Instructional Design from PSU Voices

Gearing up for ANGEL 7.4: A Preview of the Rubric Tool

Tue, 11/03/2009 - 09:31
It's the middle of fall and that means we're preparing to possibly upgrade to ANGEL 7.4 at the end of the spring semester. Over the next few months I'll be posting short video previews of some of the major new...

CIC CIO Presentation: Blog Platform as E-Learning Authoring Platform

Wed, 10/07/2009 - 11:14
On October 6, 2009 I was part of a presentation on the Blogs at Penn State web publishing platform at the CIC CIO Tech Forum at Michigan State University. I presented with Brad Kozlek and Erin Long.Our approach was this...

Thoughts on the CIC Tech Forum

Wed, 10/07/2009 - 08:21
The great over-arching challenge facing IT groups across the CIC is the culture gap that exists between those of us on the frontier of new educational technology and a great part of the community we try to serve. This was...

Some Initial Thoughts on e-Portfolio

Tue, 09/29/2009 - 07:10
I've been part of the e-portfolio initiative since the summer and for the last month I've been doing a lot of work with students, particularly freshmen, helping them to get up and running with their academic portfolio. Here are some...

A New Project Communication Approach

Wed, 09/16/2009 - 16:58
I am creating this Project Status website as a method for creating a project "hub" of information.  This project is for the Biology 12 redesign and development project. I will attempt to keep this site up to date with...

Taxonomy For Instructional Design

Thu, 09/10/2009 - 15:49
Level 1 of the taxonomy of instructional design is simply relaying of information from the teacher to the student. I think that far too often this is the only way information is taught in a classroom. In a special education...

Time to Develop One Hour of Training: More Accurate Data?

Wed, 08/19/2009 - 10:00
Recent Survey Shows...It's that time again. Time to debate the age-old question of "how many hours does it take to develop one hour of training?" This has always been one of the more interesting questions in training development, e-learning in...

Balogna or Baloney

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 12:19
Copyright, like politics, is local. Or at least that's how we've been approaching it. When we talk about designing content we generally apply the law of copyright as understood in our own backyard. This, of course makes sense. Designers, instructors,...

Balogna or Baloney

Thu, 08/13/2009 - 12:19
Copyright, like politics, is local. Or at least that's how we've been approaching it. When we talk about designing content we generally apply the law of copyright as understood in our own backyard. This, of course makes sense. Designers, instructors,...

Using Flickr to Archive Photos for a Course

Wed, 08/12/2009 - 09:40
One of the grad students Teaching with Technology Certificate portfolios has a good example of using tagging in Flickr to organize photos that he's taken which can be used in a course. Jason Brooks from Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies...

A New Biology 12 Design Begins

Mon, 08/10/2009 - 16:31
I've spent the last couple of weeks working with Tyrone Ridgway on the next phase of the Biology 12 project. He returned from a rather exciting month or so back in Australia conducting classes from a boat where he took...

The Technology Ecosystem

Fri, 08/07/2009 - 11:59
My recent nano difficulties brought to the forefront just how inter-dependent my technology ecosystem is and how dependent I've become on it. The loss of my nano also meant I could not use my Nike+ system, which meant I lost...

Smeal Honor Code Resources

Thu, 08/06/2009 - 10:27
This is the time of year when I check and update the external links for Web sites such as the Plagiarism Prevention Resources. I had a few new URLs to input, but it appears that the Smeal College of Business...

In the Service of Education

Tue, 08/04/2009 - 11:00
I am a big fan of Science Friday on NPR. If I can't manage to listen to it live, I make a point to catch the podcast. Ira Flatow is a great talk show host; he is conversant enough...

VoiceThread Adoption: That was Easy!!

Fri, 07/31/2009 - 14:22
Implementing VoiceThread in an Online Class..in 2 Days!About a week after we released our Hot Team white paper on VoiceThread, IĀ receivedĀ a request from a faculty member, Evelyn Thomchick, in the Smeal College of Business about it. She has been teaching...

Demystify It

Wed, 07/29/2009 - 12:16
It's exciting times for those used to living in the backwater of educational topics. I'm speaking of those experts on subjects such as copyright, accessibility, web security and development. Topics everyone generally acknowledges are important but nobody really pays any...

The Conformity of the Non-Conformists

Mon, 07/27/2009 - 08:25
Last week was our second annual Learning Design Summer Camp, an informal get together of designers, technologists, librarians, teachers, etc. We're supposed to be a representation of the thinkers who live out on the horizon of educational technology. The ones...

Video Reflections from Learning Design Summer Camp

Thu, 07/23/2009 - 07:26
This is a series of four short videos shot the second morning in the general area of Kern. Participating were Matt, from Brandywine, me, I'm at University Park, Amy, from Berks, and Kristin, from Harrisburg. We each answered three questions:1....

The PowerPoint Paradox

Mon, 07/20/2009 - 12:55
I read an article in this morning's Chronicle, the gist of which centered around a study which found that students gave low marks to the use of technology in the classroom (British Educational Research Journal, April 2009).  The negative reaction...