Dr. Luanne Fose - The Tweed Geek

Interview with Melanie Senn - Cal Poly Lecturer in English

Wed, 6 Apr 2011 13:41:34 -0700

Recently I transcribed an interview between my colleague, Tonia Malone, and Cal Poly English Lecturer, Melanie Senn. I posted it on our CTL blog but I decided to post it here in my personal blog as well to give it more exposure on the web. I’ve been working with Melanie as her instructional design consultant all year long in the Course Design with Technology in Mind program at Cal Poly and I have seen extreme growth in her approach and pedagogy. I am happy to testify that “she gets it!” (as I think is evidenced from this interview). Her views on teaching are refreshing, energetic, and enthusiastic (and she certainly has been a lot of fun to work with.) Yay, Melanie!
[The following is the transcript of an audio interview between Melanie Senn, Lecturer in English in the College of Liberal Arts and Tonia Malone, Instructional Designer in ITS/CTL at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Melanie was a recipient of the Course Design with Technology in Mind, Phase 1 and Phase 2 CTL grants this academic year as well as one of the grant recipients and facilitators for the 2010-2011 CTL Professional Learning Community on Conversations about Teaching Critical Thinking in the Classroom: An Interdisciplinary “Learn by Doing” Approach. This interview is Melanie’s reflection on Brian Greenwood’s recent post on the CTL blog titled “Death of the Lecture? An Evolving Potential Casualty Presented by PowerPoint”]
Tonia: I was wondering if you might be willing to share with us your thoughts about Brian Greenwood’s recent post in the CTL blog entitled “Death of the Lecture?” and provide us with some examples of ways in which you implement active learning strategies in your English classes?
Melanie: I feel like Brian is talking about a shift in the classroom—of going from being the all-knowing lecturer at your lectern, where even the physical classroom is arranged to support that kind of “power structure”; the students in their chairs all looking up, literally, at you, to you. Changing that might be really hard for some professors. It might also be really exciting.
I recently observed a colleague's class—Courtney Brogno’s—and by the time I entered the classroom at the beginning of class, the students were already in a circle. She said she does that with every class. And she walked around the circle, standing among them, sometimes in front of them, and asked questions. A few students had laptops and that seemed fine: they were paying attention—they had nowhere to hide! But to see that—that power structure broken down, well, she still had the authority, but you could see there was more camaraderie in the classroom; there was more conversation since the students could see each other’s faces.
Here’s a good example of active learning I observed that day. Courtney had two students doing a grammar presentation, and she allowed the students a lot of creativity for it. She wants them to learn some important grammar concepts that they’ll be accountable for in their writing, but she doesn’t want to give boring grammar lesson after boring grammar lesson - that’s not really how she wants to spend her time in class. But having the students teach each other? It challenges the students who are making the presentation… makes them realize – “I have to make this interesting, and I’ve got 10 minutes to do it!”
It might be hard to give your classroom over to your students for a time. But it might mean a more interesting, dynamic class - and it might mean deeper learning for all. Well, these two students had to teach the eight parts of speech (for the record, these are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections). They got up in front of the class, which was already seated in a circle, and played a song - one guy on guitar and singing the stanzas, the other belting out the chorus and getting the class to sing along (they had passed out a sheet with the lyrics, which covered the eight parts of speech, their definitions, and examples - all in rhyme). It was great! The other students were laughing and singing, and then afterwards the guys administered a short quiz, which clearly demonstrated that everyone had gotten the concepts. And they even had, I don't know, a little prize or a piece of candy, or something, you know, but the whole thing took about 10 or 11 minutes. You could just feel the energy in the class. You could feel that this wasn’t just an instructor standing up at the chalkboard diagramming sentences and the students passively taking notes. So that’s one example.
 But I think the trouble is that when a professor tries to incorporate that - well, he loses a little control. But losing a little control - having that ambiguous moment when you’re not sure how the class is going to go - might be just what everyone needs. It might make the instructor feel insecure and cause them to question, “How’s this going to go?”

I remember when I first started teaching—I was teaching a summer school class at Cuesta College. There were only about 8 or 9 students enrolled but they were all young guys and kind of with a lot of baseball caps pulled down low and a feeling of bravado or cockiness in the air – but certainly not me. I was nervous. We met three hours a day, four days a week. I had a lot of class activity planned, but mostly I just expected that we were going to read great writing and discuss it. “So, what did you think of the article?” Nothing from them. Nothing. I thought, “Oh my God, what am I going to do? These students aren’t giving me anything to work with.” I confided in the department chair; I said, “These guys just aren’t talking.” And he said, “You need to create an activity for them. Something specific—even if it’s just answering questions in groups, questions that you generate for them.” And I did. And it got better. They were better when they were… well, forced isn’t a good word… when they were encouraged to speak to each other first, and then report to the class as a whole. It was a challenging summer, but it taught me something about a tough class dynamic. A few semesters later when I had a similar situation, I knew what to do, and it went much better.
Creating the possibility for - or the expectation of - active learning in the classroom is tricky. In some ways it might feel casual. In fact, it could feel very casual or spontaneous to the student. Of course, the professor is considering the pedagogy behind everything she does. And it puts pressure on the students to learn for themselves and from each other. The students might think, "Oh, the power structure's broken down here. It's not just a lecture class. We get to voice our opinions. We get to work on a project. We get to teach this concept. How are we going to do it?” That’s demanding a lot more from the student than just listening to a lecture and regurgitating the information on the exams. But what do our University Learning Objectives say? The students should be able to think critically and creatively. That’s a tall order. And it’s probably not going to be achieved through lecture alone.
A lot of thought and planning has to go into a class that incorporates active learning and at the same time, a professor has to be able to think on his feet - has to be willing to shift or change mid-quarter, or even mid-class. When I was a new teacher, eight or nine years ago, I didn’t realize I wouldn’t just be able to walk into class and say, “Let’s be intellectuals here and discuss this great literary work” until I walked into my first class and realized it usually doesn’t happen that way. Every once in a while you get that rare class where the stars align and you only need to say one sentence - or even just a word - and they’re off and running, the discussion flowing and intelligent. Rare. Most classes need much more guidance.
But again, how do we respond spontaneously in class? We English teachers, you know, we love to read. But many of our students don’t, or at least not the material we’re assigning. So I was reading an article in the National Education Association (“Getting Students to Do the Readings” by Linda B. Nilson, of Clemson University). And she suggests that we assign fewer readings and that we actually try to “sell” students on the reading - explain why it’s relevant to them and to the course and how it ties in with the other material. Then she says, you should hold your students accountable for the reading, whether with a short written quiz or group quiz or oral test. That stuck with me and the following quarter I assigned less reading - really, only the amount of reading I would have time to get to in class. And I held them accountable for it. But we don’t always get to all the reading - and what are you going to do about having had them read an essay they’ll never discuss?
And so, I had this class, and we were running out of time and they’d read a really good, pertinent essay that we just didn’t get to. Well, there were five minutes left in class, and I just thought, “There's too much to say about this, and we're not going to get to it, and we're not going to finish, and I don't want it to carry over to the next week - and so how am I going to do this?" Well, I had learned to use the discussion board on Blackboard from a CTL course and I said to the class, "Ok, we're running out of time. You've done this reading. I want to know your responses to it. Here's what I want to know…” and I gave them several approaches for posting responses on the discussion board. The essay was “The End of the Earth” by Bill McKibben. I was mostly interested in them having grown up with environmental rhetoric - some of it doomsday in nature - and wondering how this essay contributed to their storehouse of knowledge. What is it like, I wondered, to be raised for two decades being told regularly that the ice caps are melting? I told them I would start the thread on Blackboard and that they would have to write a post and respond to two other posts by Friday (it was Wednesday). It was fabulous! I mean, some of the people who don’t speak at all in class posted five times. They argued with one another. They were respectful. They “heard” each other. Most of their responses were well thought out and critical.
This was a really good exercise for me, because it made me realize that 1) The students who don't talk in class were talking online, maybe because they're more comfortable talking online. Also, having them communicate online might overcome that attitude that can pervade in the class - that kind of anti-intellectualism of "I'm a cool dude so I'm not going to say anything too intelligent." And then when they are safely commenting online they can don’t have to worry about their audience looking at them - and they can flex their intellectual muscles without fear of being ridiculed. And I have to say that the level of discussion and the comments they were making were probably more intelligent than what I hear in class; it was an elevated level, and I wasn’t directing anything. I just provided the infrastructure, and they took off with it.
A couple students said they couldn’t figure out the discussion board, and so I ended up extending the deadline and showing the class how to use it. Some people - me included - are intimidated by using new programs, and sometimes if we just log on, we’ll see that it’s actually really simple and self-explanatory, but we assume it’s going to be too difficult; we’re not comfortable with it. It’s important to be sensitive to those students.
Then, I knew it was important to grade their responses. I followed the conversation, but I didn’t intervene, especially since the discussion felt like a peer discussion and the sudden presence of a professor might have changed the conversation. Luanne Fose showed me a way to easily and quickly grade the discussion on Blackboard so that I was able to see an individual student’s total responses and then input their points, which transferred directly to the Blackboard Grade Center.
I’ve told a few colleagues about it and now they want me to show them how to use and grade the discussion board. I mean, you don’t want to create a class-and-a-half for them by putting too many assignments online, but in this case, it worked out well. In the future I’ll plan on that. Once you know how to use a tool like that you can incorporate it more effectively.
Tonia: When you were talking to the faculty participants of our Course Design with Technology in Mind – Phase 2 Learning Community the other day, you shared how you've changed as a teacher in the past few years and how you've started to incorporate more interactivity with your students. Can you repeat some of the things that you were talking about that day and share some of the things that you've changed to support your students in more active learning?
Melanie: Oh! That was such a diatribe on my part. I don’t know if I can remember the specifics!
Tonia: Well, it really was a good discussion because you provided good examples.
Melanie: Well, I was talking in part about product vs. process for composition. In my class, I teach a lot of process, with product in mind. There’s always a deadline, after all, when you have to be finished with some piece of writing - a product - and turn it in for a grade. But you have to help the students work through that process and help them know that it is a process. An essay may go through several drafts – well, should go through several drafts before its turned in.
I’ve been reading articles about critical thinking and learning. I found a particular article especially interesting (“How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age” by Alison J. Head, Ph.D. and Michael B. Eisenberg, Ph.D.), which incorporated a study surveying a large number of students and concluded that the hardest thing for students is getting started. They procrastinate because they don’t know how to begin.
I knew that before reading the article - though it’s always nice when a university study confirms your ideas - and I’ve tried to mitigate that difficulty for the students by making them get started in the classroom. That way, there is no writer’s block. They are just writing - pre-writing, brainstorming, starting rough drafts - while they sit there. Here’s what it looks like: I’ll assign the essay and then tell them that for the last half hour of class, they need to start. And I don’t care what that draft looks like. It’s, as Anne Lamott would put it, “a shitty first draft.” I don’t even want it to be grammatically correct - I just want them to weed through the first cliché responses to the prompt and try to get to a really good idea. They will turn this writing in with their final draft. Maybe they will scrap the idea completely after they get home - that’s OK, I tell them. They have weeded through the detritus and arrived at the topic they really wanted to explore.
They also give me memos with their final drafts, and it’s interesting how many of them address that first writing in class - how much it helped them.
I don’t want to just assign them an essay and send them on their way. I’ve got to carve out some time - time that turns out to be really valuable for them - so they can start. Ultimately, several of them end up coming up one by one as everyone else writes and whispering to me, “Is it OK if I write on ___“ and we discuss it a few minutes and they feel more confident and go and sit down and write. A lot of them need to check in, especially with the first assignment when they don’t really know me or my expectations.
After that session, I’ll provide them with student samples of the essay, but I like them to start before they hear these samples; I want them try before they hear someone else’s approach. I think that’s part of teaching - or at least encouraging creativity. Then they can see how others approached the assignment and weigh theirs (maybe they find they were way off topic; or maybe they realize that they need to work on theirs a lot more; or maybe they feel a new confidence in their work after hearing others). For me, it’s about the possibility of the medium: here’s an assignment, but there are myriad ways - and no one right way - of doing it, just possibilities. Some of them are uncomfortable with that at first. But most students end up liking the freedom.
I’m really firm about that - about not prescribing topics. The students are funny because they want so badly to do the assignment “right” that they are lost at first. They don’t like ambiguity. I give them parameters. And, well, one of my favorite things is to sit with a “lost” student and help them brainstorm ideas. They walk away with a clear idea of what they want to do - and it’s not from me telling them, but just guiding them, usually by asking questions. I love when they say, “You mean I can write about that?” as in something they care about it.
But that first rough draft is interesting - I mean the process. We have a conversation about what it should look like. I say, "You're not going to be judged on anything. I don't care if it's run-on sentences; I don't care if it's a list; I don't care if it's a poem, I don't care if it's a weird chart, you're just getting your ideas down.” What I want them to work through - to get out of their systems - are the most cliché things, and then really start writing. It’s cool, because they leave class, and they’ve already started, and maybe they’re on a roll, and they go and finish the essay (they’ll have to eventually anyway). But many of them tell me that they actually enjoy the practice and the self-discovery they’ve made along the way.
In terms of “active,” I think it’s really good for them to write by hand too, since we rarely do these days. I like to think it triggers something for them, something in their brains that they perhaps haven’t tapped for awhile. Maybe it generates a different feeling or idea. And then they take those drafts home and within a week we do peer editing.
Tonia: And why do you have them peer edit? What's the purpose?
Melanie: Well, studies show that they learn from their peers as much, if not more, than they learn from me. I’ve worked really hard over the years to hone it and make it more meaningful. Peer editing is active learning. It's not just “Get together and discuss your essays and get out of here in 25 minutes.” Here’s how mine goes: They have to sit in a group of four people and read their essay aloud to their group. I warn them: “This might be painful. Many of us attach a lot of personal worth to our writing and it’s probably a rough draft - well, anyway, it’s a draft, and that means you’re going to get feedback and most likely revise it. You might feel shy about it. You might feel proud. Regardless, you’re probably going to be reading it to an audience for the first time, and you’re going to become very conscious - perhaps even self-conscious - of your work. That’s good!” They get to “hear” - again, probably for the first time - how the paper flows, or doesn’t. They will most likely become conscious of what’s missing, or what’s repetitive. It’s a really good act for them - this reading aloud. I’m very firm about them reading aloud. I used to allow groups to go outside the classroom, to sit on the grass if it was a nice day, etc. - but what I found (as I snooped around) was that they were foregoing the reading aloud. So, I keep them inside the classroom. And it’s great - a cacophony of students reading.
Tonia: Does each student have a copy?
Melanie: Oh, yes. And so, when, let’s say, the first student finishes reading her paper aloud, they discuss. I give them a handout - refined after years of this - and so they know what criteria to discuss; it’s essentially the same criteria in the rubric. But they don’t “fill out” the form yet; they just talk about the essay. Then the second student reads aloud and they discuss. After all four students have read, then they move apart a bit, re-read each essay, and fill out the form, which asks them to evaluate the essay following certain guidelines. And even after they have filled out the peer editing sheet, they have to flip it over and write a note to the student: “Dear Erica, I really liked your idea for this essay - very original. The part I thought you should develop more was…” etc. The letters are personal and maybe they gain insight they didn’t have as they listened when they re-read the essay. Or maybe they are afraid to say aloud what they feel are the essay’s weaknesses, and so they can write it.
I tell them, “You are this person’s audience. This person needs constructive criticism -some guidance from you - but you also have to find something nice to say. Something nicer than ‘nice font.’” That always gets a laugh. But I’m serious. Writing is a sensitive endeavor for many students. They have to find something to praise about the paper. They have to balance praise and criticism.
I’ve considered doing peer editing virtually, like on Blackboard. But I really prefer to do it actively in the classroom; I really feel that it’s beneficial to do face-to-face. I think, as I try to move to a more paperless classroom and as more and more students (nearly all it seems) have laptops, that they could have digital copies of the essays and even fill out the form online. I think I’ve cut down about a quarter of the forests in the United States for my classrooms. Peer editing takes a lot of paper.
Tonia: What is on the peer editing form?
Melanie: The peer editing form looks at all the different parts of the essay: the title, the thesis, the development (e.g., examples, support), the organization, the style and mechanics. I found early on that students are actually more comfortable proofreading - they are more confident at fixing grammar and punctuation than dealing with content. So I say, "Look at where grammar is on this sheet. It's a tiny, weenie part of it. I'm not even really concerned about grammar at this stage. This is a draft of the essay. This student is trying to get his ideas down on paper, you know. She's trying to organize and figure out what the paper is going to look like, and that's where you come in as her audience." I'm pretty firm about that… that they're not working on mechanics so much at this level... they can point out “errors” to each other, but it's all those other things that are going to make the essay work.
Tonia: So are there three different responses of feedback given to each student?
Melanie: Yes, there are three responses because there are four people in the group (if the numbers work out evenly for groups of four). So in the end, they've gotten verbal feedback and they've gotten written feedback.
Tonia: You can actually see the growth…
Melanie: Yeah, definitely. When they turn in an essay, they write a memo to me about their writing process, about what went well, about what challenges they faced. And then I get to see a hand-written brainstorm or rough draft, a peer-editing draft, and then a final draft. Some students write quite a bit in their memos; they really want to explain their writing processes and what they struggle with.
So as you can see, they really turn in a packet, which feels substantial. It’s not just uploading a final draft on Blackboard… It’s turning in a process - and a product.
(And as I struggle to make a more paperless classroom, I think, “What happens to that packet - that proof of process?” Because I want to see it! And I think they really value it. That feeling, that sound even, when they thump that packet of papers down on my desk… that’s a feeling of work completed, of a process coming - at least for now - to an end. It’s an accomplishment. Can you mimic that online? (Well, that’s probably another discussion, Tonia!)
Tonia: Before you started doing this in class, did you have a time where you did it the old-fashioned way saying to your students, "Go do this assignment and turn in your paper by X date?"
Melanie: Yeah, I think this process...
Tonia: What I’m trying to ask is: Do you have something to compare it to?
Melanie: In terms of my old way of teaching?
Tonia: Yes. What's different between now and the way you did it before? What are the improvements that you have recognized by implementing active learning as a teaching strategy?
Melanie: I think it has just evolved over time. As a graduate student or with my first teaching position, I probably just said, “OK, we’re peer editing. Gather in groups, read each other’s essays and comment” - and hoped that everything would go well. I didn’t have the accountability I have now. I’m not sure my approaches to the assignments have changed dramatically, but my pedagogy is more refined now. But I think that good learning and writing was happening even back then. Now I’m more confident; now I’m making them more responsible for each other.
Tonia: So it wasn't required, you just adjusted?
Melanie: Well, I remember in those early days that - just like I expected all students to have lively intellectual conversations about the readings - that they would have so much to say to each other as peers reading each other’s essays. But ultimately, I’d have a group “finish” with all four essays in a half hour and ask to leave. I didn’t have the handout at that time. I didn’t have the activity defined for them and I wasn’t holding them accountable. Now they earn points for peer editing - you have to make it worth something, even if it’s just a few participation points! They show up; they do the work now, and it usually takes groups the entire class time to be that thorough. And from the feedback (I’m always getting feedback from them and adjusting), I can see they appreciate it. I have proof of that - the memos. And trust me: they let me know when their peers let them down.
Tonia: Do you think the relationship with your students has changed? Your relationship with them... is it different in any way?
Melanie: I don't know. I mean, I'll just be honest, I don’t know.
Tonia: Does it feel different?
Melanie: I really care about my students. I spend a lot of time in office hours with them; I’m rarely alone. I think I’m able to help them think more critically about their work now. That’s what’s changed for me. When I was a new teacher and a student brought me a paper she needed feedback on, I might have been nervous. (“Am I going to be able to help this student? What if I don’t think of good advice to give?”) But I’m much more confident now. In office hours, more and more I find myself discussing content - the ideas behind the paper - and helping them express their ideas. If a student needs help on sentence variation or organization, I do that. But much more time is spent on helping them think more critically about their work. I’m really enjoying that. I don’t know how to incorporate that into my classrooms. It feels like it’s a one-on-one activity but some students don’t come to office hours, and they miss out on that. I’m trying to think of ways, maybe more conferencing during class time, to get to everyone. But there is a lot to teach, so - I’m still working on that.
It feels like it takes a lot of time to teach students to think critically about their ideas and their writing. But then there’s one thing I’m still not much more efficient with and don’t know if I ever will be… with teaching writing, there is so much grading. I mean, I know that’s the nature of teaching writing, but it takes its toll. It’s not like teaching Microbiology, which I’m sure has its own trials. I have a friend who teaches five microbiology classes and like me has two young children. She seems to handle it just fine. Whereas, I feel like I can teach about three classes really well, giving the feedback on a timely basis. It seems like to teach writing well, you have to be a little obsessive. I mean, we know that the way that the students learn is through practice and feedback, and with writing classes, that is oppressive. I talked to someone in my department who teaches upper-division literature classes mostly, and she said she was so relieved that she wasn’t teaching lower-division writing classes anymore. The reason? “Too much grading!”
Tonia: The assessment portion for a microbiology course is really more multiple-choice and true/false questions with scantrons completing the grading, isn't it?
Melanie: I’m not sure, but with writing classes, you just don’t assess like that.
Tonia: Multiple-choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank… most of the chemistry and bio classes are like that.
Melanie: What I think is really interesting is... after teaching for several years, I feel like…
Tonia: How long have you been teaching?
Melanie: Well, I went to grad school when I was 30 and I'm 40 now so I've been at Cal Poly for maybe 5-6 years but I've been teaching for about 8 years (I was at Cuesta for a couple years)... So, I feel like it really takes that long... six, seven, eight years even to hit your stride, to really understand what you’re doing in the classroom, to really have the confidence to not feel like [whispers] "What's going to happen in today's class?" [regular voice] but to feel like, "Oh, I know how to manage this."
Tonia: Yeah… Do I really know more than what they know and can I really teach them anything? I remember the first couple of classes I taught where you just have that doubt…
Melanie: Yes, totally. And so now I have a really good feeling in the classroom most days. And I think that’s probably what’s changed: they can sense that I am more comfortable. I can let the classroom evolve, let the discussion evolve, because I have the confidence. I don’t have to know exactly where it’s going. I don’t try to control everything. Sometimes, I’m just the guide.
Tonia: Do you think they're more involved now?
Melanie: Oh yes, absolutely!
Tonia: Instead of that passive student sitting in the back with their arms crossed…
Melanie: It was so funny… last night they started their photojournalism presentations and I said, "Well, what a nice class for many of us today. We get to be spectators.” But then I had them take out a piece of paper and write two paragraphs in response to the presentation. I said, “I want you to respond as spectators - as their audience. Respond to the photograph and the presentation.” I don’t want them to be passive. I want them to be thinking and telling me something. They all turned in two paragraphs each. I’ll just check them off and apply it to participation points. I just want to see them trying to articulate their thoughts.
But I think it is easy to burn out... I really do. Especially with English, so my teaching has to always be changing because I don’t want to burn out. My mother-in-law has taught for 20 years in the school district, she's in her sixties now….
Tonia: K-12?
Melanie: K-6 actually. She’s started to substitute teach again, and she tells me that many of the teachers are still using the exact same materials they used 20 years ago. I was surprised: I mean, you can’t tell me that teaching theory hasn’t changed, that there’s nothing new. I need to change my teaching and my approach to trying to get the students to learn because I don't want to burn out or rest on my laurels.
I subscribe to a newsletter called Tomorrow’s Professor, which is sponsored by the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning. So, once a week in my inbox I get an essay or article about academia. It’s always interesting and inspiring.
My favorite one so far speaks to me of this need for change. It was from Diana Chapman Wall, she was the President of Wellesley College (1993-2007), and it was in the February 14th of Inside Higher Ed. The article’s called “Toward a Science of Learning,” and it really converged with what is happening in my professional life - the “Course Design with Technology in Mind” class in the CTL and the grant my colleagues and I earned to form a Critical Thinking group. So Diana Chapman was talking about how interest is on the rise regarding how groups of creative faculty are mobilizing. Here’s a quote from the article:
“This trend embraces the advances being made in the cognitive sciences and the study of consciousness. It resides in the fast-moving world of changing information technology and social media. It recognizes and builds upon new pedagogies and evolving theories of multiple ways of knowing and learning. It encompasses but transcends the evolution of new and better measures of student learning outcomes.”
I can’t tell you how much that excited me to read that, to know that other folks are feeling this happening. How the students learn is changing... and so how is my teaching changing? Because if it doesn’t, I’m going to be frustrated and the students will be bored and unmotivated. This is my favorite quote from Chapman:
“…teachers have no choice now but to reckon with is that all of humankind is instantly available to all students through their Wi-Fi connections. The pioneers of this new frontier are pursuing novel learning technologies and can be harnessed in the service of greater intellectual connection between students and faculty, enhanced student learning, less drudgery, more creativity, and more joy for students and faculty alike.”
And I thought, “Did I just read that? Did she say ‘more joy’?” Because that’s pretty appealing. That’s really exciting! What can I do? What can I do to create less drudgery for myself and the students? What can I do to make my class - my assignments, the teaching, and the learning - more creative? What an interesting discussion! Active learning is part of that. But I’ve been doing it intuitively. What if it were integral to the classroom?
Tonia: Do you survey your students?
Melanie: I did at the beginning of the quarter.
Tonia: What did you ask them? Just generic questions?
Melanie: You know, I just kind of asked them how they thought the class was going, what they wanted more of.
Tonia: When did you initiate this survey?
Melanie: After the first two weeks of class. And I haven't done it since.
Tonia: Are you going to do another survey at the end of the quarter too?
Melanie: I almost always survey my students. I was just reading through a stack of them the other day from a couple quarters ago (I revisit them as I prep a new quarter).
The students fill them out in the classroom, about eight long-answer questions. I seal them and tell them I will not read them until the quarter ends, and I don’t. I tell them they can put their names on them (a lot of students do) or not. They seem really honest. They are not afraid to tell me what didn’t work (I ask) or what I could spend less time doing. My evaluations are always good, but I like more specific feedback, where they know I am the only audience. They can tell me the truth.
Here’s an example: they consistently tell me the text is boring. I have tried several, but you know, the text is pretty dry. They really want more interesting readings - they want primary texts! So that’s something I’m trying to change. I made a reader last quarter and that helped, but I still relied a lot on my textbook. This quarter I’m going to try to give them more good stuff to read and make the text at times supplemental, and at times mandatory reading. I think I was scarred in college: I put myself through college, so every penny counted. I hated when I’d buy a $120 text and we’d read only Chapter One. So, I’ve often assigned every chapter. Eventually, I’ll probably buy e-chapters from a few different texts I like. Mix it up. I’m not there yet though.
Tonia: What's the boring textbook have in it? Is it more focused on grammar?
Melanie: No, but for instance, there’s a chapter on Toulmin argument; fairly important concepts there but the chapter doesn’t read well. And this goes back to Chapman. I remember researching supplementary material for myself to teach Toulmin better and finding a PowerPoint presentation online - about 18 minutes. And it’s brilliant! Very clear! It’s better than any text I’ve read on the topic and makes it easy for the students to understand. I thought - I’ve got to show that and then I’ll have a worksheet and some exercises (active learning). I’ll make the text supplementary. I haven’t done it yet. We’ll see how it goes…
Tonia: Yeah… [laughs] One of the questions I had too is, based upon how you used to teach it and how you're teaching it now, because I know faculty are really going to want to know this: Has the quality of the paper or the work changed?
Melanie: I think that they are… I would say, without a doubt, that they are less dry, less straightforward academic papers - that there’s more of an edge of creativity. I had a student bring me an essay last night after class finished. Her essay was supposed to be a persuasive paper on a topic of her choosing, but it had to be written as a letter to a specific audience: Cal Poly students, the president of Cal Poly, the governor of California, etc. (Once a student chose her parents as her audience; she was trying to convince them to let her study abroad. It was great!)
But this student, her paper was about using reusable drinking bottles vs. plastic. You’ve heard the argument. I read it and said (kindly): "Ok, this is a rather generic research paper at this point - which is fine, because it’s a draft. But how do you revise from here?” And we talked about working out a specific audience (she decided on Cal Poly students), and that she would find a voice that let them know they were hearing from a peer (vs. someone superior). I suggested she use “we” instead of you - to try it out - to see if it felt like it included her in the challenge. And at no point in the paper had she built her own ethos. I said, “What can you tell the reader about yourself? Where are you in this paper?” I suggested she could add little details about campus. I said, “Don't despair. You've done all your work. You just need to incorporate some voice and style in there.”
It’s not just “You’re going to do a 10-page research paper with 5 sources from the databases..." Of course, they need to do that. But I also incorporate a creative expectation (after all, it is one of the university’s top ULOs [University Learning Objectives] to think critically and creatively). They’ve done research papers. Some of them could do a research paper in their sleep. But add the audience element and the expectation of voice, of style? That’s a whole other layer of challenge. And again, many of them are thrilled they get to show some voice and style - and write about what they care about, maybe in a way they never have before.
Tonia: They can’t just go through the motions...
Melanie: Right. They have to show me there is a human being in there, trying to communicate with other human beings. And I think hearing me speak like that, and seeing examples (both strong and weak), give them confidence. I’m not demanding creativity, just encouraging…
Tonia: Pushing...
Melanie: Yes. And I tell them: “For Aristotle, persuasion was invention - the most important element of rhetoric.” I tell them that it is their job - their responsibility - to come up with good ideas and good reasons. Not just respond to a prescribed prompt, but to find what interests them, what puzzles them, what baffles them - and research and write about it. Interpret it and argue it to me, your audience.
I just thought of one last example I’d like to share that has to do with active learning - and one that could mean less drudgery.
There is an online site - the Purdue Online Writing Lab, which has grammar explanations, punctuation exercises, revising techniques - all of it. The exercises are great because they are kind of online quizzes. You can practice and check your answers immediately.
So this was my latest, [whispers] "Oh my God, yes, I did this, and it worked!" [regular voice] exercise. One of the most important skills we writing teachers can teach is paraphrasing. I could go on and on about why, but in a nutshell, they need to be able to write and argue and incorporate the ideas of others smoothly, and, most importantly, not plagiarize. I have a whole handout I’ve used for years, and when I cover “Quoting, Summarizing, and Paraphrasing,” we go over this handout, which takes about an hour. We discuss plagiarism extensively. Then last quarter I did that and brought up the OWL exercise on plagiarism. The screen shows five distinct paragraphs (on different topics), and the instructions say to attempt a paraphrase. I had the students do the first three, and I did it along with them (this was off-the-cuff; I hadn’t “practiced it before class. Sometimes if you want to try something you just have to go for it).
It took us about 20 minutes and they're agreed that it was really hard - to do it fairly and accurately. And I said, "This is not an easy exercise but it is one of the intellectual skills you have to learn—and demonstrate—for this paper" (their argument paper). Then I clicked on “Sample Answers” and the students (and I) were able to compare ours with each other and with OWL. And because I had done the exercise with them, I could talk about my own choices - where I did well and where I could have done better. It worked out extremely well.
And then - here’s another lesson - in my next class I meant to cover the same thing, the same exercise, but we didn’t get to the practice. So I assigned it as homework and told them to check their answers. They turned it in the next class, and I asked how many of them had checked their answers, and only about half the class raised their hands. So now, I have homework to evaluate - and the students didn’t get the experience of doing it in class and checking their answers immediately and comparing them with others.
Tonia: Uh-huh… something you’ll have to give feedback on because you weren’t able to do it in the classroom.
Melanie: Yes. Give feedback, put it in the grade book, whereas we could have accomplished it very well and had a discussion about it in the classroom. So that was a real "moment" for me. Same lesson, two different experiences - and the latter meant more grading and less learning because I didn’t do it in class.
Tonia: Yes. I think one of the hardest parts is trying to figure out how you're going to redesign your class to incorporate these things, because there's that big dilemma, "I have so much content to cover" and so then if you prepare more active learning lessons for class, it takes more time than just lecturing at them. How do you decide the best way to provide the materials to them or do you decide that that's something they can read, or they just should know, or, exactly how are you deciding all of this?
Melanie: That's where I am right now. I'm kind of at that crux right now because I’m deciding on my readings for next quarter. Textbook or articles? Probably a bit of both. But I also have a podcast for them, and other materials.
Tonia: Like that PowerPoint that you were talking about?
Melanie: Yes.
Tonia: Plus, the content is more current too.
Melanie: Yes, it's current!
Tonia: And what is this course? It's English…?
Melanie: It's English 145 - it's Reasoning, Argumentation, and Writing. So, the one thing that's nice is that I can use very varied readings that demonstrate the concepts. I can choose a focus or a theme. I need to teach specific concepts, but we can apply those to just about any arguments. It’s very fun to choose the readings.
Tonia: Yeah…
Melanie: This quarter I’m going to have them read and listen and watch and write quite a bit about technology, for example, Luanne’s suggestion of Henry Jenkins’ blog post talking about the difference between "Digital Nation," which I was going to have my students watch, and the new one, "New Learners of the 21st Century." I think I will incorporate both of those next quarter for my rhetorical analysis assignment. They are using so much technology; I’m going to try to get them to think critically about it. I want their input.
Tonia: Including them and getting them involved.
Melanie: Yes, exactly.
Tonia: Thank you, Melanie for sitting down and chatting with me today!
Melanie: You're welcome.
[A BIG “Shout Out” to Luanne Fose for providing the transcription and editing of this audio interview!]
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Xtranormal Movie Maker - Animation Made Easy!

Tue, 5 Apr 2011 12:30:35 -0700

From the time that I was a child, watching cartoons cross-legged on the living room floor every Saturday morning, I have been fascinated with animation. When 3D animation came out during my college years, I was extremely taken by it, but unfortunately, by that time I had already travelled quite far down my educational path in music, so I surmised that it was too late to turn back and pursue a career in 3D animation. Besides, the undergraduate university I was attending at the time had no such program to guide me down that career path and help me make the right connections in what is a highly-competitive industry. However, to this day, I still can't think of a more exciting job than working for Pixar Studios and working with a team of creative artists on the next Finding Nemo or Toy Story animated movie. Maybe that's something I can pursue in my next lifetime...
The necessary skills for becoming a animator of the quality that Pixar Studios is looking for are not only prohibitive to most ordinary people (due to the extreme right-brain talent requirements) but also mandates a marathon of endurance, due to the years of intensive training it takes to become proficient in such tools. 3D animation software tools, such as 3DS Max, Maya, or Lightwave, which professional animators are required to conquer (not to mention the required innate drawing and modeling skills), can take a lifetime to master. Is there another tool in the software toolbox for those of you who don't want to pursue the art professionally but would like to find a way to easily create an animation? Yes... and it's called Xtranormal.
Xtranormal is a simple animation tool that let's you create an animated movie. You start out by creating a free account; choosing a background scene; selecting your characters' gender and style of dress; deciding upon your characters' voice timbre and language (English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Dutch are currently supported); picking out any background sounds or music, if desired; and then typing a script for your characters. You may also insert icons to affect your characters' facial expressions, manipulate camera angles (close-ups, pull-backs, etc.) and implement other motion aspects in order to make your animation look a bit more natural. As Xtranormal advertises: "If you can type, you can make movies..."
Xtranormal comes in two varieties: Xtranormal Movie Maker and Xtranormal State. The first variety, Xtranormal Movie Maker, allows you to create an animated movie within any web browser, and then edit, save, preview, and publish your final version to your account on Xtranormal's servers. You can have a work in progress that you save to your Xtranormal account and then return later to continue refining your creation until you're ready to publish it. Be forewarned: Xtranormal Movie Maker is not entirely free; the ability to publish your marvelous creations is based upon a point system. When you initially create an account, Xtranormal provides you with enough points to publish a single animation (300 Xtranormal points). After that, you must purchase bundles of Xtranormal points in order to use assets (new actors and background scenes) as well as using space on their server to post your animations. The second variety, Xtranormal State, is a downloadable software package for Windows only (sorry, fellow Macintosh users) that you can install on your Windows computer to create more advanced animated movies with up to six characters (instead of two) and a more sophisticated text-to-speech engine providing clearer, more life-like voices. Likewise, Xtranormal State requires purchasing assets via Xtranormal points just like Xtranormal Movie Maker does.

So, by the time you have read this far, you might be saying, "That's all very nice... that you found a software tool to easily create animated movies to meet some childhood career desire, but I don't see the connection to education!" Originally, Xtranormal's business creators had designs to sell the software to animation professionals, but the tool just wasn't robust enough for that market and sales were dwindling. However, in 2009, Xtranormal had a surge of activity, especially promoted by educators, who found it was the perfect tool to use for lesson animations or as a venue for their students to express themselves. I guess one of the aspects of animation that I always felt drawn to was the ability to speak as someone other than myself... to, in effect, put my voice upon another (maybe this is why I was a professional ventriloquist for a while... hmm). For years, psychologists have been aware that often children will share much more of themselves than they would reveal in causal conversation, simply by placing a puppet on their hand. Students can use animated software such as Xtranormal to let their voice be heard on controversial issues - a new way of placing a puppet on their hand, so to speak.
You may be wondering: Does Xtranormal have any discount pricing for educators? Yes, it does! Educational discounts can be created for educators to store up more Xtranormal points for purchasing assets by verifying their educator status. Simply use the Customer Service link on the Xtranormal web page to request educator account status and provide your Xtranormal username associated with your activated user account. Note: At this time, there is no class account management system that students can use for discount pricing. Students are required to set up individual accounts and save up Xtranormal points themselves.
Another educational feature of Xtranormal is the incorporation of a filtered web site for educators. Responding to K-12 instructors concerns regarding ensuring "safe content" for young students, Xtranormal set up their "edu" site, which can be accessed simply by typing "edu." in front of the company's regular URL (i.e., http://edu.xtranormal.com). Users also have the option on the regular Xtranormal web site to hit the "Education" tab, which will then ask for permission to add a cookie to the browser so that Xtranormal can permanently redirect you to the "edu" web site, setting this site as the default.
Xtranormal currently touts over 9.5 million movies! Most likely, you have already encountered an Xtranormal video in Facebook or YouTube, but here are two of my favorites created by educators, who granted, may be a little jaded about the prospects of careers in certain disciplines; however, I find their contributions to the Xtranormal pool of videos to be quite humorous. I think many of you will find the corner of your mouths curling into a smile when you watch these, especially if you have ever consciously reflected upon what masochistic tendencies prompted you to endure the hazing ritual known as "the pursuit of the Ph.D."
SO... YOU WANT TO GET A PH.D. IN THE HUMANITIES

SO... YOU WANT TO BE AN [ACADEMIC] LIBRARIAN

\

For more discussion on this topic, please see the Chronicle of Higher Education article, So You Think an English Professor's Life is a Cartoon, June 16, 2011.
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

GarageBand for the iPad

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:02:23 -0700

Some of you, who know what a fan I am of Apple’s GarageBand for the Mac, have been asking me what I think of the new GarageBand application for the iPad. My reaction in one word: “AWESOME!” This app is incredibly powerful for both musicians and non-musicans alike. Not only do I love it for the marvelous carryover of GarageBand features and ability to create music tracks on a mobile device, but I also love it for it’s ability to enhance the art of music making into being “just plain fun for everyone!” The included methods of music entry (piano, drums, bass, audio voice, and sampling right on your iPad) are alone worth the $4.99 price tag, not to mention all the powerful editing features this app holds.
I see a whole new future of youth group leaders playing the guitar from their iPads for campground sing-a-longs rather than hauling their acoustic guitars off into the woods. I also see all kinds of educational opportunities here for K-12 music teachers! WOW, Apple, you did it again! Somebody there at Apple really loves and understand music in an intuitive manner. Is it you, Steve Jobs? Or, is it your genius programmers? Maybe both? Whoever is responsible at Apple, I give you my standing ovation on this one! BRAVO! BRAVO!
Christopher Breen, Senior Editor for Macworld, provides an excellent review of the new GarageBand for the iPad and explains the amazing features in depth. Check it out!
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Derek Sivers TED Talk Weird, or Just Different?

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:37:09 -0800

I thought this was a wonderful TED Talk by Derek Sivers about embracing diversity! I hope you enjoy it!
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Downloading YouTube Videos for Safekeeping

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 21:23:00 -0700

Have you ever found a YouTube video that was absolutely perfect to illustrate a pertinent point for your class and then later went to find that it was no longer posted on YouTube? What’s an instructor to do? Some schools and universities even go as far as to ban YouTube from the available possible sites that students are allowed to visit on lab computers; thus, it isn’t always feasible to send your students to a YouTube video to confirm a learning concept.
This tutorial was designed to introduce you to an assortment of methods for downloading YouTube videos for safekeeping so that you can store the actual video on your computer hard drive or save it to CD-ROM so that you can always access it to make your teaching point.
YouTube videos are created in Flash (.flv) format but the site has chosen to lock them down so you can’t simply right-click the videos and save them to your desktop as you can sometimes do with QuickTime movies. Follow the steps in this tutorial to download the .flv video files themselves. Another advantage: you also won’t have to rely on an internet connection to show them later on in your class since you have the actual video to play directly from your computer. 
YouTube_Downloads_Tutorial.pdf 
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

YouTube Tips for Educators

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 21:02:47 -0700

I taught another faculty workshop the other day at Cal Poly on using YouTube. The main emphasis of this workshop was to help faculty use the automatic captioning tools that YouTube now has in an effort to assist our faculty in complying with the state and federal ADA mandates (as well as the coded memo of the CSU Chancellor’s office).
I have been amazed how well YouTube does with creating a transcript from the audio of uploaded videos. If you’re a perfectionist like me, you can upload the video to obtain the basic transcript, then download the time-coded transcript, fix its mistakes and upload it back up to the YouTube server for perfect captioning. All of this in about half the time and cost of typical video captioning on your own.
Check out the attached tutorial (PDF) I wrote on “YouTube Tips for Educators” that explains: 1) Creating a YouTube account; 2) Uploading Video to YouTube; 3) Enabling and disabling video comments; 4) Attaching a text comment to a video; 5) Linking to a specific location in a video with a deep link and commenting upon it; 6) Attaching a video comment to a YouTube video; and 7) Tips and tricks for using Google’s voice recognition features on YouTube for easing the chore of captioning videos. 
YouTube_Tips_Tutorial.pdf 
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

The iPad & Velcro

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:41:39 -0700

After the iPad came out last March, there were a lot of different parodies for it that popped up on YouTube. My favorite was this one, “iPad & Velcro - A Match Made in Heaven,” which we showed in our first iPad workshop for faculty at Cal Poly. (I’m not sure about riding with one on a motorcycle but it would be awesome for GPS in the car!)
Recently, I stumbled upon another video demonstrating someone’s idea of using an iPad in the kitchen. I had been thinking about getting a small TV for our kitchen but now I’m thinking about carving out the wood of one of the kitchen cabinets and installing an iPad there instead.
Check it out...

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Will Video Technology Kill The Classroom Lecture?

Sat, 9 Oct 2010 21:19:42 -0700

The August 8, 2010 Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled Mass Video Courses May Free Up Professors for More Personalized Teaching discusses New York University’s ambitious experiment of developing interactive videos to replace classroom lecture time.
Note that I used the word “interactive” here. These interactive videos are not the typical “talking head” variety that some universities have chosen to automatically broadcast with lecture capture tools. According to NYU spokespersons, these videos are “souped-up” and include live links to resources the instructors discuss as well as pop-up definitions and interactive quizzes to accompany the video material.
What is the motivation behind all of this intensive video development? Dalton Conley, the Dean of Social Sciences at NYU, states, “Rather than have to pay our research faculty to stand in front of a room and teach the same classes over and over (after all, when’s the last time Calculus I really changed?), with one fewer course to teach, they can now take on the role of faculty curators.” From such a statement we could conclude that the motivation behind this NYU pedagogical shift is to leverage newer technologies with the hope of changing the role of the instructor in large undergraduate classrooms and consequently, free up their time for more personal instruction, student mentoring, and guidance of student research.
My overall reaction to this suggested pedagogical shift was positive although I suspect that many of you may disagree and see this as one more “nail in the coffin” toward the demise of higher education. First of all, let me point out that we aren’t talking about totally online immersion here at NYU, but rather, finding a way to utilize the lecture time slot to do more interactive work with students (e.g., discussion, hands-on projects, Q&A, etc.). In many ways, NYU’s implementation of interactive videos is similar to the CTL’s efforts at Cal Poly to encourage hybrid classroom teaching (i.e., combining face-to-face classroom time with online activities to encourage more active learning strategies). However, in Cal Poly’s hybrid scenario, one or more class lectures are forfeited for instruction online, rather than as an addition to the student workload, so a course does not end up becoming a course and a half.
Before I continue with my opinion, I must state a personal caveat here: I have never been a fan of “talking head” faculty video lectures; however, if the video lecture is properly done (and I’ll give you an example later in this article of what I mean by “properly done”), then I think there is an advantage to the time that video lectures can free up for faculty, allowing them to provide more individual faculty attention to students and resulting in a higher level of student learning than the typical face-to-face lecture can provide. Furthermore, I listen to faculty (almost weekly) lament the fact that today’s students just won’t read anymore! Don’t’ get me wrong, I believe reading is important and should be an integral part of academic rigor, but what if now and then a well-conceived recorded video lecture replaced some of the reading for student viewing outside of class? Consider this possibility: With such an approach, students would be able to review sections of the content that were unclear to them as much as they desired and then later engage the instructor in class discussions and by doing so, avoid the creation of “monster” courses that normally would require students to be responsible for the class work of two courses. After all, faculty are the experts on the content they teach and if undergraduate face-to-face university education is going to come attached to a hefty price tag, shouldn’t students be given access to engage those experts long before they become graduate students? Just a thought…
The next jump I’m going to make here in my reasoning will probably ruffle many feathers: I have often thought that the prominent universities, who have faculty lecture “stars,” should record these “star faculty” lectures and provide those videos as the main lecture content for general education courses. After viewing, the students would be able to follow-up on what they had learned, meeting “in person” with these faculty in the university classroom for more in-depth probing on the topic, review of case studies, further discussion, demonstrations, and rigorous interaction. What if students were actually able to have a chance to develop a relationship with these “star instructors” and pick their brains rather than just be a speck in the sea of faces of the large lecture halls? Wouldn’t you as a instructor prefer to have an in-depth, invigorating discussion with informed students about the topic of your passion rather than droning on, chanting the same lecture (possibly in multiple sections per day) every single year of your teaching career? Well… I would prefer the invigorating discussion, but maybe that’s just me. For me, the thrill of teaching comes from the change of the players (students) each quarter, but if you’re just going to lecture “at” them without interaction, then you’re not going to experience the joy inherent in the diversity of their individual personalities, are you? Nor will you, as a teacher, benefit from the value of exchange so that you can be more aware of your students’ needs and thereby improve your teaching in the future.
I encourage you to review the list of comments appended to the bottom of the CHE article. The following comment (#19 by optimysticynic) especially resonated with the way my own thinking has been changing over the past few years: “It is not the ‘lecture’ that is ill-conceived, but rather thinking that everyone who stands in front of a class is a ‘lecturer.’ Basic logical fallacy here. We acknowledge expertise, wisdom, and competence in our athletes, musicians, actors, etc. We acknowledge (and value) the irreplaceable value of a wise, senior pitching coach. Why are we so reluctant to do so in the academy?”
Part 2 of this CHE article, entitled Killing the Lecture with Technology (August 17, 2010), continues this controversial discussion with a video example from Dr. David B. Miller – a Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut. Professor Miller admirably created 90 videos (Wow! Even I am awed by that number!) for his Animal Behavior course with the use of three software tools on his Macintosh: Keynote (Apple’s counterpart to Microsoft PowerPoint), Screenflow (a screencasting program for the Mac similar to Adobe Captivate, Techsmith’s Camtasia, or Ambrosia’s SnapZPro), and QuickTime Pro for adding streaming capabilities.
When I said earlier in this blog entry that I would provide an example of video capture “properly done,” I was referring to Professor Miller’s video lectures. Granted, the beginning of this video, where Professor Miller explains the layout of the course and discusses the requisite housekeeping matters may not qualify for such an accolade, but I encourage you to jump to the end of this video and watch a few minutes of his actual lecturing (@ 21:30 – end). I’ve posted just that portion (21:30 to the end) in the embedded video below but if your computer has a slow download speed, you might want to watch the streamed version available the link above and move to 21:30 within it.
David B. Miller’s Psych 320 Video Lecture

From reviewing this portion of the video, several things became clear to me: 1) Professor Miller is comfortable in lecturing without a word-for-word written-out script; 2) He has a pleasant speaking voice that doesn’t fall into the trap of monotone frequencies; 3) He provides his students with excellent visual examples (e.g., appropriate images and embedded videos); and 4) He even integrates a flavor of his own personality by incorporating small segments of “talking head” video now and then. Yes, this approach to lecture capture is time-consuming to construct, but it is so much more effective for learning a topic than the “talking head” videos we have suffered through over the past few years as instructors have experimented with various methods to deliver online instruction. This sort of example makes me feel so much more adrenalized about the future of online learning as we begin to experience academic video instruction climbing to new heights through the integration of sound pedagogy and powerful software tools. Three cheers for the professional enhanced podcast!
In summary: I particularly like the statement by Professor Michael Satlow (Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University) regarding the value (or not) of the classroom lecture: “I plan to devote class time to very little ‘frontal’ presentation and a lot of discussion… In my opinion, it is in large measure the give and take of the classroom that adds value to education and that justifies the price tag, not the faculty presentation.”
Once again, I would encourage you to read the comments of the follow-up article (Part 2) as well. The comments contained there, from academics all across the country, are often passionate in nature and include both endorsements and disagreements; they are certainly worth the time to read if you seek to understand the varied viewpoints on this heated topic. I would be curious to hear your reactions to my blog comments. Truly, what are the thoughts of educators on this controversial topic? Let’s discuss…
~ Dr. Luanne Fose – The Tweed Geek

The iPad - More Than Just a Big iPhone

Fri, 8 Oct 2010 21:24:54 -0700

In June 2010, I taught a faculty workshop with my colleagues at Cal Poly in the Center for Teaching and Learning about our recent discoveries in regard to the iPad (Patrick, Tonia and I were the lucky recipients of iPads the first day they came out in March). Having been an iPhone user for quite sometime, I was curious whether the iPad was any more than just a big iPhone. After having an iPad now for over 6 months, let me tell you, the answer is “No, it is not just a big iPhone... the iPad is much more than that!” I love my iPad and can’t imagine life without it now. I have almost succeeded in having a paperless office (except for those few colleagues that still insist on printing out hard copies and handing them to me instead of just sending me a digital copy). After reading Douglas Merrill’s book on Getting Organized in the Google Era, I was determined to become paperless in an effort to make my life easier. The iPad helps with that mission and is helping me in my quest to become more organized and productive at work and at home, and even better - it’s just plain fun!
There’s nothing like being able to roll over when I wake up in the morning and check the Surfline surf cam to see if Morro Bay waves are decent for a morning surf before arising out of bed on Saturday morning. No good waves? Roll over and go back to sleep! Beautiful! Watching instant downloable movies from the Netflix iPad application is a wonderful benefit as well. Using Dragon Dictation to record my voice and translate it into text to write morning emails while exercising on a recumbant bicycle before work is also awesome for keeping up with correspondence with my family and friends. And best of all, the iPad is great for reading PDFs or books from the Kindle or iBook stores. I can practically have my hands on any book I want to read, anytime. (I checked out a Kindle when the Kennedy Library was running a Kindle pilot but I’m glad I didn’t buy one - I prefer the iPad. With the backlighting on the iPad, you can read in the dark, which is great!)
Oh, I almost forgot, the iPad also is great for my needs as a musician. I’m not talking just about the iPod features, which are nice, but applications such as Scorecerer, which allows me to scan notated music as jpegs and view them from my iPad (Scorecerer makes difficult page turns at the piano a breeze and is about $850 cheaper than Freehand’s Music Pad Pro, which does basically the same thing), Cleartune - a chromatic tuner and pitch pipe that even supports custom temperaments and transpositions, iStrobesoft - a mechanical strobe tuner with accuracy up to 1/10th of a cent, iTick - an excelelnt metronome application, and music making applications such as Fret Surfer Bass Trainer, iBone, GigBabyFree, Leaf Trombone, Ocarina, the Pianist Pro (which even has wireless MIDI capabilities - imagine that!), and Piano Accordio Pro.
At the bottom of this post I’ve included links to two of the handouts that we gave out to attendees at our iPad / iPhone workshop. The iPad Projector Guidelines handout explains how to hook up the iPad to a projector and it also discusses 2Screens -Presentation Expert, an application for the iPad that not only projects whatever is on your web browser, but also allows you to project a large number of additional file formats. The second handout is a long list and descriptions of our favorite iPad / iPhone applications. Check it out - I think you’ll find some real keepers there that will help you be more productive and have more fun on your iPad or your iPhone!
iPad-Projection-Guidelines.pdf
Our-Favorite-iPad-iPhone-Applications.pdf
~ Luanne Fose - The Tweed Geek

Book Review: Getting Organized in the Google Era

Sat, 22 May 2010 13:27:23 -0700

The main point of Merrill’s book is that in this world of information overload, we need to take a new approach to how we organize data for our brains and be a bit more choosy about what we decide is important to store there. I, myself, find that many of the faculty I work with, who didn’t have the internet at their disposal when they were young, shake their heads in disbelief at the Millennial students who have no inclination or desire, for that matter, to memorize data. Most likely this current generation’s philosophy is largely due to the fact that they have been taught that any information they may need is available anytime at their fingertips by just “Googling it!” Although I believe there are a few essential facts in one’s discipline that merit memorization, in this information age explosion can we really blame our students for this mindset?
In the first chapter of the book, Merrill tells an amusing anecdote (fact or fiction?) about Albert Einstein. As the story goes, a reporter was interviewing Albert Einstein and asked him if he could have his phone number, in case he needed to follow-up with any questions before the article was published. The reporter said that Einstein walked over to a pay phone on the street where they were walking, picked up a phone book and proceeded to look up his own phone number in order to read off the numbers to the reporter. When the reporter expressed surprise that Einstein didn’t have his own phone number memorized, Einstein responded: “Why remember my phone number when it’s in the phone book?” The veracity of this story is hard to confirm but what I take away from it is that Einstein was even far ahead of us in his understanding about what information was truly necessary to store in the brain!
Merrill talks in depth about how to organize your life to minimize brain strain by following some of the principles he developed to cope with his own dyslexia. Near the end of the book, he summarizes eighteen points to recap his Principles of Organization (pp. 174-175):
1. Organize your life to minimize brain strain.
2. Get stuff out of your head as quickly as possible.
3. Multitasking can actually make you less efficient.
4. Use stories to remember.
5. Just because something’s always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it should be.
6. Knowledge is not power. The sharing of knowledge is power.
7. Organize around actual constraints, not assumed ones.
8. Be completely honest (but never judgmental) with yourself.
9. Know when to ignore your constraints.
10. Know exactly where you’re going (and how you’ll get there) before you start the engine.
11. Be flexible about the outcome of your goals.
12. Don’t organize your information; search for it.
13. Only keep in your head what truly needs to be there.
14. Break big chunks into small ones.
15. Dedicate time each week to reviewing key information.
16. There’s no such thing as a perfect system of organization.
17. Whenever possible, use the tools you already know.
18. Add relevant keywords to your digital information so you can easily find it later.
* Points 12, 13, and 18 (above) are really the essence of this book.
A confessed music fanatic (as am I), Merrill’s constant musical references throughout the book to song lyrics made his points more memorable for me. For example, when discussing the problem of tapping into your long-term memory for recall, he quotes from Steely Dan’s popular song: “Rikki don’t lose that number... Send it off in a letter to yourself.” Later he discusses how emailing yourself things you wish to remember can be extremely helpful if you are fortunate enough to have access to your email from any location (as is true with a Gmail or .Mac mail account) because this process allows you to later search digitally for the information you sent off to yourself in an email. This is one of the strongest points that Merrill keeps hammering at us, over and over, throughout the book: Creating digital documents allows you to search (in a matter of moments) for information that you need at your fingertips. Digital documents can truly act as a personal database for all the information that cannot be contained within our cluttered brains. Take advantage of such an approach and you’ll reap the benefits of a life that is better organized and less stressed!
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Deep Linking To A YouTube Video

Sat, 22 May 2010 09:20:14 -0700

Did you know that by creating a deep link in YouTube, you can share a moment in a YouTube video that interests you and then comment upon it for other viewers? A deep link in YouTube allows the viewer of the video to start watching from a specific location that you've designated by creating an anchor that jumps to the exact location you wish to emphasize. Here’s how you can create a YouTube deep link:
1. Go to a video on YouTube and watch the video until you arrive at the location where the particular event occurs that you want the viewer to focus upon and then stop the video. 
2. Note the exact time that the event occurs in minutes and seconds (e.g., 5:34) by hovering your mouse above the playhead or by looking at the timecode provided within the play bar. 
3. Now go to your URL browser address and append something similar to the following at the end of the YouTube URL: #t=5m34s (Note: In this example, the #t=5m34s is a time marker anchor that tells YouTube to automatically begin playing the video at 5 minutes and 34 seconds, which is designated by the 5m34s of the code. Obviously, you would change the numbers in this code with regard to the minutes and seconds to reflect your desired location. Be advised this technique for creating an anchor pointer to a specified location doesn't appear to work for embedded YouTube videos.)
4. Once you have added the time marker at the end of the YouTube URL, go to your browser’s address window, click on the URL’s address and select all the text of the URL by pressing Command-A (Mac) or Control-A (Windows). The URL will look something like this with the #t= and the timecode appended at the end of the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY#t=5m34s
5. Copy the URL address by pressing Command-C (Mac) or Control-C (Windows). This is the link you would paste into your email, if you wish to send correspondence about the YouTube video via email. (Note: You can also paste a link like this into software tools such as Facebook or Blackboard.) When the recipient receives the email, Facebook link, or Blackboard link and clicks on it, the video will upload and begin playing at the location that you designated with the timecode. The viewer can also click on the playhead and move back to the beginning of the video and watch the entire movie, if they desire.
6. One way to use deep links effectively within an email or as a link provided within Blackboard might be to provide the normal link for the YouTube video and then also provide the link with the timecode designation. With this approach, the surprise of whatever you intended to have your students focus upon isn’t spoiled by taking them to the specified location right away; however, when they click on the alternative link that you've provided, they can clearly see the location in the video that you wanted them to focus upon and possibly provide comments.
7. If you choose to use the text comments box in YouTube, you don’t have to paste this entire URL timecode link there in order to provide a pointer to a specified location. Instead, you can just make a text comment on a YouTube video as you normally would and then place the timecode within the comment in the following manner: 9:50. For example, you could create a comment that says, “I love what Sir Ken Robinson says about university professors at 9:50!” Once the comment is posted, there will be a hyperlink attached to the number 9:50 within the comment. (To see an example of this, go to the lfose comment in the comments section on this Sir Ken Robinson YouTube video.) When the viewer clicks on the link in the video's comment box, the playhead of the video will jump to the exact location specified and begin playing the video from there. (Are you curious what Sir Ken Robinson says about university professors? Check it out in your browser right now at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY#t=9m50s)
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Embedding a YouTube Video In Blackboard

Sat, 22 May 2010 08:49:37 -0700

Obviously, you can link to YouTube videos from Blackboard by simply using Blackboard’s External Link option to take students directly from Blackboard to a video on the YouTube web site. However, there is another more pedagogically-effective method for placing YouTube videos in Blackboard: Embed them so that it actually appears as if the YouTube videos are playing within your Blackboard course. This approach will keep your students from getting lost in the “black hole” that is YouTube and hopefully, will encourage them to continue concentrating on your Blackboard course content. Below are the steps to embedding a YouTube video within Blackboard: 
1. Open up Firefox and go to http://www.youtube.com. (Note: This method of embedding YouTube videos in Blackboard must be done with the Firefox browser because Firefox displays ALL the formatting options available for use in the Blackboard Text area.)
2. Search YouTube for the video you wish to embed. 
3. Below the YouTube video, you will see a button labeled Embed. Click on this Embed button.

Embed Button 
4. A dialog box will appear underneath with some checkboxes. Uncheck the box that says Include related videos. (Note: We don’t want students distracted by other YouTube videos; after all, avoidance of the “related videos black hole” was the reason we selected to employ this method in the first place.)

Embed Dialog Box

5. In the embed text box above this, select all of the embed code that resides there (i.e., use Command-A on Macintosh or Control-A on Windows to select all of the text of the embedded code).
6. Now copy the embed text to your computer's clipboard by pressing Command-C (Macintosh) or Control-C (Windows).
7. Leave the YouTube web site and open your Blackboard course by logging in through the Cal Poly portal and navigating to your Blackboard course.
8. Once you have entered the Blackboard course, click on the Control Panel link and select the proper link to the location in your Blackboard course where you wish to place the video (e.g., Course Documents, Assignments, Videos, etc.)
9. Click on the Item button and provide a Name for the video in the Blackboard text box.
10. Below the Name area, you will see a text box labeled Text with all sorts of formatting buttons provided for text editing. Click on the <> button. (Note: You’ll know you’re on the correct button if you hover your mouse over this <> button and it displays the words “Toggle HTML Source Mode.” Be advised that if you’re not using Firefox, you may not have the ability to see the <> button.)
11. Now In the text box under the Blackboard Text formatting buttons, paste the embed code you copied from YouTube’s text box in Step 6 above. (Note: To paste the code, simply use Command-V on the Macintosh or Control-V on Windows.)
12. Select the Yes button next to Make the content available, select whether or not to Track number of views and if desired, Choose date and time restrictions (Note: Doing nothing in the Choose date and time restrictions area will make the content appear immediately as long as you requested Yes for Make the content available.)

Blackboard Availability Options

13. Scroll down to the bottom right of the Blackboard web page and click the Submit button; then click OK.
14. Now, if you wish, change the numbering order of the item in Blackboard by pulling down on the drop-down menu next to its number sequence and selecting the position order you desire.

Change Blackboard Order 
15. To test the embedded video in Blackboard, simply click on the play arrow in the middle of the YouTube embedded file in Blackboard and the YouTube video should play directly in the Blackboard window without going off to the YouTube web site.
16. Note: Because Blackboard is simply pointing to the file, please be aware that this is not a method for ensuring you have the video as an archive for all-time usage during the rest of your teaching career at Cal Poly. By using the embed method explained above, you are simply pointing to the YouTube video at the YouTube web site (i.e., the video is actually residing on YouTube’s server and could be taken down at any time by YouTube); however, if you use this method of embedding the video in Blackboard, it will appear to the student as if they have never left the Blackboard web page.
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

9 Fish Pufferfish Bodyboard

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 13:02:25 -0700

Ok, I admit it: I’m a surfboard junkie. What can I say? The 9 Fish Pufferfish is now the latest addition to my board quiver. A couple weeks ago I went down to San Diego for a few days for a technology conference. I had been saving my hard-earned pennies and hoped to pick up this board at the factory in Carson, CA on the way but the sales representative told me that they had become so popular that they couldn’t keep them in stock. When I arrived in San Diego, I checked out all the dealers in San Diego that sell 9 Fish boards, but nobody had one. I called back up the factory and they said they could put me in touch with their San Diego rep, who might have a demo board. I was hesitant to buy a demo, thinking it might be messed up but this board is epoxy so I figured I had a better chance that it might be in good shape and I could shave a couple hundred dollars off the high price tag and still save money to buy an iPad (priorities, you know). After several text messages, the San Diego rep and I arranged to meet in the parking lot of Tourmaline Surf Park. After close examination, I found that the board was in excellent shape so we exchanged $$ right there at the back of his VW van (I must say to others it probably looked like a clandestine drug deal). I pulled out some Boogie Board fins I have in the back of my SUV and took it out right there. It was the perfect San Diego offshore sunny day with 3-4 waves and this thing screamed down the line. I mean SCREAMED! It’s twice as fast as any bodyboard I have ever ridden, and I have ridden some of the best!

What is the Pufferfish? The Pufferfish is the smallest board of the 9 Fish family. It is 4’11” in length (a bit longer than most bodyboards) and has twin removable FCS fins. It is 3.25” thick, and 24” wide (I bought the “thin” Pufferfish, which is 24” rather than the standard 25” wide) with 6oz+6oz+6oz deck glassing on an Excel EPS blank. It can be ridden as a wakeboard, a bodyboard, or a kneeboard; however, some of the pros have been seen riding it as a regular shortboard and because of it’s shortness and width, they can do some fun tricks, like 360’s, on it. See some pros demonstrating their surf technique on it here in this short YouTube clip:

All I can say is that this board is extremely FUN! I bought it for kneeboarding during the bigger swells in Morro Bay when I am too chicken to ride my 9’0” Robert August Longboard out there in the monster waves. However, this might also be a blast on dead days in the summer when no one can catch anything. Just me and the SUPs out there! Ride on!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Smashwords Offers eBook Self-Publishing for the iPad

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:51:11 -0700

Low cost eBook self-publishing for the common man or woman - enter Smashwords. That’s right! Smashwords has signed a distribution deal with Apple to place their eBooks in the iBookstore for the iPad. This opportunity will be another step toward breaking down the barriers for independent authors to sell their books worldwide and actually make a sizable profit doing so. In fact, I think this will be akin to the success that Apple had in allowing outside developers to develop applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and now the iPad with its App Store, except it will open up the market for Indie authors and that’s BIG!
Smashwords recently announced that authors who place their books in the iBookstore will receive 85% of the net sales or 70.5% from affiliate sales. That’s right, I said 85%! What kind of book publishing company will offer you that kind of deal these days? Not any that I have dealt with. Besides that, with a publisher you’ll have to go through all the hoopla trying to get a book publisher to actually pick up your book. This approach of self-publishing could be especially useful for educators, who may wish to publish an eBook for their students to have easy and inexpensive access without the chore of having it printed out in packets through the campus bookstore.
The process for publishing with Smashwords is very simple. Authors can electronically submit their ebooks to Smashwords as a Microsoft Word document, set the price, and decide where the book should be published. The books can be priced as low as 99 cents and must follow Apple’s pricing rules of ending in 99 cents (i.e., $10.99, $12.99, etc.), but the author can set the price at whatever price they desire. One caveat: if the book has a printed counterpart, the eBook must be priced lower than the printed version. Smashwords will also add the International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) to the titles, which Apple will require for all titles that are available through the iBookstore.
Simple e-publishing... this might just change the publishing game for good! We can only hope!
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

ONLY THREE DAYS UNTIL...

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Transferring iTunes To An External Drive

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:37:56 -0800

In a recent blog post, I discussed transferring large iPhoto libraries to an external drive. Did you know that you could do the same thing with your iTunes library? It requires following a few more steps than moving your iPhoto library, but it’s possible.
“Why would I want to do this?” you may ask. Well, some music aficionados have thousands of songs in their iTunes library as a result of uploading songs to iTunes from their private CD libraries as well as purchasing music online from the iTunes Store or other venues. This can result in your music taking up hundreds of gigabytes or even terabytes of space. At some point, all those music files begin to take up the majority of your hard drive space and so your computer doesn’t have room for new applications you may need to install or that personal family video you need to edit for the upcoming family reunion. If this is your situation, the best approach is to move your iTunes library to an external drive. With this approach, you would still play your music with the iTunes application on your main computer hard drive but it would pull the music you wish to play from the connected external drive.
Here’s how to transfer your iTunes files to an external drive:
1. Navigate to your personal account within the Users folder and then double-click on the Music folder.
2. Double-click the iTunes folder to open it and copy the iTunes Music folder that resides within it to your external hard drive.
3. Launch the iTunes application on your main computer.
4. From the iTunes menu within the iTunes application, select Preferences... and click on the Advanced tab.
5. Enable the Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library choice with a checkmark.
6. While you’re in the Advanced tab, click the Change… button next to the iTunes Media folder location area and navigate to the iTunes Music folder that you previously placed on your external hard drive.
7. Click OK.
That’s all there is to it. Now when you add songs to your iTunes library with the iTunes application, iTunes will use the folder on your external drive and add the new media files to it instead. Don’t forget that you need to back up all your music to another drive, CDs, or DVDs, just in case. It would be a shame to lose all your wonderful music!
Note: The only downside to this approach is that if you have a laptop, you won’t have your entire iTunes music library with you when you travel because it is connected to the content that now resides on your external hard drive. However, if the possibility of having no music with you when you’re on the road is disheartening, consider keeping a few songs in the iTunes Music folder directly on your laptop and just using the Change… button within the Advanced tab to point to these tunes when you’re on the road. When you return home, you can switch the location setting of the iTunes Media folder back to point to your external hard drive again and access your complete music library. My guess is that if you’re that “into” your music, you have an iPod that you take on road trips with you anyway.

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Charts & Diagrams: 28 Tools to Make Your Presentations “Pop”

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 18:27:24 -0800

Recently I have been writing quite a bit about improving one’s presentation skills. One of the things you can do to make your presentations more effective is to utilize rich data
visualization tools that manipulate the data for you into visually appealing charts, graphs, tables, diagrams, and maps. You may say, “Well, I already use Excel for that!” Well, guess what? There are far better tools to display your data than what Excel can provide!

O’Reilly’s web page, 28 Rich Data Visualization Tools, reviews the latest tools to enrich your data with descriptive and effective visualization. Check them out! You may find exactly what you need to make your next presentation “pop” and take your audience to the next level so that they will “really get” the point.

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Book Review - Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 17:59:25 -0800

Book Review - Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations
By Nancy Duarte

Unlike verbal skills, effective visual presentation is not easy, natural, or actively taught in college or business training programs; rather, it is an art that takes a great deal of time to develop. Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, attempts to take on that void with this book, which is full of practical and innovative approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone to create powerful, and sometimes life-changing, presentations.

Duarte's firm is responsible for assisting former Vice-President Al Gore in creating his 2006 Nobel Peace Prize documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth. You may not be aware that Gore's highly acclaimed presentation, intended to educate the public about global warming, actually began as a Keynote slideshow (Apple’s growing-in-popularity alternative to PowerPoint). Skillful information literacy techniques, expertise in presentation design, and the implementation of creative thought through new media resulted in making the nation more vitally aware of the global warming threat. Furthermore, this presentation initiated a national dialogue that helped to establish positive steps toward alleviating climate change as well as reenergizing the environmental movement throughout the world. All of this from a presentation that began in slideshow format! When you see something like this, you have to step back and ask yourself, “What made this approach such a success?” The answer to that question can be uncovered in Duarte's presentation techniques, which she freely shares with readers in Slide:ology.

One of the aspects that I thinks separates Duarte's book from some of the other books I have read on presentation design is her attention in great detail to chart and diagram creation. If "a picture is worth a thousand words" then Duarte will show you how to create effective relationships between your charts and diagrams that will be worth even more.

You can find Slide:ology in Kennedy Library at the following Call Number:

HF
5718.22
.D83
2008

Or, you can order it from Amazon.

Enjoy!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

NMC 2010 Horizon Report

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 16:52:08 -0800

Since 2002, the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) have been collaborating to create the yearly Horizon Report. The Horizon Report focuses upon six emerging technologies or practices that are likely to progress to mainstream use in education within one to five years. The report also comments upon critical trends and challenges that may impact teaching and learning during this time frame.

The Advisory Board for this year’s report identified four key trends that will be drivers of technology adoptions from 2010 through 2015.

Key Trends:

1. The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in sense-making, coaching, and credentialing. 
2. People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to. 
3. The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized. 
4. The work of students is increasingly seen as collaborative by nature, and there is more cross-campus collaboration between departments.

In addition to the current trends, the Advisory Board notes four critical challenges that leaders in education and technology will face.

Critical Challenges:

1. The role of the academy — and the way we prepare students for their future lives — is changing. 
2. New scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching continue to emerge but appropriate metrics for evaluating them increasingly and far too often lag behind. 
3. Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession. 
4. Institutions increasingly focus more narrowly on key goals, as a result of shrinking budgets in the present economic climate.

Although not to be viewed as a predictive, the Horizon Report highlights six emerging technologies with considerable potential that the Advisory Board believes will have a significant impact upon education in the future; two on the near-term horizon (i.e., these will enter into the mainstream within the next 12 months); two on the mid-term horizon (mainstream within 2-3 years); and two on the far-term (mainstream within 4-5 years).

The Six Technologies to Watch:

Near-Term Horizon (within next 12 months)

• Mobile Computing
• Open Content

Mid-Term Horizon (within 2-3 years)

• Electronic Books
• Simple Augmented Reality

Far-Term (within 4-5 years)

• Gesture-Based Computing
• Visual Data Analysis

For a detailed description of these six technologies and their usage in education, please review the entire Horizon Report.

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

YouTube - Not Just for Fluff Projects Anymore!

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:32:04 -0800

If you happen to hear a high school senior yelling from her room to her parents, “No, Mom and Dad, I’m really not goofing off on YouTube right now; I’m trying to get accepted into college!” it may well be the truth! This year, for the first time, the admissions office at Tufts University is accepting short YouTube videos as supplements to their required admissions essay, transcripts, and recommendations. So… now, in the very near future, you may not only need to “look good” on paper, you may need to “look good” on video as well in order to be accepted at your university of choice.

In her admissions video for Tufts, Amelia Downs demonstrates how she combines two of her favorite things, being a nerd and dancing. Check out her “math dances” below.

Roaming through YouTube and searching for other videos by Tuft applicants, I found another quite creative admissions video by Matthew Dion, who happens to be a pretty good pianist as well:

Check out the full article about Tufts University’s new admissions approach in the New York Times article dated February 22, 2010.

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Bugs Bunny Who? Are You Kidding Me?

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:00:26 -0800

Yesterday, one of my friends on Facebook who teaches elementary school-age children, told us that her class looked at her in confusion when she mentioned Bugs Bunny. Are you kidding me? I am totally horrified by the thought that somehow young children are no longer in touch with the Looney Tunes crew. From a wise-cracking point of view, Bugs Bunny was pure genius. My friend asked if there might be some way we could get Bugs Bunny accepted as REQUIRED curriculum in the California state teaching standards.

I would think the answer is “YES!” if these educators really knew their music history. After all, who actually learned the tune for the Overture of Rossini's Barber of Seville except through the Bugs Bunny episode Rabbit of Seville? In 1994 the cartoon Rabbit of Seville was voted #12 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time by 1,000 members of the animation field.

And who could forget Bugs in full concert regalia giving a performance of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody and answering the telephone saying, "Eh, what's up, Doc? Who? Franz Liszt? Never heard of him! Wrong number."

Heck, I could do an entire Intro to Music class on Bug's material (actually that would be quite fun). Since I'm not a big fan of teaching opera, I might have to to take that project on someday, eh? Also, how about the "What's Opera, Doc?" episode (rated #1 in the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time list) in which music from several Wagnerian operas is showcased (e.g., The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, Die Walkure, etc) with different lyrics applied to the original music. My partner says that most of her opera knowledge comes from Bugs Bunny cartoons. Bugs Bunny is core to children's opera exposure and familiarity with the tenets of classical music. For your enjoyment, here’s the full version of What's Opera, Doc? from YouTube in complete HD video:

I guess the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 was quite popular for cartoons. Tom and Jerry did a rendition of it as well:

Here’s to you, Bugs! Thanks for filling my childhood days with classical music references!
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Rewriting the Content of Textbooks

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:16:04 -0800

Macmillan, one of the “top five” of the largest textbook publishers in the United States is now introducing a new digital textbook software called DynamicBooks. DynamicBooks allows instructors to edit the digital editions of their textbooks and customize them. In the past there have been other textbook companies that have permitted instructors to “reorder” the digital textbook chapters, but this is a large leap further. According to Macmillan: “Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations, or illustrations.” It is really the last part of that sentence that is most intriguing - the permission and ability to rewrite or delete content without consulting the original author or publisher. Wow!
It all begins this August 2010, when Macmillan plans to sell 100 of their titles through DynamicBooks. The DynamicBooks editions will be available for download and can be read on a laptop or an iPhone. DynamicBooks is still trying to negotiate agreements with Apple so the electronic books can be read in the future on an iPad but at press time of this NY Times article, Apple and Amazon were in the throes of the great e-book war although Amazon and Macmillan have finally settled their differences over pricing that had brought Macmillan’s e-book progress to an abrupt halt.
For more information about Macmillan’s DynamicBooks, check out the NY Times article of February 21, 2010 : Textbooks That Professors Can Rewrite Digitally

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Presentation As Art

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:30:47 -0800

Many of you may be familiar with Garr Reynolds who is often referred to as the “Zen Master of Presentation.” (BTW: If you’re not familiar with Reynolds, I highly suggest you get acquainted with his engaging presentation techniques.) Currently an Associate Professor of Management at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan, Reynolds was formerly employed at Apple Computer, Inc. as a leading authority on presentation, design, and delivery. Steve Jobs’ success in his presentation delivery methods for his Macworld keynotes (which many of the Macintosh faithful refer to as “Stevenotes”) may largely be attributable to the expert tutelage he received from Reynolds when he worked at his company.
There have been many pundits of presentation (e.g., Cliff Atkinson, Guy Kawasaki, and Edward Tufte - to name just a few) who have spoken out over the years against the damage that PowerPoint has inflicted toward achieving any semblance of engaged learning. Reynolds stands among the “best in class” in terms of illustrating how to engage your audience in the “Art of Story.” The main gist of Reynolds’ message is that “everyone has a story to tell.” Yes, even in the midst of the most boring of topics, “story” is possible AND necessary to pull your audience in. Finding that story can be the key to truly engaging your audience.
On March 21, 2008, Garr Reynolds gave a presentation to the “Googlers” (staff and management at Google headquarters) as part of the Authors@Google series. This video is rather long (1:11:48) but I think it’s worth watching; it will give you a lot of insight into Reynolds’ presentation techniques. If you can’t afford the time to watch the entire video, jump in at around 27:38 and listen to his tips. Yes, design does matter…

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Transferring Large iPhoto Libraries To An External Hard Drive

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:28:53 -0800

It seems as though it was just a few years ago that we had computer hard drives that could only hold a few gigs of data. Now, it’s not unusual for new computers to have a terabyte of space (1024 gigabytes). This increase is most likely due to our desire to place all of our media directly on our machines for easy access, manipulation, and viewing.
You may have noticed that photos, videos, and music can take up an extremely large amount of space. If you have an older computer, without much space to begin with, or you have just transformed into a “media glutton” over the past year, you may want to try to move media, such as your photos, to an external hard drive. 
If you don’t already have an external drive, consider buying one or even two. If you have two external drives then you can have one drive for backing up your data with Apple’s Time Machine application (or with an application such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner) and still have another drive to store your large media libraries from iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, and iDVD. (My personal favorite external drives brands that seem to work well with the Macintosh are LaCie or Western Digital drives.) Once you purchase an external drive, you can move all your media from your computer's internal drive and free up hard drive space for more applications. However, I would strongly recommend that you back up all your media and other computer files to another external drive because what would be more tragic then losing all your media memories? After all, most people say that in case of a house fire, besides loved ones and animals, the next thing they would grab in their house is their photos.
Here’s the process of transferring your large iPhoto Library to an external drive so that you can still access it within the iPhoto application:
1. Simply connect an external hard drive to your computer via USB or FireWire. If it is properly formatted, it will mount on your computer's desktop where you can see it. 
2. Double-click on the icon for your external drive to open it and view its contents. 
3. Go to Users > Pictures on your computer's hard drive and copy the entire iPhoto Library file by dragging it to a location on your external drive. 
4. Next, launch the iPhoto application on your computer while holding down the Option key. A dialog box will appear asking, "What Photo Library Do You Want iPhoto to Use?" Navigate to the copy of the iPhoto Library file you just copied to the external drive, select that file and click the Choose button. 
That’s all there is to it! iPhoto will now read and write to this iPhoto Library rather than to the one that was located on the internal drive of your computer.
~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Complaint Choirs

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 07:18:37 -0700

Have you heard of Complaint Choirs? I hadn’t until a few months ago when my pastor mentioned them to me. I googled and found this web site explaining the phenomenon and highlighting the most popular ones out there: http://www.complaintschoir.org/choirs.html

You can read for yourself about the entire history of Complaint Choirs but in brief, the basic idea was to transform the huge amount of energy that people use complaining into something more satisfying. Apparently in Finnish vocabulary there is an expression “Valituskuoro” which translates “Complaints Choir” and refers to situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. Hellsinki residents Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen decided it would be a great idea to take this Finnish expression more literally and so they went about the task of organizing a real Complaints Choir. The phenomenon has taken off across the world with Complaint Choirs popping up all over.

Our Worship Board decided that we wanted to present this to the congregation as a multimedia presentation in a Sunday morning service. In my search for “just the right” clip, I found the Gabriola Island Complaint Choir showcased in the YouTube video posted at the top of this page. This is one of my favorites and I think it rings as one of the “most sincere.” :-) (Can you hear Linus out in his pumpkin patch somewhere?)

Since our congregation would have had trouble seeing the captions on our small projector screen from far away in the pews, I typed out the lyrics and made sure they were included in the Sunday morning bulletin. Here are the lyrics to the above video for those of you who might want to use this clip and copy/paste the lyrics into the bulletin of your own congregation:

Gabriola Island Complaint Choir Lyrics

3-year wait for a hip replacement
Deadly fungus all around
Monster houses, mail-in rebates
Car keys that can’t be found
Politicians think we’re stupid, now they say they’re green
But still they ride in private jets, and SUVs, and limousines!

And why does it always rain on Sunday?
Why are there so many deer?
And why do all these people have to move here?
It shouldn’t be allowed!
It’s a crying shame!
Who’s in charge here? Who’s to blame?

Too many visitors using water – baths & showers all the time
Packages too hard to open
Clear-cut logging – what a crime!!
My kids tune into YouTube, MySpace, MSN, Messenger, MTV
I can talk and talk and talk
But they don’t tune into me!

Next time I’m gonna have power! Next time I’m gonna be rich!
But this time… I’m just gonna bitch!

Christmas carols banned in schools
Sloppy drunks and other fools
Air pollution, noise pollution, light pollution
No solution!

Cell phone sex and new fur coats
Nobody cares and nobody votes
Taxes, taxes, what do we get?
More grey hair and deeper in debt!
Women’s hockey underrated
Long-life bulbs that don’t last long
Mindless airheads celebrated
Government studies, nice green lawns
Dogs that bark incessantly
No personal responsibility
Deadbeat dads who don’t pay up
People who complain and won’t SHUT UP!!!

Duck and cover, the big one’s coming, sea level’s getting high!
Mad Cow, Bird “Flu”, West Nile Virus
We’re all going to DIE!!!

Why does it always rain on Sunday?
Why are there so many deer?
And why does everybody (there’s probably been a study) –
On why all these people have to move here
It shouldn’t be allowed!
It’s a crying shame!
Who’s in charge here? Who’s to blame?

It shouldn’t be allowed!
It’s a crying shame!
Who’s in charge here? Who’s to blame?

Although we didn’t have enough time to put together a Complaints Choir by the Sunday that we wanted to spotlight this, our pastor created some complaint lyrics that related to our congregation’s most-recent complaints and passed them out in the Sunday morning bulletin. I led the congregation in singing these lyrics to the hymn tune Ellacombe, which is sung in most hymnals as I Sing the MIghty Power of God. Oh, and can you tell, like most churches I’ve attended, this one isn’t too fond of change. :-)

The CCA Complaint Choir Song

Words by Reverend Susan Brecht with input from the congregation of the Community Church of Atascadero, UCC
Tune: Ellacombe

I’m frustrated ‘cause this service is too long,
and I have other places to go.
I can’t hear what they’re saying,
Why doesn’t Bev turn up the mic?
Why can’t we just sing good old hymns,
the ones we used to sing?
The drums are too loud for my hearing aid.
This music is hard to follow.

Whose making noise in the balcony?
I’m trying to pray to God.
These kids should wear shoes to worship,
and leave their caps outside.
Susan’s getting too political,
and I don’t like plays and dance.
I don’t understand why we have to change.
I like the way it use to be.

I like the blue shag carpet.
They better not take it out.
And why isn’t Luanne playing
the organ I love so much?
Who’s sitting in my favorite pew?
Don’t they know it’s reserved for me?
When is this service going to end,
so I can go have some tea?

At the end of the summer, I was seriously considering starting a Complaints Choir for the CSU employees like myself that were having to endure furloughs. I’m sure we could have come up with a wing-dinger! However, things have calmed down now and it seems like most people are taking the furlough situation in stride so I’ll guess we’ll put that idea on hold for a while. Always good to know that we have an avenue to vent though if we desire to and I’ll be happy to conduct, if needed.

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Meeting Donald Takayama

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:35:44 -0700

I wouldn’t say that I am generally the type of person who becomes “star struck” when I see famous people. There are only a few “stars” in the world that would cause me to stumble over my words and be non-functional, I think. In general, those would be certain famous musicians that I love (Yo-Yo Ma, Carol King, Barbara Streisand and Diana Krall come to mind), and certain famous surfers or shapers. (Oh yeah, and Steve Jobs, of course!)

On my vacation to San Diego I was hunting for a new epoxy fish surfboard and so I was hitting every possible surf shop down south (epoxy fish surfboards in the size I wanted are harder to find than normal foam/fiberglass boards). I talked Rachelle into stopping in Oceanside on the way home and we were checking out various shops there. We dropped into the Surfer’s Pro Shop on Oceanside Blvd and I immediately noticed that Donald Takayama boards filled the shop. I love Donald’s boards (although I don’t own one - which is a shame, I have ridden them when renting boards in Hawaii and think they are some of the best around). He is an amazing shaper and especially understands how to make a longboard glide with great joy. Anyway, I had no idea he would actually be in that shop that day. I walked toward the back of the store and saw a bunch of older surfers in a circle laughing and chatting. I approached them to ask if they knew of any stores in Oceanside that might carry epoxy fish since there was none in that store and then I saw him - Donald Takayama in the flesh. I was a little flabbergasted. I said, “Are you Donald Takayama?” He sort of looked at himself and said, “I hope so!” All the surfers in the circle laughed. I immediately stuck out my hand, introduced myself, and told him how much I admired his work. Rachelle said I was tongue-tied more than she had seen before. We chatted for a while and luckily Rachelle remembered to ask him if I could have a picture of us together (I would have never thought to ask for that). I was so star struck I couldn’t even figure out how to bring up my iPhone camera application I have used 100 times before, ha. Rachelle finally grabbed my phone and took the picture above.

Donald immediately noticed that Rachelle looked like someone from the islands. He asked her where she was from and they struck up a conversation about Oahu and he talked about how much he missed the island food. He asked her if she cooked (of course, she does - like any Hawaiian worth their salt!) and then he ran to get us two bottles of teriyaki sauce from the back of the store. Apparently, he has his own brand of teriyaki sauce now. Below is Rachelle with Donald and the bottles of teriyaki sauce. We tried it out the other night. It was ONO! (For you haoles, that is Hawaiian for yummy!) Too bad he didn’t hand me one of his surfboards too, ha. They are pretty expensive. Anyway... it was a joy to meet one of my “heroes.”

To learn more about Donald and his boards, visit: http://www.hawaiianprodesigns.com/

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Joshua Bell - Stop and Hear the Music

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:44:25 -0700

There is an email that has been making the rounds in the past week about Joshua Bell, the famous violinst. The video above documents what happened and the email story is below:

Washington DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later: The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes: A 3-year-old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly, as the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced them to move on.

45 minutes: The musician played. Only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32.

1 hour: He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before
Joshua Bell sold out a theatre in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments .... How many other things are we missing?

In 1981 I began my Masters in Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. I met Joshua Bell my first semester there while I was working on one of my music computer programming projects in the IU music computer lab for a class in creating ear training software. As I recall, I was programming an intervals ear training program at the time. Every week a young boy of about 8 or 9 years of age would come, plop down his violin case on the floor, and sit at the computer next to me and play some of the educational video games that IU graduate students had created on a clugy main frame computer system called PLATO. He waited in the computer lab for his mother to pick him up after his violin lessons. He seemed very bright and mature beyond his years. Eventually, I started chatting with him about what he was playing on the computer. One day I asked him about his violin playing. He said he was studying with the Russian violinist and teacher, Professor Josef Gingold (who I knew was the top violin professor - a legend at IU). He groaned about having to practice so much and said he would rather play and program video games. One day he invited me to a recital he was giving in a few days. I was curious and I went to the recital (not knowing that he was a prodigy but suspecting such since he was studying with Gingold and I also wasn't aware at the time that he was a household word around Bloomington). I went to the recital in the main recital hall. It was packed out! I had to sit in the balcony but it was a perfect view of the stage and the acoustics were excellent there. Among other things, he played the Paganini Caprice No. 24. LIttle kids don't play Paganini! Little kids might play Mozart but not Paganini! I was stunned! Not only did this kid have incredible technique but he played with the soul of someone from a past life - maybe Jascha Heifetz, although Heifetz was old but not dead yet at that point in 1981. Here's a YouTube of Heifetz playing the Paganini Caprice No. 24 so you can hear how complex the piece really is:

Anyway, the next time Joshua returned to sit next to me in the computer lab I told him how much I enjoyed his concert and what an INCREDIBLE gift he had been given. He groaned and said he knew it was a gift but that he didn't really want to perform music as his career - he wanted to create video games. I told him that I envied him of his musical gift and although I knew it took incredible discipline as well as talent that he probably had no idea how most of the music students at the university would give anything to have his gift. He just groaned again. I guess he changed his mind and "followed his road."

Today I found this great video on YouTube of Joshua Bell with pictures and video of him as a child. And yes, you can see him playing video games in this video - that is just about the time that I met him in the computer lab. :-)

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

“Nora” the Piano Playing Cat - Update

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:40:10 -0700

In a previous blog post (April 23, 2007), I commented about Nora the Piano Playing Cat. Nora has continued with her piano study and now has a concerto created just for her by Mindaugas Piecaitis. It’s a lovely piece and she plays with the style of a concert pianist. Check it out!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Herding Cats

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:52:49 -0700

Speaking of herding cats, here’s the “Herding Cats” video we used to use in the New Faculty Orientation Workshops for a laugh or two. Thought you might enjoy seeing it again!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

The Tipping Point & Faculty Training

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:49:38 -0700

At the beginning of the book, Gladwell looks at a variety of social epidemics (e.g., the re-emergence in popularity of Hush Puppies shoes in 1994) and he spends some time explaining certain personality types who serve as “natural pollinators” of new ideas and trends. He continues in the next section of the book to examine the success of Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues in a discussion of the “stickiness factor,” i.e., how one makes sure what is said is remembered and built upon for future knowledge. (This is the section of the book I have found most interesting so far.)

When Sesame Street evolved in the early 60’s with the goal of improving literacy and giving children from disadvantaged homes a “leg up” for entering kindergarten, a variety of educational/psychological experts were enlisted to study how pre-schoolers learn and what increases the “stickiness factor” in learning. By observing pre-schoolers watching episodes of Sesame Street and making small, but critical, adjustments in how the ideas were presented to them, they were able to figure out how to make the educational messages of Sesame Street memorable (i.e., “sticky”). You’ll want to read Chapter 3 for yourself to learn about the variety of tests and studies that were done to determine this but the bottom-line conclusion was this:

“Kids don’t watch when they are stimulated and look away when they are bored. They watch when they understand and look away when they are confused. If you are in the business of educational television, this is a critical difference. It means if you want to know whether -- and what -- kids are learning from a TV show, all you have to do is to notice what they are watching. And if you want to know what kids aren’t learning, all you have to do is notice what they aren’t watching.” (page 102)

“So what?” you say, “that doesn’t really seem like rocket science!” True, but I started thinking about this as it pertains to teaching faculty a software tool in a technology workshop and I see some correlations.

Case Study: My father - a Protestant minister - was a fairly engaging speaker; however, if he had to go somewhere and listen to another minister preach, he was fidgety and annoyed. He was constantly getting up from his seat to go out to the hallway to find someone to chat with or unwrapping Wintergreen Lifesavers at his seat (which I particularly enjoyed as a child seated next to him); he doodled on the back of bulletins or played with change in his pocket. If he wasn’t the one speaking, it was hard for him to focus his concentration and learn anything from another speaker. (I must also point out that this man had a “speed reader” version of the Bible - everything had to be done FAST!)

In my 10+ years as an instructional designer and faculty trainer, I have noticed that some faculty seem to have ADHD characteristics like my father, and exhibit similar types of behaviors when attending faculty workshops. It appears that some of them may have chosen teaching as their career because they wanted to be the center of attention in the room. These “Sage on the Stage” types, who are often excellent lecturers, often have trouble listening to others lecture or explain a concept and are quite fidgety and unengaged when they aren’t the one leading the lecture or discussion. I have found that you’ll be much more successful in your faculty workshops if you allow them to talk a lot even if they are not familiar with the topic because talking is what keeps them most engaged. (Note, however, that you also have to be careful with these types of personalities to keep them from “highjacking” your workshop so that you don’t have time to get through the material you needed to cover due to the extensive “side trips” they may take the class on.)

What happens when a discussion format isn’t possible and the ADHD faculty member can’t contribute to the discussion because you’re trying to train them on an unfamiliar software tool with hands-on training in a computer lab? Initially, they will pay attention and seem fine in this type of training, but if they get distracted for a moment and miss a step (and thus become confused), WATCH OUT! You will lose them just like Sesame Street lost the attention of the pre-schoolers due to confusion. These type of faculty will watch when they understand and look away when they are confused. At the point of confusion, you’ll often see them fidgeting with their iPhone to read an email or send a chat message. Once this happens, they are generally unable to get back on track or continue with the training. A typical characteristic of this kind of person is that they are also generally a little too prideful to ask a neighbor to help them, and if they do ask a neighbor for help, the neighbor may get behind themselves while stopping to assist them - an even worse situation for you as a trainer!

So, what is a faculty trainer to do? I was discussing this with a colleague this week and she seemed to agree that this is the norm with these types of personalities in some of our faculty workshops. When we teach a “point-and-click” workshop to faculty and staff, we usualy have one of us (whoever is not the workshop leader) walking around the room to assist those who are lost when they raise their hand and we get them back on track as quickly as possible in a low whisper while the workshop leader continues teaching. This technique works in the case of those who WILL admit they need assistance and ASK for it. However, it doesn’t really work for the ADHD faculty member who has a lapse in their understanding of a step, won’t ask for help, and then goes into confusion and thus, immediately zones into the “unengaged mode.” (“Warning Will Robinson!”)

Based on my reflections on The Tipping Point, I think we’re going to try a new approach this Fall: When the workshop assistant sees such confusion behavior exhibited by an ADHD faculty member (where they begin to consult email on their iPhone or just have a glassy-eyed look), instead of waiting for a hand to raise (which may never happen) the workshop assisant will immediately approach them, ask them if they need help, and get them back on track. This way, confusion will be eliminated quickly and hopefully re-engagement will ensue as well. Of course, if you are teaching a workshop without a workshop assistant, you may have to be more observant yourself, and when you observe this type of ADHD behavior, you’ll need to pause and repeat what you were saying a couple steps backward in order to pull them back from a state of confusion and re-engage them.

You know what they say (although I can’t remember who said it):
“Teaching faculty is like herding cats!” :-)

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Facebook Security Settings

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:16:00 -0700

Ok, I admit it... I like Facebook. Granted, I am generally the type of person that stays away from some of the applications that draw the masses. For example, I was never even slightly tempted to start a MySpace page since I had my own website, blog, etc. I probably would have never considered getting a Facebook account either except for the tiny acknowledgement nods it was begining to receive from educators as a possible new tool to attract students in a way that appeals to them (Yep, I’m always looking at tools that will do that!) Actually, the real reason I even opened a Facebook account was due to an email from a friend, who told me that a bunch of people I had traveled in an orchestra with across Europe back in the summer of 1980, had started a Facebook group. The thought of being able to reconnect with all those friends I had lost track of, drew me in. Once I started using Facebook, I realized it was a great tool for keeping track of all kinds of old college and high school classmates and even for keeping up with my current colleagues (Due to our busy schedules, we rarely get to see each other like we would like to even though we exist on the same campus!)

Like most tech savvy individuals, I took a look at the privacy settings on Facebook when I installed the application. I made a few tweaks but for the most part, it seemed the default settings were OK. Then I read the story in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled How Not to Lose Face on Facebook, for Professors. Jeffrey R. Young’s article tells how Darmouth College professor, Reiko Ohnuma, endured an embarrassing experience at her campus due to her privacy settings in Facebook not being set properly. The students posted her Facebook musings about her colleagues, the department chair, and her opinons about the poor state of Dartmouth education in general into the school newspaper for EVERYONE to read. Talk about embarrassing! Now whenever you Google Reiko Ohnuma, you don’t immediately see references to her contributions to religion and theology - instead, you see all sorts of comments on this embarrassing snafu in her history. It could happen to anyone really... and it has happened to countless people. A simple Googling will show you that!

Anyway, that particular CHE article on Facebook security settings “woke me up” and made me start researching the privacy settings in my own Facebook account. After some investigation, I presented a CTL Teaching Well workshop on the topic to our faculty at Cal Poly last quarter and this quarter I was asked to co-present in a campus-wide security forum on the topic with a few of my tech-savvy colleagues in ITS and the Cal Poly Foundation. If you wish to learn more about it, here is the link to view the PDF of the slides for our presentation on May 27, 2009: Social Networking: How to Be Safe Online.

I learned a lot from preparing for that presentation. The main thing I wish to pass on to you is that you should be aware that Facebook’s privacy settings are set by default to “My Network.” In my haste of reviewing my privacy settings, I assumed that “My Network” meant “My Network of Friends” (i.e., the friends I had added to Facebook). Not true! In my case, “My Network” was the entire Central Coast of California! Opps -- I had made the same mistake as Professor Ohnuma! The only difference was that I had been careful about what I had said in Facebook, not totally unleashing my tongue on topics that I would discuss in the privacy of gatherings with close friends. The bottom line here is that it’s not only important to set your privacy settings correctly but it is best to assume that whatever you post on Facebook could become public knowledge at some point in your life, either by user error or by changes in the company’s policies. Facebook just recently told the public that they were changing their Terms of Use policies and that they now owned the rights to your content FOREVER! Originally, the policy said that Facebook had the right to utilize your content for as long as it was on the site - meaning once it was removed by you, the site no longer had rights to it. Their new policy that they were attempting to adopt stated that even if you removed content from your Facebook account, it could remain in Facebook’s archives and that they had a license to use it forever! When the public balked about this change in Facebook’s policy and people actually started closing their accounts, Facebook backed down a bit but this doesn’t mean that the same thing might not happen in the future. For more info about the change in policies that were proposed, see: 
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41458/108/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10165190-36.html

Finally, one other thing you should be aware of: Those seemingly innocent Facebook quizzes you can take such as “What Kind of Dog Are You?” “What’s Your Aura?” “What Period of History Best Defines Your Personality?” etc., etc., etc., can be quite dangerous! Those Facebook applications open up your profile information to those developers for possible identify theft (and do you think you can really trust them? Come on!); those applications also cause your computer to be vulnerable to some nasty viruses (Windows users especially BEWARE!). Haven’t you noticed that when you go to take the quiz, it actually warns you about this by saying: “Allowing (NAME OF QUIZ) access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work.” You’re actually even putting your friends’ information at risk when you do this! (My Facebook friends are getting tired of me pointing this out to them when they take these stupid quizzes but hey, they’re putting me at risk as well as themselves when they choose to run these type of applications.)

What does all of this mean? What’s the bottom line, you ask? It means users need to be more careful about how they utilize social networking sites. Not just Facebook but MySpace, Twitter, Linked In, or whatever new social networking application may be lurking around the corner. Be mindful of what you post and refrain from posting comments you wouldn’t want to be distributed worldwide on the internet someday. If you don’t want embarrassing photos of you appearing in your future when a potential employer Googles you for a job possibility, don’t post them in your Facebook account! Pay attention to the tag settings for photos and videos so that only you can see the photo tags that “friends” might post of you in their Facebook accounts. And be sure to turn off your Facebook settings for public search engines so that your Facebook page isn’t the first thing that appears when someone Googles you!

So, how do you find out how to fix your privacy settings? One of the best explanations of how to set up your privacy settings is given in this article:
10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
(Note: I created the mindmap image at the top of this blog page based upon that article.)

The following is also an excellent article that explains in detail how to use friends lists in Facebook: Facebook Fail: How to Use Facebook Privacy Settings and Avoid Disaster

If you prefer to watch a video rather than read about how to set your privacy settings (What did you expect? You know how I am into promoting multiple learning styles <smile>), the following is an excellent YouTube video entitled Protect Yourself From Indentity Theft on Facebook.

Watch the video and then go make the necessary changes to your Facebook account. Don’t delay... Avoid embarrasment today!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Multimedia in the Church - Part 3

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:26:19 -0700

Recently, I stumbled upon this website, http://www.bluefishtv.com, whose logo is “Creating Videos to Help you Teach.” The videos are mostly religious and are more conducive to the type of usage of multimedia in the church I have been discussing in the past two blog posts, but some of these videos are just about life issues and could be used in the classroom for discussions about ethics, values, etc. Some of the video sets for delivery are pricey but the site also has some excellent video iluustrations for downloads that could easily be used for short little “teaching moments” in worship services.

(See specifically: http://www.bluefishtv.com/Store/Downloadable_Video_Illustrations )

Poke around. You can watch a preview of most of these downloads to get an idea of what they’re about. There really are some excellent professional multimedia illustrations at this site. The clips are not free but most of them are inexpensive and the quality of production appears to be quite professional. I just passed the site on to my pastor and I have a feeling we’ll be using a few of these in the future.

The example above from bluefishtv videos is called Famous Failures. It even has a lesson plan available for purchase that can assist you with a discussion on this topic. The downloaded video is only $1.99. Honor the videographer and purchase it rather than using the YouTube version that someone has posted. We need to support good art with good messages!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Multimedia in the Church - Part 2

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:48:57 -0700

Another thing that is simple to do for an effective presentation in church is to make a slideshow of photos that is set to a selected poem or prose and music. I have always been a big Maya Angelou fan! If you have never seen her “Live” than you are missing one of the greatest treats life has to offer. I saw her once at San Diego State in the early ’90’s. People were questioning me about whether that could possibly be interesting when they heard I had paid out a pretty good sum to see her. Really, people! You would actually question whether three hours of Maya reading her poetry, sharing her wonderful stories about her life, and singing her favorite spirituals and hymns acappella with that deep, rich, wonderful soulful voice could be interesting? Are you kidding me?

Ah, well... I digress! I especially love the recording Dr. Angelou made where she talks about church entitled It’s Sacred: Church. Our Worship Board Team wanted to do a service on the topic of “church” and relate that church could be much more than the four walls of the sanctuary. Personally, I feel that some of my best times “at church” have been skipping the morning worship service in the church building altogether and communing with God on my surfboard out in the ocean - much to my pastor’s chagrin. I guess that is why my favorite line of this piece is: “And church is where I don’t have to go because it is always with me!” Notice my touch of the photo of the ocean sunset when Maya says that line as a special gift to my pastor. <grin> Preach it, Maya!

We found the audio clip of Maya’s reading and I created a slideshow around it (see the video above on this page). We had a very interesting discussion in church that day combined with a little sermonette by our pastor that made it worth passing up on the ocean waves that Sunday morning. <smile>

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Multimedia in the Church - Part I

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:49:19 -0700

As the Church tries to reposition itself in a world of television, video, cell phones, iPods, and various other means of distraction, it is looking more and more toward how to effectively utilize multimedia in the worship service. For some time now, education has slowly realized that the MTV generation, who grew up watching Sesame Street with its more exciting methods of learning, expected more from educators; they were no longer happy to just sit attentively while faculty played the “Sage on the Stage” role. Thus, the change in education began to take place with more and more collaborative/constructivist approaches and the application of effective technology to enhance student learning.

These days it is not uncommon to attend a church service and see a PowerPoint slideshow playing during the service or have video integrated with the sermon. I, for one (being the techie creative soul that I am), am very happy to see these changes and I embrace it wholeheartedly. In fact, as an active member of the Worship Board Team at my church, I at least attempt to encourage it as a part of our once-a-month more contemporary service where we have more contemporary music and encourage more congregational participation. Often on those Sundays we even break out into small 3-4 people “pods” in the pews for some discussion on the sermone topic and then come back together with one person sharing the overall thoughts of the group to the entire congregation.

Last year, the pastor of my church and I began experimenting with pulling video clips to play during the service with her constructing the sermon around the clips and in some cases, opening up for discussion into the “pod” type of format. It has resulted in some very interesting services with discussions that have continued for several days afterwards in email conversations. Our first attempt at using multimedia in church in this manner was pulling some scenes from the movie Pay it Forward and discussing the implications of each one of us “paying it forward” in “our own little worlds” and what the impact on the world as a whole might be if we would really do that. The author of Pay It Forward, Catherine Ryan Hyde, lives near us on the Central Coast and so that made this movie have even a more personal meaning to our congregation. (BTW: There is a wonderful Pay It Forward Foundation with all kinds of educational information to help people accomplish this approach to life it you’re interested.)

For our second attempt at using video clips, I pulled several clips from the classic movie To Kill a Mockingbird (a movie that most people over 30 years of age have seen and love but just need to have their minds joggled about a few of the scenes). I heard later that several of the youth in our youth group went home and asked their parents if they could rent the movie after they watched the scenes at church. Of course, the topic of focus for discussion from this movie was prejudice -- not just racial prejudice but prejudice on all sorts of levels. Obviously, this movie vividly illustrates prejudice, hatred, and extreme anger in this small southern town when Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) defends a black man against the accusation of raping a white woman. However, there is also a great illustration of prejudice towards those that are different -- in this case, Boo Radley (a young Robert Duvall, which I never realized until recently), a mentally-challenged individual, who ends up being the Good Samaritan figure rather than the awful monster that the town has fanticized him to be. We showed 8 clips in total, stopping for discussion between each clip, which resulted in some very interesting sharing.

Other movies that may be worthy to pursue as sermon topics are:

• 12 Angry Men - Besides the fact that Henry Fonda never really made a bad movie (in my opinion), this movie is excellent for its illustration of personal prejudices affecting the “right” decision. Henry, the dissenting juror in this murder trial, senses their prejudice and has the strength to confront them and convince them of the reasonable doubt in this case.

• A Man For All Seasons - The story of Thomas More standing up against Henry VIII despite the consequences.

• Pay it Forward - A young boy attempts to make the world a better place after his teacher gives him the chance to attempt to change the world through a class project. The concept of "paying it forward" is when one asks that a good turn be repaid by having it done to someone else. More specifically, the debtor has the option of "paying" the debt forward by lending it to a third person instead of paying it back to the original creditor.

• Schindler's List - This story reflect upon how many Jews were saved during World War II due to one man's efforts and perception of what is right.

• The Hiding Place - Similar in theme to Schindler’s List, this movie of Corrie TenBoom and her attempts to hide the Jews during the Nazi regime focuses on the theme of integrity and loving others, no matter the consequences. (On a side note, I was fortunate enough to visit the clock shop of Corrie’s father where the family hid Jews on the upper floor. I stood in the exact "hiding place closet" in Amsterdam when I toured there with the Continental Orchestra as a college student in the 80's. It was a very moving moment for me that I will never forget!) 
• Norma Rae - This movie has a “social justice” flavor and scenes from it may cause the congregation to reflect on standing up for what is right for the underpriviledged espite the fear and pain that ensues for Norma (Sally Field).

• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - The theme of this movie is integrity (so lacking in this world these days) despite disillusionment with government.

• The Emperor’s Club - Clips from this film can address the topic of "What Do You Want Your Legacy to Be?" This movie is both an integrity movie and a legacy movie all rolled into one!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Blue's New iPod Microphone: Mikey

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:44:06 -0700

I’m a big fan of the microphone products that the company Blue creates. I really like their Snowball microphone (See: http://bluemic.com/snowball/) for podcasting or GarageBand recording of acoustic instruments when I am just trying to create a short demo track for someone. As an inexpensive USB microphone, it is really one of the best on the market in its category (and believe me, I have tried out A LOT of USB microphones over the past couple of years). It can record up to 44.1 kHz/16 bit recordings. With its dual capsules and option to choose via a simple flick of its switch to either record from Cardioid, Cardioid with -10dB pad, or Omnidirectional polar patterns (Note: Cardioid is best for voice podcasting and Omni is best for acoustic music recording), it is one of the only all-in-one components I feel comfortable to record both vocal podcasts and low-level music recordings with (low-level here meaning not studio-recording quality). I would suggest that if you get the Snowball, you consider purchasing a windscreen for it (especially if you have “popping p” issues like I do!)

Now Blue is offering the Mikey as a quality iPod recorder for $79.99. With Blue’s past track record of creating excellent microphones, I have no hesitancy in recommending it, even without trying it out myself.

Quoting from their website:

“Mikey features Blue’s superior quality stereo condenser capsules, 3-position user selectable gain settings (enabling high quality recordings from a whisper to a rock concert), and a unique user-positionable head. Mikey works with the iPod 5G, iPod nano 2G, 3G, and 4G, as well as the iPod classic...”

Check it out!

If you already have an excellent microphone at home that you want to use for podcast recording but it is of the XRL variety, consider Blue’s USB adaptor called the Icicle (See: http://bluemic.com/icicle/). The Icicle is a USB converter and mic preamp combo that you can attach to and XLR microphone and then connect to your computer’s USB port. It works with both dynamic and condenser-type microphones on a Mac or a PC. 
Finally...
The webcam that comes with the Mac does a pretty good job but if you’re looking for a good webcam for a Windows machine and you want HD video as well as excellent quality sound, check out Blue’s Eyeball (See: http://bluemic.com/eyeball/) for $99. This webcam seems very simple to set up, especially for non-techie people who would be overwhelmed installing drivers, etc. which might be needed to use other webcams. The Eyeball is pretty much “plug and play” and checking to make sure it is the default sound device for the computer. Heck, I might buy one of these for my mother-in-law! :-)

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Google Wave Demo

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 13:24:50 -0700

Sometimes something comes around in new technologies that just makes you say “WOW!” Watching the beta demo at the Google Developer’s conference that occurred on May 27, 2009 made me do that. I got that special tingling feeling that I always get when I see a technology that may change the future and how we communicate with one another. I believe this is one of those applications. 
Note: The video demo of Google Wave is quite long (1 hour and 20 minutes total). If you want to zero in on the most important part of the demo, watch from 7:35 to 18:10 -- that portion of the video will give you a pretty good idea of its main functions. The beauty of this new HTML 5.0 application is that it can combine email, instant messaging, social networking, blogging, and WIKI collaboration in one application. I see endless possibilities for this tool in the academic arena.  
If you prefer to read rather than watch a video (I’m always attempting to address diferent learning styles <smile>), then check out this article instead: 
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-wave-what-might-email-l.html

GO GOOGLE!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Karrin Allyson

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:20:11 -0700

Don’t you love it when someone knows you so well, they know exactly what kind of entertainment you would love when you visit them? My cousin, Darrell, did it again! While visiting him in Indianapolis last week, he took me to see the Ball State Jazz Ensemble play and their special guest artist was Karrin Allyson. Ball State’s Jazz Band was pretty good (although they need some jazz improv lessons from the masters at I.U. - David Baker and Dominic Spera) but Karrin was absolutely fabulous! She was nominated for 2 Grammy awards. Somehow I had missed her. How could that be? I love Brasilan jazz and she just came out with a Brasilan jazz CD - “Imagina - Songs of Brasil.” The album includes lots of Jobim songs with her own special touches. Karrin has the voice of a young Rosemary Clooney (as it was in the movie “White Christmas” before it changed from all the cigarette smoking, I suppose - although I liked Rosemary’s vocal sound with that lower voice that she had in later life as well!). She also is a great scatter! Scat is a dying art these days - so few of the jazz artists really do it well. She performs scat effortlessly and with true style.

For more info on Karrin and to check out her tour dates, go to:
http://www.karrin.com/

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Farafina Kan

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:46:45 -0700

Last weekend I was visiting my cousin in Indianapolis and he took me to see Farafina Kan. Farafina Kan is a professional West African Percussion Orchestra that is dedicated to keeping the history and tradition of traditional African music alive. All I can say is “WOW!” These musicians can rock the house. The drummers were playing some of the most complicated rhythms (2 against 3, 5 against 7, etc.) as if it were nothing. They probably could have brushed their teeth and played those rhythms at the same time and still have kept the beat perfectly! It was amazing! I can’t imagine what your arms feel like after almost 2 hours of straight drumming like that. The women dancers were also awesome with their extreme athletic dancing and I loved the African chant and the wonderful costumes. If you ever have the opportunity to see and hear this group, don’t miss it! They’ll knock your socks off - literally!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Ibanez SR500 Electric Bass

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:02:19 -0700

Of course, this bass is capable of all sorts of sounds with the equalizer and depending on the amp you use it can make sounds from twangy country (those of you who know me know I would never use that sound but it’s possible if I somehow ever get converted to play country) to rock to pop to heavy metal to jazz - it can do everything! All the possibilities are there! The fingerboard is very fast and I love the thin neck. Bravo, Ibanez! Here’s another picture of it from the Guitar Center website. Mine looks darker in color like the picture above.

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Melodyne Direct Note Access Plug-in

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:34:39 -0800

Today someone sent me a link about this cool new music plug-in that in my opinion will change audio recording significantly. The plug-in, called “Direct Note Access” allows one to do edits beyond MIDI but within real audio recording situations instead. With Direct Note Access you can manipulate not only monophonic input but polyphonic input as well - a dream come true for all recording engineers, composers, and arrangers! This is so exciting!

Here’s a quote from the celemony web site explaining more about it:

“Like Melodyne itself, Direct Note Access is a development that will change forever the way we handle audio. In the field of images, it has long been possible with the right software not only to correct the tiniest blemishes but also literally to create new realities: pictures that are utterly believable but show us something that in fact never existed. Direct Note Access will give Melodyne users comparable freedom in the field of audio. With Direct Note Access, Melodyne will allow forms of access to audio material that were unthinkable before – ranging from subtle correction to recomposition.”

Check out the web site for more information at:

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=dna

I guess we’ll never have to hear recording goofs again or have 3 million “takes” of a difficult riff that the performer can’t get just right for the recording. This tool would even allow you to correct bad tuning. Just think how different “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and Papas would have been without that badly out-of-tune flute solo (that drives me crazy everytime I hear it on the radio)! We’ll be able to play with the samples of the greatest musicians and even make new music from the old stuff. Sign me up now! Whoo-hoo!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Access By Design Video

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:00:11 -0800

The video, Access by Design: Faculty Awareness Training, is finally ready for primetime! This video will soon be required viewing by all Cal Poly faculty to educate them on the issues of creating accessible course materials in order to comply with state and federal mandates. A link to the video also currently resides on the Chancellor’s accessibility resource web page that the entire CSU will be able to utilize as a training resource for faculty.

My role was extensive in this project. I spent a lot of overtime getting this one done, let me tell you. The purpose of the video was to increase faculty awareness on the issues of ADA compliance and to demonstrate the necessary processes in order to create accessible course materials through proper universal design techniques.

The following lists the “different hats” I wore and my role for the completion of this project:  
• Performed as the acting lead in managing the team to bring the project to completion 
• Assisted in editing the script and storyboarding the project 
• Recorded and edited all the sound and video that was captured for the project 
• Composed and mixed the original musical score for the project 
• Created open synchronized captions to meet state- and federally-mandated accessibility requirements 
• Managed the CTL student assistants’ workload for assisting in the video production 
• Produced the final version of the video with proper compression and output formatting 
• Properly processed the video with hints for streaming to the QuickTime streaming server 
• Created a downloadable version of the video for web site distribution 
• Created a DVD of the finished video for distribution, including DVD labeling and case presentation graphics 
• Assisted in creating the Blackboard course shells for distribution to university constituents 
• Collaborated with other CSU staff to insure that the video worked properly on the Chancellor’s accessibility web site 
A big “thank you” goes out to Jeannie Wells and her team for allowing us to extract clips from the From Where I Sit video series that was developed a few months ago. I believe that the video serves as a excellent example of Cal Poly’s cutting-edge role in encouraging accessibility endeavors to properly train faculty within the California State University (CSU) system.

Note: The video is approximately 16 minutes in length and there are two versions provided here – the first link is for faster-speed internet connections and the second link is for slower-speed internet connections.

You may view the streamed video at either of the links listed below:

http://www.mediaserver.calpoly.edu/ITS/ada/faculty_ada_awareness_384stream.mov 
http://www.mediaserver.calpoly.edu/ITS/ada/faculty_ada_awareness_56stream.mov

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek) 

Blabberize

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 14:22:43 -0800

Well, it’s been a long time since a new entry has appeared in my blog. Sorry about that for you faithful viewers! I have been so busy at Cal Poly lately as well as in my personal life that I haven’t taken the time to make blog entries.

Well, what have I been doing you might ask? First off, I’ve been involved in a time-consuming video project for ADA Faculty Awareness for Cal Poly. There for a while in December before Christmas I was working 50 to 60-hour work weeks. When it can be released to the public, I will post the link in my blog for all of you to take a look at. The current plan is to have Cal Poly faculty view the video to understand the relevant aspects of ADA and universal design that they should be concerned about as they create instructional materials. This is all part of the master plan as the campus establishes its policies for compliance by Fall 2008. Boy, we have a lot of work to do to get there by September!

Things have been crazy in the Center for Teaching and Learning this year as we have not only tried to implement the plan for faculty ADA compliance but we have also taken huge steps to implement the Provost’s plan to encourage faculty to integrate technology more into their day-to-day curriculum. It’s kind of amusing that this is necessary (and it is) at a “polytechnic” university, but oh well... WDWWMD (we do what we must do!)

Secondly, I’ve been working on updating my personal eportfolio using iWeb instead of Dreamweaver and that conversion has taken a VERY long time. It will be worth it in the end (I’m not done yet) but the revamp is rather painful as I have to upload and explain all the compositions I have written, etc. In the end, I’ll know it will be a better representation of what I have to offer and can be burned to a DVD for distribution to possible new employers, etc.

Thirdly, I also did a TOTAL redo of the church website that I am webmaster for using iWeb instead of Dreamweaver. I like the Google map features (Click on the “Location” link on the site to check it out) and the cool new features for creating photo galleries. I’ve also included videos and PowerPoint presentations, which weren’t available on our old website, and I’ve used the blog format to post the pastor’s sermons. Podcasts might be forthcoming if we can get a digital recorder at church. Everyone seems to like the changes. Check it out: http://www.atascaderoucc.org/

Ok. Enough with the excuses of why I haven’t been blogging. I’ve been busy, even too busy to surf the waves in Morro Bay much (those of you who know me now know with that comment that I’ve been too busy when I’m not even getting in the water on weekends!)

What I really wanted to talk about today is another great “time-wasting tool” called Blabberize. I’m home sick from work today with this awful thing that has been going around the office for the past couple of weeks. It finally caught up with me no matter how much Airborne I tried to consume, drats! However, I need to plan for teaching a workshop next week so I have been laying in bed with my laptop searching and experimenting with various multimedia tools to introduce to faculty. Haven’t found any real winners yet but I did find this fun tool. I’m not sure of its use for more effective teaching and learning (unless you’re teaching K-12) but it would be a fun way to send an email party invitation or maybe an announcement to your students about a dreaded homework assignment. Use your imagination!

Basically, this is how it works: you make an account, login and upload a photo (less than 500k), set the mouth area with the tool provided, and then you record what you want the picture to say. Blabberize will record your message with the mouth moving. Play it to yourself and then save it. Blabberize embeds it in a web page and gives you a link that you can use later to share with your friends or you can click on “Share.” Check out the silly one I made with my dog, Coda’s, picture this morning:

http://blabberize.com/creation/playBlabber/11342

Ain’t technology grand?

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Access By Design Music

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:51:38 -0800

More music. This theme was created for the upcoming “Access By Design” video I have been developing to help faculty become more aware of accessibility issues. This is the theme that plays during the closing credits.

Stay tuned for the upcoming video - it’s almost finished!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Memorial to Mozelle Nutt

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 20:18:17 -0800

After a long struggle with Alzheimer’s, my mother passed away on Tuesday, November 27, 2007. This page is dedicated to her and to all she meant to those who had the privilege of knowing her in this lifetime.

Spy Theme Music

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 22:26:40 -0800

Here’s another composition created with Garage Band for a Cal Poly project. This one was designed for a Business 346 online course (taught by Professor Brian Tietje in Marketing) that had a spy theme for the entire course. It’s a combination of using Garage Band loops along with my own composition with a synthesizer. Notice the opening that is played on synthesizer imitating a James Bond type of theme, then the “Mod Squad” sort of cop theme in the middle reminiscent of the early 70’s and the sounds of speed boats, helicopters, and police sirens interspesed throughout taken from GarageBand sound effects. This one was a lot of fun!

Also, check out Brian’s Opening Class video that we created for the project:

http://www.mediaserver.calpoly.edu/Orfalea_College_of_Business/Marketing/btietje/Agent_Briefing_320.mov

Or, how about some bad acting? Stephen Hughes and I created these short videos (10 of them) to provide students with tips before they took the online quizzes in the Blackboard course. The students seemed to get a kick out of them as strange as they were since they added a little pizazz to the course. How weird am I anyway? (If you only knew...) We had to film them in a janitor’s closet. The administrative assistants were starting to wonder what was going on in there, ha. Here’s the first one (yes, that’s me popping in and out of the trees on the Cal Poly campus near the Business building):

http://www.mediaserver.calpoly.edu/Orfalea_College_of_Business/Marketing/btietje/Mole_Instructions_320.mov

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Italian Fairy Tales

Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:20:36 -0700

A few years ago I assisted one of our Italian instructors, Claudia Cremasco, in creating some multimedia for her third-quarter Italian students. This example illustrates the use of Flash to create a lovely visually-rich audio storybook for the students to listen to in order to increase their aural comprehension.

This example is a small portion of the original version to demonstrate how it worked. The original was a Flash .swf file that the students could control but this demo is simply a QuickTime movie and the Scene Control button cannot be used to advance or go back. The storybook was old (something she had owned since childhood) and out of copyright (how lucky for us!)

Although Section 508 now mandates that such media must be captioned when placed online, this media was not captioned because captioning would take away from the learning objective - aural instead of visual comprehension. Comprehension is generally improved with beginning language learners when they can view the text of what is being said and we wanted them to have the aural experience. In order to adhere to the Section 508 mandates, if we were to still use it today we could provide a second captioned version in Italian and follow that with a post assessment to evaluate the students’ improvement when they can view the text of what is being said versus just the aural version. [There’s always a way to get what you want :-) ]

This assignment lends itself to both collaborative OR individual assessment. Here’s some ideas!

• Post a link of the fairy tale in Blackboard for individual listening 
• Facilitate a discussion about the fairy tale, either in class or in Blackboard’s discussion board 
• After the discussion, provide a text version of the fairy tale with the more difficult vocabulary words linked to definition pop-up boxes. As your mouse rolls over the text, certain phrases have links with translation definitions of what the phrase means. This can be done with standard HTML. 
• Post an online assessment in Blackboard with questions on key points

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

The Radical Rodents (Surfing Mice)

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:30:36 -0700

Ok, if you thought the surfing dog was “out there,” well, how about this? Surfing mice! That’s right - I found this video on YouTube quite by accident while looking for other surf videos. If you liked this one, check out the second video on YouTube of their antics with an explanation by Shane Willmott, their “coach and mentor.” This guy has WAY TOO MUCH time on his hands!

My question is: “Do the mice actually enjoy it?” Some of the mice look like they do and others look terrified. Maybe he should consider making them little mice lifevests to eliminate their possible fear of drowning. Shoot, if Barbie and Ken can have a lifevest, why not the radical rodents?

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

“Nora” - The Piano Playing Cat

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:55:09 -0700

Ok, for you cat lover’s - equal time to the kittens. Rachelle sent me this video of “Nora - the Piano Playing Cat” that I thought was quite unusual. Nora seems to take her piano playing very seriously and even appears to caress the keys. Unlike other cats who may attempt to play the piano, she doesn’t just walk across the keys or lay down on them like most cats. She sits with proper posture and only plays with her paws. I wish some of my former piano students had been this diligent and “in love” with the piano like she is. She must have been a pianist in a former life! She does seem a little frustrated that she keeps hitting multiple keys that are dissonant. Darn those wide paws!

For more info on Nora, see: http://www.ravenswingstudio.com/docs/cats.html

There is also a video of Nora being interviewed on the Martha Stewart show (below) where she is playing a duet with a piano student. In that duet she is much more tonal and consonant with the key of the Beethoven “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” played in an easier key of C major than she was in the YouTube video above. In fact, she even attempted to chime in on the G7 chord with the dyad of “F” and “G” so I guess she already knows fundamental music theory. Her owner says her favorite composer is J.S. Bach (A cat after my own heart)!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

“Buddy” - The Surfing Dog

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:27:26 -0700

I really have got to work on teaching Emily and Coda to surf this summer. I think Emily will be a candidate since she already “duck dives” under the waves when she is at the ocean and chasing her ball in the water but it may not be “in the cards” for Coda since she doesn’t like to venture out past her waist, ha.

Check out this video of “Buddy” the Surfing Dog. Last August Imperial Beach in San Diego ran the first dog surfing competition so there are surely more dog surf stars to come. Watch out Kelly Slater!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

Converting GarageBand Podcasts to MP3 Format For Blackboard

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Recently, several of you who have taken my GarageBand podcasting course have asked me how to directly post a .m4a podcast file into Blackboard so that it will play without the use of a Macintosh podcasting server as the conduit. This option is a possibility with Blackboard but first you must convert the file into an .mp3 file. You will also need to convert the file if you have students who wish to sync the podcast to MP3 players other than the Apple iPod (e.g., Zunes or Rio Players, which don’t accept the standard Apple AAC files). Blackboard will accept both .mp3 and .wav files but not .m4a or AAC files, which is the Apple GarageBand default. Since .wav files are much larger in size than .mp3 files, we’ll focus on converting our podcast to .mp3 format for optimal ease of download.

The good news is that you can convert the .m4a file with software that you already possess on your computer - iTunes. Here’ how:

1. First, within GarageBand you must save the podcast .band file to the Desktop as a .m4a file by selecting Share > Export Podcast to Disk…

Once you have the .m4a file saved to your Desktop, open iTunes and drag the file into your iTunes Library. After a few moments, iTunes will copy the file to the iTunes Library. Sometimes it might be difficult to find the copied file but keep looking - it’s in there! Usually, it is copied to the Music section of the Library rather than the Podcast section that you would naturally expect. (If all else fails, you can always do a search by the file’s name in the iTunes Search window to locate it.) Once you locate the file, you will then use the Advanced menu to convert it into an MP3 file.

2. If you go to the Advanced menu right now, you might see that the choice Convert Selection To… already says Convert Selection To MP3. If that is indeed the case, then you won’t need to change the Preferences in the next step. However, if it says something else, such as Convert Selection To AAC or Convert Selection To AIFF, you’ll need to change your preferences as described below in Steps #3-8.

3. From the iTunes menu, select Preferences…

4. Click on the Advanced tab.

5. Click on the Importing tab.

6. From the Import Using: pull-down menu, select MP3 Encoder.

7. From the Setting: pull-down menu below it, select the type of quality you want your file to have. (Remember, the better the quality of the MP3, the bigger the file will be and thus, it will be a slower download for your students in Blackboard. Consider a compromise to achieve your goal of a good-sounding audio file with a minimal download.)

8. Click the OK button to close the Advanced Importing preference.

9. Now, select the file you wish to convert to MP3 from the iTunes Library so that it is highlighted.

10. Go to the Advanced menu at the top of the iTunes screen and select Convert Selection to MP3

11. You will see iTunes processing the file in the upper iTunes window. When iTunes is done converting the file, search for the MP3 version of your file in your iTunes Library.

12. To make sure you have located the MP3 version (not the AAC version), you can turn on the View options. To do this, go to View > View Options… and from the list, make sure that Kind is selected.

13. Now when you look at the columns in iTunes, you should see Kind as a column where it lists the type of file for the podcast (e.g., MPEG, AAC, AIFF, WAV, etc.)

14. Drag the MPEG (.mp3) audio file out of iTunes onto your Desktop. This is the file you will post in Blackboard.

15. Login to Blackboard and click on the Control Panel. (Note: You must have Instructor or TA privileges in the Blackboard course to see the Control Panel.)

16. Click on the link to the area where you wish to place the podcast (e.g., Course Documents, Assignments, etc.) OR specifically create an area in your Blackboard course and call it Podcasts as we have done here.

17. Click on +Item to add an item to your selected Content Area.

18. Type in a Name for the podcast and provide a Text description if you wish.

19. In the Content area of this Blackboard page, click on Choose File (some browsers will have a Browse... button instead) to retrieve the file from your Desktop. (Note: Make sure you upload the .mp3 version of your podcast NOT the .m4a version.)

20. Type in either the name of the file or an instruction for your students such as “Click here to listen” in the Name of Link to File textbox.

21. VERY IMPORTANT: Leave the Special Action pull-down menu on the default of Create a link to this file. Logically, you would think that you should select Display Media File in Page here but that will not allow the file to actually play in Blackboard. In some browsers, it may still download the MP3 file to the students’ Desktop. If this should happen, the student should attempt to play the file with another type of player (e.g., drag it into iTunes, play it with QuickTime player, play it with Real Player). Unfortunately, Windows Media Player is currently not able to play MP3 files (But then, who cares? We hate Windows Media Player anyway!)

22. In the Options section of this page, select the options you desire and then click on the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

23. You should receive a Receipt of Success from Blackboard if everything was uploaded properly. Click OK. Now go into the student navigation area of your Blackboard course and check to make sure that the file actually works.

24. When you click on the link to the podcast file in your Blackboard course, you should see a play controller similar to the one shown in the illustration below. Make sure you have headphones or your speakers on so you can actually hear the podcast MP3 file!

You’re done!

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)

The Surftech 8” Cloth Center Fin

Fri, 3 Nov 2006 10:12:52 -0800

For you “real” surfers out there that read my blog (not you “web surfers” -- although I suppose it’s possible to be both like I am), I wanted to tell you about this GREAT longboard fin I got a few months ago. Made by Surftech, this fin is the BOMB! My boss, who’s a surfer, told me about it and what a difference it made in a board. My first thought was, “Yeah, right!” but was I wrong. Wow, I couldn’t believe how much more speed it added to my new epoxy longboard, which was already fabulous anyway (See Mama’s Got a Brand New Board). This Surftech fin just made it that much better! I highly recommend it if you are a single-fin longboarder. $70 and totally worth it! Check it out at the Surftech online store at:

http://shop.surftech.com/Custom_fins_for_your_wood_or_tuflite_board_s/25.htm

~ Dr. Luanne Fose (The Tweed Geek)