Archive for the 'announce' Category

Google Forms? Whoa!

Laura Blankenship February 6th, 2008

Google has announced the ability to use spreadsheets combined with a form to collect data.  Let’s try it out.  Here’s a link to my form.

An Academic Facebook

Laura Blankenship November 9th, 2007

Via the Wired Campus Blog, I found Pronetos, a facebook-like app for sharing research and connecting with scholars. I like the look and feel of it. It’s missing some of the more fun elements of social networking, but it’s definitely got potential. Of course, I set up an account. Like I needed another social networking account . . .

Free resource for Documentaries

Laura Blankenship November 8th, 2007

Via eHub, I found this great source for documentaries online.  Many documentaries don’t make it to local theaters, only playing at film festivals or in large metropolitan markets. This gets those films out there.

Two videos to make you (re) think information and education

Laura Blankenship October 30th, 2007

First, there’s this video on the Information R/evolution:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/-4CV05HyAbM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I’m in the middle of reading Everything is Miscellaneous, which I highly recommend to anyone who regularly creates, stores, uses, or interacts with information of any kind–which is almost all of us. This video in combination with the book are really hitting home. There are challenges, of course, with information being less neatly organized. But the biggest challenge is to the idea of information organization itself. We are the organizers, not some group of gatekeepers.

Then, there’s this video about Today’s Student.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/dGCJ46vyR9o" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Some very interesting information here. One thing that I thought about was the way that small liberal arts colleges really are positioned well to take advantage of information technology tools. Larger colleges and universities seem to be focused on using technology for more efficient information delivery, not for finding ways to engage students and create collaborative learning opportunities.

Video Workshop

Laura Blankenship October 16th, 2007

These are my notes for our Video Workshop held on October 17, 2007.

Some questions we need to think about to start off with.

  • Why use video or multimedia in your course?
  • How do you use it? How do you want to use it?
  • What about student-created media?

Answering these questions for each instance can help you decide on such practical issues as file format and size and distribution method.

File formats.

  • .avi - uncompressed format; somewhat outdated; larger file size.
  • .dv - also an uncompressed format, generally associated with digital video recording and mini-dv tapes
  • .mov - Quicktime format, an Apple native format, can be wrapped around several different codecs
  • .mp4 - similar to Quicktime format, but is a broad standard
  • .mp2- Format for DVDs
  • .wmv -Windows Media format, compressed format, created by Microsoft
  • .swf, .flv - Flash and Flash video, compressed formats, .flv is used by YouTube

The basic process

  • Source video–from DVD, VHS, miniDV, or file is imported into video editing software
  • Using iMovie, FinalCut or other video editing software, video can be manipulated–cut, audio added, special effects, etc.
  • Completed video is exported into a format for distribution–burned to DVD or exported into one of the above formats
  • Video is distributed on hard format such as CD/DVD or posted for download or streaming on the web

Links to documentation for video editing:

Other kinds of video to work with:

  • Machinima
    • An Explanation and example:
    • [kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/dPLzKur06Vo" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
  • Screen Recording–can be done with Camtasia or other available software
  • How to embed YouTube videos

New version of bFree

Laura Blankenship October 6th, 2007

bFree is an application that allows you to browse your Blackboard archives offline so you can see what’s in there before you upload it into Bb.  I just discovered this app a couple of months ago and now they have a new version out.  It’s free and it’s pretty easy to use.  Check it out.

Social Software Talk Resources

Laura Blankenship September 26th, 2007

For those of you unable to attend last week’s presentation on social software, here are a few resources from the talk:

A video on how Google docs works

Laura Blankenship September 26th, 2007

Following up on Catherine’s post about Google presentations, here’s a video that explains the basic concept and why using something like Google docs is way better than emailing documents around.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/eRqUE6IHTEA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Social Software in Teaching and Research

Laura Blankenship September 14th, 2007

I’m very excited to be bringing to campus some wonderfully innovative teachers and researchers to talk about social software, Steven Greenlaw, Jean-Claude Bradley, and Jim Groom.  I’ve been reading Steven Greenlaw’s blog, Pedablogy, for a number of years now. He writes about his thoughts on teaching, often right in the midst of a sticky situation (see 9/11’s entry, for example).  I also met Jean-Claude Bradley via his blog and he has come to Bryn Mawr before to talk about his use of tablets.  He’s been pushing the Web 2.0 envelope for quite a while now, using blogs and wikis to track research and interact with students as well as working with Second Life.  Jim Groom also keeps an amazing blog.  I first ran into him via a talk he gave on open source software in Academia and found what he had to say fascinating. He will likely be joining us virtually, but I think his energy will come through over the Internet.

If you’re a part of the Bryn Mawr community or going to be in the area, please feel free to come hear these three people discuss their use of Web 2.0 tools.  It’s in Dalton Hall, room 20 from 2:30-4:00 on September 19th. There will, of course, be refreshments and probably a reminder or two.

Click and Double-Click, Episode 20: Citizendium

Laura Blankenship September 13th, 2007

Today Mark and I talked to Leslie Madsen-Brooks from the University of California-Davis and Jerome Delacroix, a member of the editorial board for Citizendium, a wiki encyclopedia project that seeks to remedy some of the problems with Wikipedia.  Their approach is to have contributors use their real names and to have an actual editorial process. They seek to get academics involved as much as possible but are open to amateur contributions as well.  This conversation arose out of a blog post by Madsen-Brooks where she questioned the “gatekeeperesque” stance Citizendium has taken and its effect on marginalized groups such as women and minorities.  We discuss Citizendium’s editorial process and goals as well as the issues raised by Madsen-Brooks.  It’s an interesting conversation.  Take a listen.

Other links:

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