I found a picture: Mary Nowlin in Jackson Wyoming

I'm slowly going through my mother's scrapbooks. Every once in a while I run into a real gem. This is my grandmother, Mary (McKean) Nowlin circa late 30s to early 40s at the house next to the Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole Wyoming. I believe one of the children is my Mother and another my Uncle Dan Nowlin. You can see the fence for the Elk Refuge in the background. This is the site of the Nowlin Creek Inn that my cousin Mark and his wife built many years back. My understanding is that the house in the picture has been moved to the back of the lot. I very much miss this area of Wyoming as it was before becoming 'discovered'.

Prensky: Engage me or Enrage me

Marc Prensky of course. What if we took learning back to the students in a way that would allow them to work within a complex system that held their attention? Prensky has an excellent point that young people master complex systems that go far beyond what we expose them to in school. My son Shawn at 11 is working his way through the Dungeons and Dragons books. A great deal of math, planning, and comparison at high levels going on there. But he is below average in many subjects at school. Maybe it is not about what we choose to engage them with as much s how?

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf

So how do we do this? Is this something that can be achieved via educational gaming? Somehow I don't think it will be that easy.

Educators must not be digital slackers. Our kids aren't.

Soapbox=ON

I ran across this video and thought it important to share. What is said here is, in my mind, the truth and also the next logical step in education. We must engage students using the tools they are most comfortable with. Big surprise?

These students are digital natives who are comfortable with technology and in fact rely on different types of information than those of us who predate (I'm 49) the modern mediums and lexicon of modern electronic social interaction.

We need to meet the needs of students using the mediums that are most comfortable and meaningful to them. This requires a rethinking if not complete dismissal of the old axiom of student as empty vessel waiting to be filled. Guess what? They are far beyond most of us in terms of knowing how to access modern information sources.



I think it behooves us to catch up. Rather than being the 55th in technology aptitude, we need to wire our schools for modern learning. This is not strictly an IT issue. IT knows IT. We need those who can mesh the technical with the pedagogy, and those who understand not only hardware and software, but also how to make technology meaningful instead of just ubiquitous.



soapbox=OFF

OpenEducationDisc 8.05

I'm very much enjoying this summer. We came out of NCATE and CCTC accreditation the beginning of March, I was teaching a lot, and I my task in accreditation preparation was to participate in the planning, put up and populate the accreditation Web site, and also figure out how to get the reports we needed out of LiveText. All in all, I don't remember all that much from about last September through the middle of March. :-) Last quarter was OK, but there were a lot of odds and ends to deal with, and then we hit graduation. This summer I'm teaching just one course and finishing up on a grant. I can stay home with my boys, take the occasional trip out to the coast, and generally relax.

This also means I can catch up on the things that interest me professionally. I hope to do something in the way of collaborating on a conference paper or two on the accreditation experience and how certain technologies helped. That is if my writing partners have time. But once again I digress.

For several years I have been thinking about the idea of creating a universal CD for students that will give us all a common set of applications to use in online courses. Having this would cut down on the amount of support needed and also make certain I have the ability to read anything students send my way. It also helps with the sanity. I think I may do something rash if I am sent another MS Works or MS Publisher file the day before grades have to be posted. :-)

A while back, there used to be something called the OpenCD. I thought it was a great start toward creating just such a universal platform for student work. I hadn't checked in on it in the last year or so, so I dropped in this morning. opencd.com is now a discontinued project. Wow! I have to say this was a bit disappointing. On the page there were references to other projects that were continuing the work Most were Ubuntu related. I'm guessing the OpenCD contents are wrapped up in the Live, self running, Ubuntu distributions. These versions of Linux can run (and I should add, many others can too) directly from your CD drive without needing to be installed. This is a good way to check out Linux, but I can't see running an entire operating system in order to use a few applications.

There was a reference on the page to Opendisc. So I clicked the link.

Opendisc is a project that appears to be hosted at SourceForge, at least that is where the download comes from. It is a collection of the very best of freely available software. I scrolled down a bit and found an education specific version named the OpenEducationDisc. I downloaded the ISO file, which is an image file (like a picture of the data on the disc) of about 700 meg. Contained on this disc are the following taken directly from the page:

OpenOffice.org - Fully compatible office software for your school work
Dia - Make technical diagrams and flowcharts
Scribus - Create professional looking posters and magazines
GanttProject - Plan your school projects with this project management software
FreeMind - Collect your ideas with this mind mapping Software
PDF Creator - Make PDF documents from any program
Sumatra PDF - Read PDF files quickly and easily

Firefox - A safe, secure and fast web browser
Thunderbird - Manage your emails better than ever - Reclaim your inbox!
Pidgin - Talk to your friends whatever instant message client they use
Kompozer - Create web pages easily, without having to code
RSSOwl - Keep up with your favourite internet news feeds on your desktop

GIMP - Edit digital photos and create graphics
GIMP animation - Create animations
Inkscape - Make professional looking vector graphics
Blender - 3D graphic modeling, animation, rendering and playback
Tuxpaint - Drawing program for children ages 3 to 12

VLC - Play music, videos and DVDs
Avidemux - Edit movies and add special effects
Audacity - Record, edit and mix music
Infra Recorder - Burn your own CDs and DVDs
CamStudio - Record your actions on a computer
Really Slick Screensavers - Great looking screensavers

Nasa Worldwind - Discover the earth and other planets
GraphCalc - A graphical calculator
Guido Van Robot - Learn how computer programs work
CarMetal - Cool mathematical modelling tool
Celestia - Explore the universe in three dimensions
Stellarium - A planetarium on your PC

FreeCiv - Control the world through diplomacy and conquest
FreeCol - Discover the ‘New World’ and build an empire
TuxTyping 2 - Learn to type like a pro
The Battle for Wesnoth - Turn based fantasy strategy game
Winboard Chess - The classic game of chess
Qianhong - Challenge yourself at Chinese Chess

GTK+
7zip
Abakt
Clamwin
HealthMonitor
Workrave

Httrack
Tight VNC
Filezilla
Azureus
WinSCP

Most of these I am familiar with, but some I am not. I am in the process of burning the image now. I will report back on what I find. Regardless, it appears that this package contains most of what one could want to standardize applications across online courses.

Discussion diaries as a reflective assessment tool?

We use LiveText as our ePortoflio system here. It provides the ability to create an overarching portfolio as a means of demonstrating personal growth through the program. Each final portfolio requires a piece from each course that demonstrates an understanding of the material presented in the course. Currently, this is usually the major project and a reflection. I read something this morning about a webinar on discussion portfolios. This got me thinking about the purpose of the signature piece in an online course. Many courses have, being partially constructivist (and sometimes even constructionist I would argue) in nature, a high value on the discussion posts in any given course. Does it make sense then for the discussion, since it is weighted heavily and also represents (hopefully) the evolution of understanding by a student in a given course, to use the discussion in some form as the signature piece?

My thought would be to create a discussion diary (within LiveText or what have you) where students can post favorite discussion posts or threads and create reflections on these threads later in the course. Basically a kind of ongoing monologue on the posts they find important to themselves and what it comes to mean over the rest of the course. This could replace or augment the project as the demonstrative piece.

Then, over the course of the program, the diary could become part of the final portfolio, perhaps with an overarching reflection on the discussions themselves. This wouldn't diminish the need for a rubric for discussion performance, but perhaps could split it into two sections, the first a pure assessment of quantity with the discussions themselves, and the other rubric run against the diary as part of assessment at the end of the quarter.

One of the things I like best about this idea is that it would show growth over the course of the quarter better than the major project would, in that it is not a single research-based test point in the class, but more of a continuum over time, showing multiple points in the development of understanding of the topics presented . The rubric would be a real challenge to develop.

Possible new banner for EDCI 516? After all I have to rework the course shell to reflect the new edition of the Joel Spring book anyway. Perhaps it is a little too earth tone, but I rather like that sort of thing. -

Half Acre Gym University of Wyoming 1948-49?

I'm going through Dad's pictures slowly but surely. This is Half Acre at UW. We are looking across Prexy's Pasture before there were any buildings in the way. Based on the snow on the ground it was probably taken any month but July :-) It certainly looked different when Kathie and I were there. Is that Coe library to the right or the History building?

Microtrack II - Things I like and do not.

I've been working with the Microtrack II for a couple of months now on and off. The purpose is for interviews for podcasts. I still feel as though I am very new to this product, so don't take this as a professional review of anything. I'm a newb!!!

1. It is incredibly sensitive. This is a double edged sword. On the one hand you can get a wonderful lifelike set of sounds at a park for the background of your podcast on the park. On the other hand, that helicopter you barely hear in the background when recording is faithfully reproduced in all its irritating glory when you listen to your recording at home later.
2. CF Card? Why? Everything else that I own uses SD. Isn't CF pretty much extinct in the wild or am I just not looking in the right place?
   
3. Menus are very intuitive. I like this a lot.
4. I wish one could select a default name for the files.
5. Levels are deceptive. Just because it recorded OK last time at this level does not mean it will this time. ;-) The solution is to actually use the headphones (that is why they are included I suspect) to monitor what you are getting.

Audacity for podcasting.

I'm not an expert at editing audio by any means. I've played around with audio editing in conjunction with video before, but usually this has been in Premier, or lately, in Cyberdirector.

Over the last few months I've been working on podcasts for a grant. We have been using a Microtrack II for recording and the generated WAV files have been brought in from the CF card to my computer.

I have to confess that I did not have high expectations of Audacity. After all, if it didn't clean out my wallet, how good could it be? Well the answer is: Pretty close to perfect for my needs. I'm not trying to do anything particularly elaborate. Here were my needs:

1. Add a standard intro and outro to each podcast.
2. Fade in and fade out the intro and outro.
3. Match the volume between the podcast and the intro and outro.
   
4. Edit out pauses and portions that were not needed or were mis-spoken.
5. Increase and decrease the volume of some sections within the podcast.
6. In one case I had to eliminate two words in the middle of a sentence.
   
7. Create a background noise track of nature sounds for the podcast and repeat it for the length of the podcast.
8. Reduce background noise in some of the segments.
9. Add quotes from other people in the middle of the original narration.
10. Create an enhanced podcast with video slide show capability.
11. Create a stereo effect from a mono recording.

I'm sure there are other things that I am forgetting, but this is the basic list.

Things I learned while doing this:

• Always export to WAV if you want to use the file over again in another podcast. The file size is much larger than MP3, but the result is higher quality.
• Keep all your files in the same place. Audacity creates temporary files and links to any files you use in your podcast. If you create a directory/folder to keep all your podcast files in, audacity will always be able to find them.
• Save often if you use the beta. This should go without saying, but the beta has some great new features and can unstable. After all, that's why they call it a beta. :-)
• The Noise Removal effect is your friend in small doses. You can fix just about any constant noise in the background using this effect. However, like anything good, it is not helpful in large doses. It is a good way to introduce some real distortion into your audio if you use it on the same section of a track more than once.
  
• Nothing will remove an echo. Try as I might, there is no way to remove an echo from an audio track. Make sure you don't have this in your recording.
• Nothing will remove wind noise. I recorded a huge amount of useless audio at Tomo Kahni and Fort Tejon because of ambient wind noise. Since it isn't constant it is impossible to remove. In my case, 2 hours of audio on a windy hillside boiled down to probably a half dozen minutes of usable audio.
  
• Fade in and Fade out just work. Select the duration on the timeline using the selection tool, click the effect, and you have an excellent transition.
• If you are working with a background sound track, allow it overlap into your intro and outro. If you make the background overlap, it adds a nice effect. In my case, the birds start to be heard before the voice. It is nice effect.
• Generate Silence can be your friend!!! If you have someone speaking in the background during a pause in the narration, you don't have to cut it out and lose the cadence, just select the pause and use generate silence.

That's all I can think of for now. This is an excellent program with a bit of a learning curve, but nothing that most people will have trouble with. More later....

Allensworth State Historic Park 100 year anniversary.

Better and Better! I've been working on a grant for producing podcasts and lesson plans for Allensworth and a few other state parks. I've had the opportunity to look at a lot of the primary sources related to Allensworth and I have to say that this story, an independent African American community in the central valley shortly after the turn of the century, really must be told to a wider audience. If you are anywhere near CA and the central valley, you need to check out this state park. I'm not certain when the podcasts will be available on the state site, but I will post URLs as soon as possible. http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=583

I believe that the addition of educational materials to the state park sites is of huge importance given the current economic climate. After all, it is becoming more expensive to provide field trips at schools due the increase in fuel prices and insurance costs. In order to give students access to places of historic significance such as Allensworth, there is increasing need for virtual field trips. Part of this could be accomplished using WebQuests (http://webquest.org/index.php) developed for the individual parks. This would allow students to find pertinent information on the parks even if a field trip were not possible. Another potential means of providing the experience without the expense would be to have an individual at the location sream a video tour in real time to a classroom. This is one of the things that PORTS does http://www.ports.parks.ca.gov/ .

First blog entry: Am I going the distance with this?

I've tried this medium before and had spotty luck. All you need to do is to look at my other blog at www.disorderedsystem.com to see how erratic I am with these things. :-)

I have friends who are almost addicted to blogging. I myself am not so much. Blogs tend to be focused around specific interest areas, and I have many. I guess really my place in the blogosphere is to add that outlier to the great bell curve of the blogosphere.

But I digress. As usual.

Cheers!