I had never heard of carnivals until reading Rebecca Goetz’s Do Not Fear the Blog article. She makes it even easier for me by linking to an Education Carnival from her blog. One is the Teaching Carnival and I also found Education Carnival at education wonks, and through that carnival, the mother lode of carnivals at Blog Carnival. No ed tech carnivals, however. That seems like something that needs to be remedied.
Help a grad student out: PhD Student Studying Weblogs
It really does only take 5 minutes…
After the Ivan Tribble articles on the Chronicle of Higher Education, I was getting worried about blogging, academic or otherwise. Rebecca Goetz’s Do Not Fear the Blog highlights all the reasons many academic folks continue to blog, despite Ivan’s warnings.
It’s an interesting juxtaposition, the anonymous anti-blogging articles. Of course, it’s everyone prerogative to maintain his/her privacy. But why cloak oneself in secrecy while railing against one of the most public forms of expression? The fact that Rebecca Goetz puts herself and her blog out for the greater academic community is testament to the one of the benefits blogging brings: confidence and self-assurance (is that redundant?) Do universities want professors who are so afraid of public critique they are willing to share nothing?
All throughout education, from K-12 to higher ed, there has been a strong push to integrate technology into education. With the previous posts coming out against academic blogging, one has to beg the question—do administrations REALLY want the type of paradigm shift that new technologies represent, or do they just want professors yapping on in the front of the classroom with a powerpoint instead of overheads to impress students who are paying more for a year’s tuition than they’ll typically make in their year following graduation.
That being said, Gene Roche’s comment on Garnder’s blog is worth considering. Every person who keeps a blog should think carefully about what they are saying publicly and who will know they’re saying it. There is no way around it. Represent yourself in a way that if your boss, mother, students, etc were reading, you would feel comfortable if they knew what you said. If someone doesn’t want to hire you for what you say, it probably wasn’t going to be a good match anyway.
Technorati Tags: academic blogging
I’ve noticed a lot of social computing tools of late–some of which are mainstream and some of which are still working their way there:
I wonder about these tools. First, I wonder why all naming conventions with technological innovations seem to go through such unoriginal manifestations (cases in point–things that were e- from emachines to e-trade; things that were i such as i-pod). Anyway, we’re on the ‘r’s.
I mentioned previously Rob Wall’s use of Flickr to annotate pictures for instructional purposes. How else is Flickr being used instructionally?
And what about mapping tools like Mappr and Frappr? I understand the potential of these tools, but I wonder who has actually found classroom uses for them, in higher ed or high school for purposes other than introducing a new technological tool that could be used.
As for Talkr, I would pass on this for now. I imagine it would be helpful if you absolutely had no other choice to listen to a computerized voice deliver a podcast, ie if you are blind or have difficulty reading. However, there are real benefits to reading blogs…the first of which is to skim each post briefly and read deeper where it is really useful No one has time in their day to listen to audio versions of other people’s mindless ramblings. If someone wants to ramble on in audio, there are plenty of people producing podcasts ranging in quality across a wide spectrum. In fact, rambling can be fun if the voice contains inflection, emotion, suspense, etc. A computerized voice just doesn’t cut it in this regard.
Technorati Tags: Educational Technology
Reduce visual clutter to improve visibility rails against designers cramming information into one page to improve usability.
Certainly, I can agree that putting too much text one page is overwhelming. But what about putting so many different folders that what is behind the folders is not obvious?
This resource is interesting: a collection of opinions on web design and scrolling from 2000-–a one-page, lengthy, full-screen wide—collection of opinions.
Neither of these really answer my question. Maybe a good compromise is the suggestion that a maximum of three small objects on a page is sufficient. I wish that Blackboard were a little more obvious and that it were immediately obvious how many layers deep a site goes. I guess I often feel when looking at Blackboard course that the depth of what is involved is not immediately obvious. As one goes deeper, it does a good job of letting you know what point in the hierarchy you’re at, but a visual cue, a graphical syllabus would be really helpful to get a fuller sense of where each of the necessary resources for a given week are. Now THAT would really help!
Technorati Tags: Blackboard, instructional
When designing, which rule is more inviolate-
minimizing the number of clicks to get at information OR
minimizing scrolling on a screen for users?
I ask because in Blackboard, I feel like most people design so they have neat little folders for each item. And to me, having to click 5 layers into a hierarchy is unacceptable.
However, at the same time, having an end-user have to scroll down to see the third item on a page might be confusing to people. Items do have bold headings and a little icon indicating that it is a discreet item. But do all users understand those cues?
So which is worse?
Technorati Tags: Blackboard, instructional
From September 2005, Jonathan Kozol’s article Still Separate Still Unequal uncovers the realities in the disparities in education. Or does he really uncover it? Don’t we all know deep down that what he writes about is what is the reality for many children in our country? Some people don’t even get their own irony in terms of school funding, as Kozol describes:
Some people who ask these questions, although they live in wealthy districts where the schools are funded at high levels, don’t even send their children to these public schools but choose instead to send them to expensive private day schools. At some of the well-known private prep schools in the New York City area, tuition and associated costs are typically more than $20,000 a year. During their children’s teenage years, they sometimes send them off to very fine New England schools like Andover or Exeter or Groton, where tuition, boarding, and additional expenses rise to more than $30,000. Often a family has two teenage children in these schools at the same time, so they may be spending more than $60,000 on their children’s education every year. Yet here I am one night, a guest within their home, and dinner has been served and we are having coffee now; and this entirely likable, and generally sensible, and beautifully refined and thoughtful person looks me in the eyes and asks me whether you can really buy your way to better education for the children of the poor.
The picture at the head of the article is of Norman Rockwell’s famous painting depicting the aftermath of Brown v. the Board of Education. With Rosa Park’s recent passing, it feels like the end of an era. It’s telling when DL Hughley’s joke that a lot has changed since Rosa Parks would not give up her seat to a white man on a bus—white men used to ride the bus!—has a little bit too much truth. What has changed since the civil rights era is that those who have (money, education, resources, power, technology) have gotten better at keeping it to ourselves. We all, as a society, with the conveniences promised by technology have reverted back into ourselves and because our community—with our reliance on technologies (car, phone, internet) —has shifted away from our immediate geography as we quickly drive in and out of where we need to go and keep in touch with colleagues and friends across distance. This critique is only barely scratching the surface of some of the issues inherent in Kozol’s piece.
And as educators who integrate technology into education, it is an important reminder that to characterize all children of the millenial generation as having equal opportunities in access to resources such as technology in education–is to literally NOT SEE the kids Kozol is writing about. Recent reports have reiterated that despite governmental rhetoric (designed to cut funding to technology programs in schools), the digital divide (despite its problematic moniker) is alive and well: Congress Needs to Address the Digital Divide 2005 and Pew Internet Report 10/5/2005
(Both sources originally linked from: Digital Inequality is Alive and Well )
Nate and Don, early adopters that they are, pointed me in the direction of Gizmo when I was frantically trying to figure out how to record a Skype conversation. I had found several references as to how to set up recording for Skype, (explanation 1 and explanation 2—which is excellent for manipulation of Flickr to make it more interactive) but they seemed a bit more complicated than I wanted to have to deal with. Also, they required purchasing equipment that I wouldn’t ordinarily have lying around the house.
Gizmo, however, has a record feature built right in, and when you record a conversation, the file saves right to the desktop. At first I thought it was a little creepy, but when you hit the record button, an audible voice comes on that says “This call is being recorded.” I suppose that can lead to confusion that there is a third party listening, but it certainly helps ethically so there is no confusion as to what is, or is not, being recorded.
The reason I needed to record a phone conversation is for a qualitative study. Originally I had planned to interview people face to face, but in some cases, when it is better for both parties, it seems to make a lot of sense to have the conversation via distance. Of course there are differences, but the trade off of sitting in rush hour traffic for four hours in exchange for a one hour interview seems worth it.
I have only two problems with the application–it doesn’t seem to work at home, on either PC or Mac, which I attribute possibly to use of wireless internet, but I’m not sure. And the second issue is that when you buy “call out” minutes, it takes 24 hours to process, which seems excessive for an internet transaction. However, even though they advised that it would take 24 hours, it got done in less than an hour, renewing my faith in instant commerce.
But overall as a research tool, this is invaluable due to its record feature.