Google Apps Expanding

I have been trying to convince people for a while that education could harness the power of Google Apps.  There is even a branch of the Google Apps Marketplace just for education, called, oddly enough  Google Apps for Education.  Here is an bog post from Google that explains the new offerings in Google Apps, Ten times more applications for Google Apps customers.  I think the embedded video here should quell the fears of most information technology service divisions of educational institutions.  There is also a security white paper in PDF form for those afraid that Google owns their data once they sign up.  They do not and they do not keep you from taking it with you if your institution leaves the service and they do not share it with outside business or advertisers.

With all that said, the real power of these apps is in integration and the collaboration that can occur between colleagues.  I have recently found an affiliate company that runs a web based project management software called Many Moon that sits on top of or works very closely with Google Docs, part of the Google App suite.  Many Moon is extremely useful and an absolute treasure find in a market flooded with productivity tools.  I will be writing a post very shortly on the benefits I found using this service.  I hope you find this information helpful and I look forward to your comments and questions.

Components of an Effective Learning Activity

There are a number of components to an effective learning activity that engage students, involve critical thinking, promote discussion or interactivity and general lead to good quality learning.  Those components are listed as such:

• A good descriptive title
• A set of detailed learning outcomes that students will meet by the completion of the activity
  
• An initiation to whet the appetite of the student and orient them to the topic
• A set of thorough academic instructions with an included main question or activity
• A description of how the learner will be evaluated
• Notes for other instructors (*optional)
• Non-academic directions for completion dependent upon the course management system or method of delivery

*Notes for other instructors come in to play when multiple instructors may teach the course but those instructors were not the course developers.

It is my feeling that if you ensure that your learning activity contains these components, learners will be more likely to complete the activity, be less lost, be more likely to interact with each other and the instructor, and meet the required learning outcomes for that activity and the course.  The diagram to the left illustrates the connection between learning outcomes, activities, and the assessment of those outcomes and thus the activities.  If the learning activities include the components mentioned above including the related learning outcomes, and the method for assessing whether or not those outcomes have been met and to what degree, then a cycle is produced that strengthens the curriculum by providing a strong foundation and with the right class management provides students with the best possible learning experience.

Video Production - A Physical Assessment Instructional Video

In the past few months I have been working with an Excelsior College nursing faculty colleague to produce a video that helps students identify all the parts to a physical assessment video they must produce on their own. The video outlines all the skills and knowledge they must demonstrate within their submitted video. During this project I really ramped up my timeline for teaching myself some of the inner workings of Adobe Premiere which is their video editing software package. I was able to string together clips of video recorded in a different format than the eventual output format of flash video (.FLV), trim and adjust those clips, add sound files (edited in Garageband from Apple), create titles, and add still images for chapter headings. Although I know that Premiere is capable of much more, it was nice to explore those audio/video skills within such a nice application. I can say that I wish the interface was setup a little different as selecting various parts of video and moving them around was a bit clumsy. This could have also been my newness to the upgrade of the program as there might be some shortcuts or easier ways to do these things. I look forward to doing more like adding key-frames and transitions in the future. I should also say that I am a big fan of iMovie and Final Cut Studio from Apple as well. I can not share the video with you here, but if you have an interest in Nursing and are looking for a Nursing Degree program to take online, you can enroll at Excelsior College and take this NUR442 course.

Excelsior College Webinar on Managing Effective Discussions

On Tuesday November 9th myself and a few colleagues recorded a web conference for Excelsior College faculty called "Managing Effective Discussions". This webinar produced and recorded with the wonderful web conference software/service Adobe Connect Professional, focused on strategies for managing effective discussions in online courses at Excelsior College, and how developers or subject matter experts can structure or setup these discussions within development by ensuring they contain some key components. Those key components are learning outcomes, the method and way those outcomes will be measured, an initiation to orient the student to the topic of the discussion, some guiding questions or information to keep the student on track, and the main question or questions to discuss as well as the instructions for the student. I can not provide you with the link to the actual webinar as you must be an Excelsior College faculty (adjunct or full time) member, but I thought it would be helpful if a included a description of what took place because the principles can be applied to other instructional design related venues.

Newly Discover Application - StreamToMe

I often pick up great tips and ideas, applications, and more for many facets of my technology and learning infused life from my Google Reader pages which I read on my iPad with Reeder and on my many desktop computers through the Google Reader application. Incidentally Google also has a Google Mobile application that I use sometimes as well that includes all of the many great services offered by Google. Recently I found a very good iOS application this way. It is called StreamToMe. In the past there have been a few applications that allow you to control your Macintosh or PC from your iOS device (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch). This application actually allows you to play content on your iOS device from your computer in effect going in the opposite direction as those applications I have used in the past. StreamToMe works very well and it is very simple to set up. You simply download the StreamToMe app to your iOS device and down load the StreamToMe server application to your Mac or PC. I was impressed with the application's ability to convert almost any video format on the fly from a desktop computer to a format that iOS devices can utilize. The audio files worked very well and affords me the ability to place speakers in any room of the house, connect an iOS device to the speakers, and play content that only exists on the desktop computer. This application gets a five star rating in my book. Kudos to the developer Matt Gallagher.

Motivation

I always disliked that commercial within which an actors utters "but where's my motivation"? Despite My disdain for that attitude, suddenly I find myself in that position. I am so unmotivated. I have discover two Adobe products that offer multimedia authoring while bypassing time consuming code creation and editing. Those programs are Adobe Catalyst and Adobe ROME. With these programs, I should be making many of the projects that reside in my head a reality very quickly, but I can not decide which ones and why. I am ready to move to Florida or South Carolina and eventually Hawaii and have started to think about what type of on-line presence I should build to support working remotely from home.


But when it comes time for creative action, I think I would rather go take a walk in the woods. Perhaps I need a muse. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hunting Down my first low budget Digital SLR

I have my eye on the following Digital SLR camera. With megapixel amount, digital SLR level (not point and shoot), and image stabilization as my the three most important factors to me I have narrowed my search down to a base Canon EOS Rebel dslr model and the Nikon D60 model shown here. I was able to narrow these choices down due to a web site I found through my google reader called Best In Class. Here is a picture of the sweet camera that I plan to use for nature photography, landscapes and more. You can see the Amazon.com price is $549.95, which puts it within reach directly between the Apple 24" iMac I will be getting soon, and a 40+ inch Samsung LDC HDTV.

Leroi Moore's Passing - A Wonderful Musical Artist

Leroi Moore - A True Musical Legend

Today is a very sad day for I have just learned of the passing of Leroi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band. It has been reported that he died due to complications from a June ATV accident. Most of the articles describing the details have expired so I have linked a You tube video version of the AP story here here. Dave Matthews told the crowd at their latest concert Tuesday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, "It's always easier to leave than be left," I feel this is very true and describes the feelings most DMB fans all share. The concert was dedicated to the memory of Leroi. Leroi was an incredible musician. He played the saxophone, clarinet, and penny whistle among many other jazz instruments with such power and grace. I can remember being moved many times by the shear energy of his jazzy, soulful, and uplifting improvisation. The sweet music that emanated from this man was true musical poetry. He will be deeply missed. My soul is saddened by his passing and my positive energy goes out to his friends, family, and to all Dave Matthews Band fans around the world. AP Photo: In this Monday, May 9, 2005 file photo, LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band...

An Online Training Simulation

Here I wanted to show an example of an Adobe Flash based online software tutorial or training simulation. I chose something pretty simple so that the subject would not overshadow the main goal which is to give an example of a tutorial containing two main parts. When you learn to drive a car, you are shown how to drive the car with a video, or someone shows you the controls of the car. Then, you are given the wheel and you put what you saw into practice until you have mastered the task. I have done a very similar thing with this tutorial concerning how to manage tabs in Protopage. Protopage is a web based desktop widget/customization applet written in AJAX or web 2.0 like technology. I have linked the tutorial here and made sure it opens in a new window so that when the audience member closes the tutorial when it is over, they are not navigated away from the parent window (This site in this case). Click here to start the simulation keeping in mind that I will be adding the audio and closed captioning in the next few weeks.

Positive Outlook on Life

My Sisters and I many years ago with our dog Tar

The Hawaiian coast of Oahu

Hi everyone, I am looking forward to a new job that should be coming soon, and getting a chance in the near future to see two of my sisters and their wonderful families as well as Mom & Dad. My daughter and I are of course having fun every time we get together, and we have grown fond of the Victoria Pool in Saratoga. Things are finally looking up, and I know that this is not just a passing fancy as I actually went to get a new license which I was waiting to do. I wanted to wait until I bought a house and knew I would have that address for a while. Stacey has graciously taken me into her home, helped me set up a small space for myself there, and together we are going to fix up a spare room in the house for a fitness/sports entertainment type room. I am excited about all the positive changes I am going though right now and look forward to continuing this trend with a substantially great job and some much needed travel therapy. I need the ocean. Recently I went back home to Long Beach LI, rode the waves and had a blast. It felt so good to be back where I belong in my home town and in the ocean. The ocean sooths me and makes me feel alive, humble, and energized. I went to St. Simon's Island a few months ago, and that was great, before that I went to Ft. Myers Beach, and that was very therapeutic as well. I need a few more trips and one will be south Jersey shore with my sister, my daughter, and one of my nephews. We are thinking about a campground near the beach in Cape May NJ.