CAMEO courses through UCD Extension

I completed two online courses through UC Davis Extension yesterday. At the moment I am sampling different possible routes for my next career. Last Spring it was Real Estate through Sac City College, later this summer, when I thought I could be training for CSUB, it was Blackboard certifications. This fall I thought I might explore what my wife does, environmental related work.

The courses were taught online around the implementation of the CAMEO suite from EPA. There may have been much more of a learning curve were it not for the courses I took in environmental sciences back in the early 90s at Diablo Valley College. As it is it was a definite challenge. Anyone interested in developing emergency response plans for a municipality would do well to investigate this package. I enjoyed both courses very much, and the instructor, Kevin Smith presented some very interesting scenarios for learning and implementing the software. It is a pity that UCD does not make more of the hazardous materials program available online. Being a five hour trip each way, it is a bit far for me to go to take classroom courses.

I highly recommend the extension at UCD and these courses if they are of interest. I wold recommend Kevin Smith as an instructor as well. You can find out more about Cameo by going to http://www.epa.gov/oem/content/cameo/what.htm

The perils of social networking to my time.

The perils of social networking to my time.

I have not written here in a couple of months now. Part of this has been a sorting out of priorities given my need to find an alternative career field. I am still teaching a class or two per quarter at CSUB, but it does appear as though in the long term I will need some other career path, if for no other reason than I do a bit of a short attention span when I am not learning myself. I would love to make a go of managing distance education and assessment again, but sadly no one is buying. Lots of formal training and experience in LiveText, WASC, and course management systems, which for the time being at least are of no use to me. Ah well, it is the nature of the (self-made) California budget crisis.


Another aspect of my relative silence here is that I become a regular Facebook junkie, for want of a better word. There is a significant difference between these two mediums. I like to think of it as roughly equivalent to the difference between direct instruction and constructivism. Here, I am alone on the stage. I can emote to my heart’s content and may never know if I have a real audience. Hey, at least in the classroom you can gage your impact with a quiz. Two way communication is available here, but it is in the form of feedback as in a classroom, not an equitable sharing of information. Blogs make virtual podiums. One can conduct a dialog in the comments, but that is not part of the design. On the other hand, Facebook can be (I do mean can be, not is) a truly collaborative environment, though not without limitations. It is by its nature built to create communities and subgroups within communities. An idea thrown out in Facebook may be picked up and elaborated on as a group. I have seen that happen. Since this is the way that I work internally myself, it is very attractive.

The one drawback as a real constructivist environment that I can see is that interaction is limited to what I like to think of as “30 second sound bites”. The length of messages is truncated, so the complexity of thought is also truncated.

But for now, it is a fascinating method for building community and sharing information. It is absorbing a lot of my time.

Blackboard 9: Teaching and Learning Online Advanced Certification Series

I just completed the three courses in this series. It was an interesting experience taking training from a provider like this. All three courses gave the tools needed to implement more advanced concepts in BB9. What was missing for me more than anything else were examples of implementation from schools using BB9. I guess that is to be expected though. The people enrolled with me were from a variety of backgrounds, everything from Community College to IT types. It would have been difficult to cater to the variety of potential applications.

If I were to give one piece of advice for someone thinking about taking this series, it would be to have a specific goal in mind for each of the courses. Again, hard to do since one does not know what specifically will be covered, but it doesn't hurt to know what you want to apply your new training to. I was fortunate in having been in the process of adapting courses from WebCT to BB9 alongside the training.

Another thing that stood out for me is that this is not to be confused with an online course. The training is not intended to build community in a constructivist sense as part of the curriculum. Almost all the objectives can be met without interaction with anyone else in the courses. This will work better for some than others.

All in all worth the $1200.

Blackboard9, webCT 41, Volvos and Ford Escorts.

School started on Monday. I'm using BB9 exclusively, having weaned myself entirely from webCT. Not that the desire to continue with WebCT isn't still strong, but to use analogy, that relationship is over and it time to move on. BB9 is flashier, has more bells and whistles, better interface, more options. I have traded in my beloved Ford Escort of a Course Management System for a late model Volvo.

My old escort was really a strippy. Most of the functionality was minimal and a bit clunky. I knew where all the controls were on the tape deck and how to make the seat go to the exact position I like, I knew all the idiosyncrasies, and how to keep the windshield from fogging up in the rain.

The Volvo is different. It is svelte and has every option known to man. I know there is a way to adjust the seat, and I also know that some of these buttons on the dashboard control the sound system.

It is just the process of figuring out what I need to do that is the issue. I have three formal classes through Blackboard and I still don't know how turn on the windshield wipers, though I was taught to change the blades. :-) Also, it isn't like the old Volvo (BB6) I drove briefly a few years ago. The controls are in different places.

I very much like Blackboard 9. Almost as much as I like Moodle. But I really do miss WebCT 4.1 right now in the first days of class.

Casualty of the CA cuts - Blackboard Nine

Well, the other shoe dropped. I am no longer faculty at CSUB. My position was eliminated. I have some pretty strong feelings about this right now, but I won't get into it other than to say that I still will be teaching a class or two as an adjunct through Extended University, at least this quarter. If anyone is looking for an innovator in distance education, I am now very available.

I have been re-developing courses through Blackboard Nine. I have to say I am fairly impressed. They have gone to great lengths to improve the interface and make the system more user freindly. There is still a lot of baggage from previous versions, but what can one expect from a system that is ten plus years old. It is approaching the functionality of Moodle in a lot of respects.

Linux Multimedia Studio - Addicted? Yes!

I'm always looking for some way to generate royalty free music. Part of the reason is that I see myself as providing multimedia to students, and there SHOULD be a soundtrack. And I am very frugal. I have to be, I am in education. ;-)

Last week I downloaded LMMS 0.4.4. I was very impressed. I don't have a keyboard at this point, though thanks to Musician's Friend I have a USB powered Yamaha on the way right now. In the interim I thought I might experiment with what was available in FOSS on Windows (not SuSE Linux. A long story certainly, but for another time) under Vista.

If you wish to produce a simple soundtrack/background music for a podcast or other project, this is fairly simple to use and it has the ability to use samples from soundfonts and the onscreen keyboard. For more on Soundfonts check out any search engine. A prime source for these is http://www.hammersound.net/ The idea is to provide samples for making music without a microphone or real physical instruments. I have to admit that this is by no means as end-user-ready as something like Garageband under OS X, but it is a very sophisticated system if you have afew hours to learn. If you have a background of any kind in music, then this will be even more of interest, if for no other reason than to help you waste hours at a time producing your own "opus". :-)

Oh yes, the link: http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

I think for those of you who took the podcasting course last year from Dr. Swenson, you will find this a great means of providing music free of charge in your podcasts. One hint that will be valuable: Look on the Web for midi files. These are music files in the .mid format. You can find everyting from Glen Miller to Metallica in this format. These can be imported into LMMS and then modified for your needs. Think of it this way. If you can find that perfect background music by Moody Blues or some such, then this program will allow you to import the midi track, modify it, and output it to an MP3. In addition, you can use Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) with LAME to output the creation to Mp3.

I am very impressed with what this can do. Hopefully you eill be too.

Does crisis stifle innovation?

This is more a question than an opinion. I have been thinking about this a great deal over the last few months. As California slowly edges toward what commentators seem to believe is certain financial ruin, I am struck by the lack of conversation about alternative means of running the state. We have the capacity to run a great deal of the day to day in government virtually, cutting down on the infrastructure needed to do common tasks such as register vehicles, pay bills, fill out forms, etc.. At some level wouldn't it make sense to reduce the amount of time that face to face transactions were made in government and move more of it to a virtual setting? I have puzzled over why this is such a leap. I'm sure that familiarity is a portion of the problem. In times of crisis might it be that we pull back to the familiar and take less risks with technologies and paradigms that have not been proven?

Maybe it is time for some real risk taking.

Transitioning to Blackboard 9 and training

Last Fall CSUB did a pilot of Moodlerooms as part of an investigation into alternative LMS systems once it was deemed that WebCT 4.1 (yes, 4.1) was no longer an option due to accessibilty issues. I was able to offer a course in Moodle for the first (and perhaps only) time. I have been familiar with Moodle for some time, since 2002 at least when I had it set up on a server at home and played with it extensively. The Fall semester was a great boon in that I was able to teach a course for K-12 teachers in using Moodle. I have been blessed in that a few have gone on to actually implement web enhanced and hybrid Moodle in their classrooms.

CSUB made the decision to go with Blackboard after the pilot. So now I must update my dated experiences with WebCT 4.1 to this new system. I am already familiar with the Blackboard from using it at different campuses, actually developing courses on it at one point, and last semester taking a real estate course in it.

I have decided it is time to take the Blackboard certification courses. Starting July 1st I'll be taking three courses in the Learning and Teaching certification track as well as in the advanced certification track. It will be the first professional development in this area I've done since 2007. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity. While I am not a Blackboard advocate particularly, in the same way I am not a Microsoft advocate though I hold four certificates there, it is the platform my university has standardized on and so is an area I must know as much as possible about. It will be an interesting experience. I will report back on anything remarkable as I go through.

Free to Air and academic programming

Last week I decided to investigate satellite TV in the form of an FTA receiver and a 36” dish. I have a number of reasons for doing this, not the least of which is my disenchantment with the programming on cable, and for that matter the state of modern programming in general. Most of what is available on the cable networks seems a bit pedestrian most of the time. I admit this is just my personal preference, I prefer more detailed information and greater depth than most of these entities seem to provide. Rule of thumb for me is that any station that has to provide multiple serialized reality show format programs is probably not somewhere I would go for entertainment or enlightenment.

So I started looking at what might be available directly from the satellites.

I found some interesting programming on the Galaxy 18 satellite. This satellite does have some free to air programming. You can find a list of what is on this satellite by going to Lyngsat and looking at Galaxy 18. Most of what is here is encrypted, but the entries that show as either NTSC or DVB are open and available to anyone with a dish pointed at the satellite. Some of the best here are The Research Channel, University of Washington (UWTV), and the 3C (California Community College) channels. There are others certainly, including Retro Jams, the oldies music video station, and This TV, the oldies movie station (hey, I qualify as an oldy myself :-) ), but the top three are very good 'brain food'.

Since I just set this system up, I have not spent much time looking at the programming, but so far the lectures and programs on UWTV and The Research Channel are top notch.

A bit about my setup. This is not a particularly difficult project if you are fairly handy, have a view of the south sky, and some patience. The system I put together cost less than $250 and consists of a receiver (Viewsat VS2000), a 36” dish with tripod, and accessories such as coax, a signal meter, etc..

It DID take me approximately 8 hours to figure out the basics, assemble the equipment, and aim the dish.

A few things I would like to emphasize:

1. The programming I am getting from this satellite is free.

2. The programming available can change at any time

3. You MUST have a signal meter to aim your dish. Otherwise you may become frustrated enough to decide to try to determine the glide path of your equipment through practical application.

4. This is not a motorized dish. If I wish to “change” satellites I will have to go through aiming again. A motorized system costs about $100 more.

5. HD PVR type systems are also available. These allow you pick up and record programming to an external hard drive. This can be very handy if you find programming to use in your classroom, but it is another $200-300 in addition to the original cost.

6. When aiming the dish take into account your elevation. In a nutshell, aiming a dish in Tehachapi is much different than in Bakersfield. Your satellite dish elevation settings will be much closer to the horizon.
   

For now I'm content with the setup I have. Since I teach in education and in technology, I have the quadruple benefit of being able to find intelligent programming, potentially more content for my courses, intellectual stimulation, and access to types of programming that absent from my cable provider.

I will report back at some point as I upgrade my installation.

Class registration Info Spring 09 in C&I at CSUB

Hi Folks!

If you are in the C&I program at CSUB you may be having trouble locating courses and CRN numbers because of the PeopleSoft changeover. I've created three PDF files that give you the availablew courses for Bakersfield, AV, and Extended University. You can use these PDFs to locate the section numbers you need to register for courses. Hope this helps! If you have problems email me.

Closing the gap, more educators get it (and so do I).

OK. I follow Ray Kurzweil and Marc Prensky, and think Alvin Toffler may have been talking more about education than other disciplines without knowing. As educators we have aresponsibility to meet our students where they live. Some of this can be started in K12, but that is dependent upon the technology that the district has available, the willingness of those teaching, and the technosavvy of the administration.

I'm sorry, but the 'if we build it they will come' mentality won't work if we are using the wrong materials and blueprints.

Who is our target audience and what is their comfort level not only with technology, but with change in general?

Another article acknowledges the importance of dealing with modern material. Closing the Gap Between Education and Technology by Chris Riedel in THE Journal discusses some of the revelations (or is it proselytizing) of Mark Benno. You can find the article here.

An interesting point related was the lack of watches in classrooms. This got me thinking about my digital immigrant self and how I have come to use technology.

I have not worn a watch since I bought my first PDA in 2002. No reason. Two months ago I bought an old tech Nokia 9300 to replace another Nokia that was terribly difficult to text using. Hey, I've been involved with computers since the TRS-80 days, so QWERTY is very natural to me.

Now it starts to blend. I have a PDA that is also in many ways a mini-laptop, I have Internet access (though the original browser on this Symbian Series 80 phone is truly dismal), and the only piece of regularly used technologies missing are a decent camera, a PC emulator like Virtual Box, and a higher resolution screen, or a miniaturized pullout adjunct screen like that on the new Thinkpad W700ds, and a decent MP3 player. My understanding is that the E90 addresses much of the shortcoming.

Add some voice recognition software tied to a decent browser and you have a combo for online discussion groups that would be useful indeed. Or even better something that would allow you to video blog to your course management system, the N95 with its dual cameras comes to mind. So the use of video clips or video blogging on the fly and easily creating posts in threaded discussions from the car (with phone or perhaps even enhanced GPS *????* ) becomes not only possible but almost easy.

Of course the article takes a little different tack. I'm married to a QUERTY keyboard for comfort, which in and of itself dates me. The article talks about multitasking that takes on a different flavor, actually taking in information from different sources literally at the same time. In my life the only equivalent I can come up with is when I am on the elliptical. I'll frequently listen to music (I recently discovered Dave Matthews and am exhausting that catalog now) while watching the news with the SAP program on to read the dialog. That is in some sense the spirit, if not the actual application, that is mentioned in the article. Now if I am listening to the Thomas Jefferson Hour while watching the news on the elliptical, and actively participating in both then I might be closer.

I know, I know. Some will say that multitasking is not a good thing, that it decreases efficiency. All you need to do is plug the terms multitasking and efficient into Google to see the debate. But the fact remains people do it. Serial or Parallel? True multitasking or merely task switching (think GEM vs. Windows NT ). You be the judge.

But I digress. :-)

"Kids use technology in ways many of us would never think of, he said. " That's a good start.

This article is worth reading and the ACOT2 programis worth following.