brett tells us about an event that is drivable (and in June, so it won’t snow), a gaming conference at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, points us to a very cool multi-cultural learning tool SCOLA. What is it? Go see her post at the Learning Design Community Hub to find out.

Pat Besong, ETS multimedia specialist, conducts a monthly educational multimedia development meeting. If you like to find out what great stuff Penn State people are developing, you can see Pat’s post to the Learning Design Community Hub and view an Adobe Connect recording of the meeting.

That’s it for this week’s BuzzLion – See you in 2009…..January 9, to be exact. Have a great Holiday and New Year.

Reading a book on a Nintendo DS?

A tax on itunes downloads and ipods…..is this a disconcerting trend?

What do you all think of this? This could be great for cash-strapped school districts.

Very nice facility! Anything here that Penn State also does?

Calculus tutorial has been watched almost 50,000 times in the past year

A community, like busy mall at the Holidays, often has lots of people, but it is really more than that. Cole Camplese, ETS director, talks about what he believes defines a community via video, and offers an opportunity for you to record a video response.

Cole also has a very interesting blog post about what we do at ETS and what it all means.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, last week discussed problems implementing MathML on Explorer 7. She has a followup to this, and it seems she got some help from MathML themselves. Also, she makes an interesting comment about the ongoing Browser Wars and links to her previous blog post on MathML.

Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer, has the latest in the ANGEL Shorts series posted on the ANGEL Community Hub. Designed to help ANGEL users get the most out of the course management system, this edition focuses on Five Things an Instructor Should Know About Using Media in a Quiz.

Mary Janzen, ETS writer/editor, reminds faculty and staff on the ANGEL Community Hub that ANGEL message boards must be converted to discussion forums before January 21, 2009.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, announced on the Penn State Learning Design Community Hub that new documentation for the Adobe Presenter meeting software is online.

A final note: for Teaching and Learning with Technology news, events, and discussion, go to the TLT site and see the right side tabs.

That’s it for this week – thanks for reading!

Are there any positive effects such as this on younger adults, i.e., student-age adults?

“What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people? These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they’re coming from certain brain scientists.

Violent video games have gotten a lot of public attention, but some current concerns go well beyond gaming. Some scientists think the wired world might be changing the way we read, learn, and interact with each other.”

Reason for concern here?

What do you see as the benefits and the risks of this?

“When Drexel University opens the doors to its new Center for Graduate Studies in Sacramento on January 5, 2009, its inaugural master’s degree students will be the beneficiaries of one million dollars’ worth of cutting edge audiovisual/collaboration technology that is revolutionizing the way higher education can be delivered. ”

What do you see here that Penn State has, and what do you see here that you would like to see Penn State get?

Will data like this help some people think of games as more than childish things?

If you stop by ETS on the second floor of the Rider Building, you see a screen in the hallway with a Twitter feed on it. The feed features Twitter posts by ETS staff, and it is a great way to see what people are doing at ETS. Cole Camplese, ETS director, has found an interesting new tool that takes this concept one step further, and aggregates all the blog feeds, Twitter feeds, etc. in a new and exciting way. If you want to keep up with all the information out there in blogs, etc. but feel overwhelmed, this might be the solution.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, says that games are active, engaging, and keep you focused on them. Except when they are not, and are passive. Come again? Check out Brett’s recent post to the Educational Gaming Commons to learn more about these “passive games.”

Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) is an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, has decided to test this application – and found a rather weird benefit.

Some news bits for this week:

Deadline extended for 2009 Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology faculty proposals

The deadline for faculty to submit proposals to present at the Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology has been extended to December 19. This free event will be held Saturday, April 18, 2009 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, University Park. A continental breakfast and lunch will be provided. This year’s theme is “Student Engagement and the Culture of Teaching and Learning.” To reflect this theme, presentations will highlight students’ involvement in the learning process.

Faculty who are using technology to enrich teaching, learning, or research are encouraged to submit a presentation proposal using the online form at http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/2009proposal/. Topics could involve faculty and students collaborating on a project or an assignment showcasing students using any number of collaborative tools and new learning spaces. Some examples include the use of shared learning resources, the incorporation of digital media, and any best practices that foster student ownership of learning. Sessions can be in a variety of formats, including group presentations, panel discussions, poster presentations, demonstrations, small-group discussions, and other activities. Each session should include some discussion of practical aspects such as the tools used, sources of support, best practices, and how the application of technology can be transferred to other disciplines. For more details and to register, visit http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/. The Symposium is sponsored by Information Technology Services.

December Adobe Connect Demonstration Sessions
Below are the dates and times for our December Adobe Connect Demonstration sessions. We’ve extended two of the sessions to 1.5 hours to include a demonstration of the breakout rooms which is new to Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro (version 7). We will also demonstrate the primary features of the meeting room and answer questions that you might have. No registration or RSVP necessary.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Monday, December 15, 2008, from 9:30 a.m. to 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 time; 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.

PSU Multimedia Group meeting for December

The Penn State Multimedia Group meeting will be held in 202K Rider Building on Friday, December 19th from 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pat Besong of ETS, meeting coordinator, would like to invite anyone that has something you think might be of interest to the group to share. Please let him know by emailing pbz4@psu.edu prior to Dec. 15 so he can get an agenda together for the meeting.

As usual, the meeting will be available via Adobe Connect at http://breeze.psu.edu/multimedia.

So, that is all for BuzzLion for this week. Thanks for reading!

“Analysts have predicted that 2008 would see the adoption of more Web 2.0 approaches to technology, particularly in the areas of web-based applications, social networking, and wikis.

Three years after the term was coined, the rate of adoption of Web 2.0 technologies by enterprises is surprisingly slow due to reservations related to security and privacy. It has been a common practice among companies to block popular content sharing and social networking sites to prevent employees from “wasting” company hours or sharing sensitive corporate information online. Still, blogging, networking and knowledge sharing blazed through much of the last three years.”

Will the continuing influx of new graduates change those who are slow to adopt Web 2.0?

Racing toy boats is not high tech education. But post the video of it to Youtube, and Web 2.0 comes into play here.

Youtube as a clearing house for innovative and inspirational education ideas that teachers can browse….what do you think?

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Through YouTube.

Technology such as cellphones and Google can be used while taking tests, student leaders say.

“HARRISON BROWN, an 18-year-old freshman majoring in mathematics at M.I.T., didn’t need to do complex calculations to figure out he liked this deal: in exchange for letting researchers track his every move, he receives a free smartphone.

Now, when he dials another student, researchers know. When he sends an e-mail or text message, they also know. When he listens to music, they know the song. Every moment he has his Windows Mobile smartphone with him, they know where he is, and who’s nearby.”

Overreaction or necessary reaction?

Teaching in virtual environments can be very productive, says Bill Thompson.

Very interesting findings that are worth checking out.

Tim Perry, systems analyst with ETS, recently attended a Webinar on Tegrity, a Web 2.0 product that captures class slides, lectures, etc. And, it doesn’t require classroom-based software and hardware, so it’s cost-effective. Tim reviews the pluses and the minuses of this product in his blog.

Allan Gyorke, manager, educational technologies with ETS, has found another use for Youtube beyond viewing piano-playing cats: learning more about global issues. It is used in one of his graduate classes this way; in fact, Youtube is second only to PowerPoint as the most used educational tool at Penn State.

Cole Camplese, director of ETS, has posted before about Twitter on his blog. He has found another Penn Stater who recently posted on Twitter and he finds it a great way to learn more about Twitter and why it is relevant.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, found a great site that helps kids learn how to count. There is more to learning how to count than any of us probably remember.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, posted in the Learning Design Community Hub about a new Web site that ETS is developing for non-course content for students. Check it out, and help Brett give it a name.

That’s all for this week – thanks for reading.

Did anyone see this at EDUCAUSE last month? What are the possibilities for Penn State?

The best part of the article, besides being a balanced look at these technologies and affects on young lives, is the fact that the Carnegie Library system holds a gaming time at a branch in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, the Hill District.

I strongly believe that we allow ourselves to be dazzled by what we can afford and forget that there are those who do not have the means to buy an iPhone or a Wii, and the disadvantages inherit.

Yes, all you Second Lifers, I agree – it’s not a game!

But it is interesting to read what others are doing.

A lot of interesting issues being raised here regarding online classes.

Does Penn State face any of these? If so, how should they be met.

A look at the reality that our current world poses and what might be more important why we are all enamored with iPhones.

Dave Stong of ETS is known for his graphic skills, but he is also a lifelong learner. He recently had an interesting academic experience that occurred on a personal level, and it made him reflect on learning style and what it means to him.

Newspapers, even old institutions like the New York Times, face many challenges in a time when there are so many other sources for news. Cole Camplese, ETS director, recently discovered Times People, a social network of sorts within the Times Web site. Cole offers his thoughts on this, including a great way to improve it.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, has found that believe it or not, politics gets in the way of linguistics. She posted recently on her blog on a very encouraging trend she sees regarding Unicode and linguistic identity of Eastern European countries.

Elizabeth also posted in the Learning Design Community Hub about Ray Kurzweil’s recent presentation here. He is the developer of Kurzweil screen reading software for students with many reading disabilities.

There has been some questions about gaming and virtual world courses at Penn State. Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, recently posted in the Educational Gaming Commons about a course in this coming this spring.

That’s it for this week’s BuzzLion. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

“A Harvard Law School professor filed a counterclaim last Friday against the Recording Industry Association of America that challenges the constitutionality of the RIAA’s efforts against those caught downloading music from file-sharing services.”

“At the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco last week, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook is being used as an agent of political change around the world — a phenomenon he’s been talking about for years. And, as usual, the audience chuckled derisively. Sure, more hard data is needed to either support or refute his claim, but the anecdotes are mounting up in Zuckerberg’s favor.”

Google Earth and the University of Virginia team up to create a virtual ancient Rome. Any ideas for PSU projects along these lines?

Interesting challenge to wikipedia critics.

“Now, thanks to a coordinated effort by the media literacy community, supported by experts at American University and Temple University, teachers and students have a guide that simplifies the legalities of using copyrighted materials in an academic setting: The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education.

The code, which will be released on Tuesday, November 11, at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, was developed by the National Association for Media Literacy Education, the Action Coalition for Media Education, the National Council of Teachers of English, the Visual Communication Studies Division of the International Communication Association, and the Media Education Foundation. The code was facilitated by Peter Jaszi and Patricia Aufderheide of American University, and Renee Hobbs of Temple University. For information about the November 11 event, email Katie Donnelly at Temple, katie.donnelly@temple.edu.”

So, live from the Digital Commons Tailgate, lets get started with this week’s BuzzLion.

Brad Kozlek, ETS programming manager, attended the IMS Global Learning Consortium this week, held right here at Penn State University Park. A session he attended raised an interesting question for educational technology – Are learning repositories actually learning spaces?

Cole Camplese, ETS director, also attended the IMS event, and his recent blog post on it gave a more general overview. Cole covers the sessions he attended, and commented on ideas, thoughts, and questions raised during the event.

Jeff Swain, ETS instructional designer, climbs into the time machine and peers into the future, asking “What Will the 21st Century University Look Like?” Jeff looks at the recent report in The Economist on the future of higher education, and offers his thoughts. Plus, welcomes YOUR thoughts.

Brett Bixler channels Edwin Starr and asks “What is it good for”. No, not war, but Second Life. Brett stresses that Second Life is definitely good for education.

Dave Stong, ETS graphics designer, produces a lot of digital content, such as photos, artwork, graphics, etc. In a recent blog post, he discusses HDR, the challenges raised by having to add additional metadata, and a cool way this challenge is met.

That’s all for this week’s BuzzLion. Be sure to come back next week, as BuzzLion is sure to have some stuff on the Digital Commons Tailgate.

Thanks for reading!

Anything in the new version of Blackboard that looks interesting? Are you impressed?

“I hope that you’ll bear with me as I bring a slightly different approach to the posts here at Terra Incognita. My interests and passions fall directly in the argument for openness and transparency across all forms of teaching and learning. I am not going to write a case for opening learning or open courseware, but I will attempt to engage you in a discussion related to our overall willingness to change some of our fundamental models to empower those around us to participate.

I am curious of how we see the emergence of remix culture and where it fits into our domain — and I am really anxious to know if these notions resonate with the readers here. So if my post misses the mark I apologize in advance, but with that …”

Communications coach offers tips based on Web 2.0 for more effective presentations.

“Shortly after 9 a.m. on Oct. 19, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for president during the taping of “Meet the Press” on NBC. Within minutes, the video was on the Web.

But the clip was not rushed onto YouTube; it was MSNBC.com, the network’s sister entity online, that showed the video hours before television viewers on the West Coast could watch the interview for themselves.

Old media, apparently, can learn new media tricks. Not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy won in part because of the increasingly popular medium of television, has changing technology had such an impact on the political campaigns and the organizations covering them.”

To learn more about this event, Jamie Oberdick of ETS talked with Chris Millet of the Digital Commons, who is heading up the Tailgate, about what makes this event unique and why you should attend.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking on this link: digital-commons-tailgate

What will education look like in the middle of the next decade? Take a read.

And, add your own thoughts, please.

For starters, Allan Gyorke, ETS manager, education technologies, is one of several ETS souls haunting this year’s EDUCAUSE 2008 Conference in Orlando. He discusses some of the scary top teaching and learning challenges that spook educational technology experts. That is just the first of his posts from EDUCAUSE; don’t be afraid to read his other posts, which are full of great information.

WHATEVER you do, don’t pick up your iPhone! Because Cole Camplese, ETS director, has found yet another KILLER APP for it – a very cool recording and synching device. Cole finds it quite useful in his day-to-day haunts.

Chris Stubbs, ETS senior programmer, is a serious gamer with scary skills who often looks beyond games into other aspects such as sociology, education (of course), and advertising. Take a look at his recent blog post for some truly hair-raising game advertising that includes a monster on the side of a real building. No, they didn’t hire the Cloverfield monster. See for yourself – if you dare.

Brett Bixler, ETS lead instructional designer, has a frightful time trying to get work done in Second Life’s Penn State space because of all the virtual human entities asking him questions. He notes that there is a sense of presence you bring into SL that just doesn’t exist in other mediums, and this builds some great relationships.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, conjured up a whitepaper on e-learning by Adobe, and shares it on the Learning Design Castle of Terror. Er, Learning Design Community Hub. Anyway, it’s a great read, and you can find it here.

Time for some news:

If you want to learn how to use the meeting software Adobe Connect, here is a real treat with no tricks. As posted on the Adobe Connect Community Hub:

Below are the dates and times for our November Adobe Connect Demonstration sessions. We’ve extended one of the sessions to 1.5 hours to include a demonstration of the breakout rooms which is new to Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro (version 7). We will also demonstrate the primary features of the meeting room and answer questions that you might have. No registration or RSVP necessary.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.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 time; 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 (https://myit.vmhost.psu.edu/node/72).

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.

Okay, that is all for this week’s BuzzLion. Thank God there were no lame Halloween cliches. That would have been scary bad.

‘Information Week featured an article on Yahoo’s Zimbra service for email and collaboration in use with educational institutions. While Zimbra, which “already provides e-mail through on-premises software at a number of marquee education accounts, including Stanford University, Georgia Tech, the University of California at Davis, Pennsylvania University, Northeastern, Carleton College, Texas A&M, and Mississippi State,” it remains to be seen whether it can compete with Google’s free offerings for education.’

Not satisfied with coverage by traditional media outlets, university economics faculty members take the bull by the horns and create their own coverage.

List of events put on by ANGEL Learning at EDUCAUSE – anything jump out as interesting to anyone?

Web 2.0 technologies are an expense that some schools are concerned they can’t afford.

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!

Various technology experts peer into the future of Internet technology – take a look at the results.

And, what do YOU think?

Interesting article – college coaches now stressing online safety and etiquette?

“I mentioned Chris Brogan in a post yesterday from the Massachusetts Superintendents Technology Conference. He gave the final keynote of the day, entitled “The Internet has changed everything, again.” Not surprisingly, it was about Web 2.0/social media goodness (he even featured a screenshot from fellow ZDNet blogger, Jennifer Leggio).

So haven’t we all heard enough about Web 2.0? As Mr. Brogan himself acknowledged, he hates using the term since we’re basically on the edge of Web 3.0 eventually. In the context of the conference today, though, the short answer is “No.” Plenty of educators, especially administrators, wouldn’t know a blog from their elbow, let alone have a clue how they might use Twitter or Ning in their districts.”

“For the first time, a new edition of a major textbook will be simultaneously released in print and free online in a novel approach to publishing that permits the textbook to reach a wider audience.”