Patton Videos

Lynda.com CSS

Adding meaning with ID and class attributes

Dreamweaver CS4 with CSS Essential Training | by James Williamson

View this entire CSS course and more in the lynda.com Online Training Library®.

Finally!

I've been paying so much attention to my art projects that I've neglected my technolgy blog. It's a new semester, and we will see what develops, but so far, I have never had a better group of students. Stay tuned . . .

Creative Commons

What you should read before you choose a Creative Commons license -
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing

Copyrignt Blog Entry by Lyn Belisle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Vocaroo

Facebook: Take Five Minutes to Protect Your Privacy

Here’s an article from today’s New York Times by Sarah Perez that speaks for itself. If you are a Facebook user, even (and perhaps especially) if you don’t check your page every day, these tips are important. It also has links to other relevant articles on social networking security. Highly recommended.

Haps About Apps

Roy Furchgott’s NYT Blog, Gadgetwise: Getting Smart about Personal Technology, is always informative and entertaining. His post for January 4, 2010, is no exception. Called My Favorite 14 Apps of 2009, it’s based on his choices of the apps “that I was most likely to show people when they asked ‘What do I need with a smartphone?’” You can see his list here.

Being an Ancient Geek, I immediately checked the list to see what I had on my iPhone and, more importantly, what I needed. Arg! I had none of them, and I’m not sure I wanted any, either. Google Sky Map sounds kind of cool, but it’s for Android phones. Shazam? Maybe, but I don’t spend a lot of time listening to music away from my iPod or my computer.

So which apps *do* I consider my personal favorites?

A #1 is my Kindle app – of course, if you don’t have a Kindle, it will mean nothing to you, but it lets me pick up where I left off on my Kindle books by synching to the last page read. Unlike the Kindle, it’s backlit, and the price is right – free.

A new one that’s fun and surprisingly useful is iType2Go, which lets you see what you’re about to run into while you’re texting by allowing you to type over a live camera view of what’s ahead of you. When you are finished with your message, it takes you to your text window and seamlessly pastes in what you’ve written. Free.

A recent favorite is Cleartune, a chromatic instrument tuner and pitch pipe that allows you to quickly and accurately tune up using the built-in mic in your iPhone. I have a treasured Martin guitar (and I play in a band) so having a tuner on my iPhone is incredibly useful for me and for my friends. By App standards, it’s not cheap ($3.99) but it’s worth it.

Dragon is another new one that a genius employee at the Apple store showed me – it’s a great dictation tool. Say what you want to say and it transcribes your words to an email message or to IMS. Honest – and free.

There’s also a personal useful app provided by my credit union which shows the location of free ATMs in the area – that one gets a lot of use!

Apps I thought I’d use but don’t – My Lighter (cutesy, but that’s all), the free level tool, A-Level (somehow never need to tell if something is level by using my phone) and a recipe app called Big Oven – just don’t have time for that one.

What apps are your favorites? Send a comment and let me know. Oh, yeah – and here’s the link to the apps store - always fun to browse. The Staff Picks tell a lot about the staff. What do *your* apps tell about you?

Disney sets release date for San Antonio author’s latest book - San Antonio Business Journal:

Disney sets release date for San Antonio author’s latest book - San Antonio Business Journal:

The Future of Collage?

Today's online issue of The Wired Campus has a report about some software that I cannot wait to try if and when it becomes available.

The software, first called Photosketch and now Sketch2Photo, is an astonishing way to compose images based on just a simple hand drawn outline with captions. The software looks at the captions, the outlines and then scours the web for images that match your requirements. And then, sheer magic this, it seamlessly composes the images into one fairly convincing composition.

Sketch2Photo: Internet Image Montage from Tao Chen on Vimeo.

Its creators, from Tsinghua University, give more details at this link. It opens up a whoe new scope of possibilities for artists and graphic designers who will still be needed to create content and composition. I hope . . . .

Calendar test

The Trinity Coates Library Rocks!

Yesterday, my classes were treated to a presentation by Trinity Professor and Librarian Benjamin Harris, who shared his expertise (and his amazing energy) with us - we learned all about:

• Locating books and articles in the Coates Library
• Finding answers through the Library website
• Using academic databases to search
• Where to go to get help

Many many thanks to Benjamin.
One of the highlights of the presentation was a sneak preview of the new library web home page (see screen shot, above). What a super interface - attractive, easy to navigate - great job. It should be up in a few weeks.
Our library just keeps getting better and better. It is a Trinity Treasure!

Flat Classroom Project

It’s always exciting to come across something rich with possibilities and new technologies – I stumbled across the Flat Classroom Project in the usual manner, while looking for Something Else. Read the description and you’ll know why I skidded to a stop and changed directions right away:

"The Flat Classroom™ Project is a global collaborative project that joins together middle and senior high school students. This project is part of the emerging tend in internationally-aware schools to embrace a holistic and constructivist educational approach to work collaboratively with others around the world in order to create students who are competitive and globally-minded. The project was co-founded by Vicki Davis (Westwood Schools, USA) and Julie Lindsay(Beijing (BISS) International School, China) in 2006. The Flat Classroom Project 2006 is was featured in Chapter 13, 'If it's not happening it's because you're not doing it', of the latest edition of Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat' upon which it was based. (pages 501-503)"

One of the first resources I saw was a nice tutorial on embedding a video on a wiki page created by Julie Lindsay. There are also many student-generated tutorials in this great site. I’ll be exploring more of them and will include them in this blog and in our own Class Wiki.

Movie Fan Mom

I’ve learned a lot about the whole book to film process by following my son’s hugely popular adventure story for young readers, The Lightning Thief, undergo that transformation. The author has very little to do with the movie, in this case and many cases, but it’s fun to anticipate how the characters will be portrayed. Here’s short movie trailer that gives me some clues – it looks exciting!
One of the amazing things is just how long it takes to get a book from manuscript to market, and once the film rights are acquired, it seems to take forever (even after the filming is completed) to get it edited and into the theatre. I understand that there are many special technical and digital effects in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – that could be part of it. The director, Chris Columbus, has also directed two of the Harry Potter movies and certainly understands the genre, so I am looking forward to the film, which is still – sigh – four months away.

Great Example of Student Network Diagram

.

This is such an outstanding semester - the students are talented and enthusiastic. Here's an example of a very comprehensive diagram of the compicated Trinity University local area network drawn using only the fairly limited tools provided by MS Word - great job, Caroline - and everyone else. You all have proven that there is more than one "right answer" to a design assignment.

The Viral Aesthetic

A discussion with Benjamin Harris, Assistant Professor and Instruction/Liaison Librarian at Trinity, about fast-spreading altered photos like the "crasher squirrel" led me to an blog entry/essay called If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead (Part Seven): Aesthetic and Structural Strategies by Henry Jenkins.
He discusses the spread of such media penomena as the Cadbury's "Gorilla" spot -- an ad featuring nothing but a life-size Cadbury-purple Gorilla belting out the drumline to Phil Collins classic "Something in the Air Tonight" which, he says, “didn't spread just because it was 'producerly'. It was also incredibly amusing. There is still truth in the notion that good, compelling content remains a crucial factor in the spreadability media.”
Read the essay, certainly, but – if you haven’t seen the gorilla on You Tube, check out his (or her??) awesome moves.

A Test of Critical Thinking

1.How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?

The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2.How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator? Wrong answer.

Correct answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous 3.

3.The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend . . .except one. Which animal does not attend?

Correct Answer : The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory.

Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.

4.There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?

Correct answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting Worldwide says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals do not have the brains of a four-year-old.

We doubt this “conclusion,” but the questions are amusing.

Article Review

Differentiating Information Skills and Computer Skills: A Factor Analytic Approach

Authors: Judith M. Pask and E. Stewart Saunders
Libraries & the Academy; Jan2004, Vol. 4 Issue 1, p61-73

For the first time this semester, the goals of the CSCI 1300 classes will be deliberately and directly aligned with the goals of Trinity’s Information Literacy Committee. This is an exciting prospect – finally, our course content will hopefully be regarded by the academic community as something more than merely teaching technical aptitude .

Those of us who have designed and taught this course have long understood that there is a vast difference between computer literacy and information literacy, and we have always included the latter as an integral part our curriculum. The following article validates the difference in these “skills” in a study conducted at Purdue University with freshmen students. Here’s a quote from the introduction:

“Many labels have been used to describe information and technology skills including information literacy, computer literacy, fluency with information technology, digital literacy, and information technology literacy--but all distinguish between the computer skills, the ability to use specific hardware and software programs, and the higher order thinking skills of information literacy. 2 Although an individual needs computer skills to be information literate, it is generally agreed that information literacy has much broader implications than computer literacy. 3”

And here is the authors’ conclusion, obvious to those of us who teach the Computer Skills course, hopefully to be renamed soon as Essential Information Technology:

“The study clearly shows that students need instruction in both skill areas. Now libraries not only have a logical rationale but also an empirically demonstrable foundation for the pursuit of information literacy programs. Librarians, in collaboration with other classroom instructors and information technology professionals, can and must develop information literate students by teaching research and evaluation skills that go beyond the mechanical skills necessary to use computers and databases.”

As we look forward to the semester, we review our revamped goal for our students – to develop hands-on innovative approaches to experiential learning, enhance critical thinking skills, understand and master tools of software applications in an academic environment and explore imaginative ways to use technology inside and outside the curriculum.

IT Literacy and E-Portfolios

Sometimes you stumble across a blog that speaks directly to you – that happened early this morning when pre-semester jitters were keeping me awake, so I checked my RSS feeds – I had actually forgotten that I had subscribed to Computer Literacy 3.0 – IT Literacy. Wow.

This blog is concerned with questions like
What skills should be included in computer literacy 3.0?
What concepts should be included in computer literacy 3.0?
Who is developing courses that teach these skills and concepts?
Should we teach computer literacy as a stand alone course or disperse it throughout the curriculum?
Does computer literacy require two full courses?
Should all students take the same computer literacy course or should there be different versions?
Is the term "computer literacy" too narrow?

Then I found the link to a discussion of e-portfolios, which literally woke me up. I read the article E-portfolios at 2.0—Surveying the Field by J. Elizabeth Clark. Wow, again. This is some of what the author writes:

“At this point, hundreds of thousands of educators around the world know that e-portfolios are digital collections of student work, defined by the mantra: collect, select, and reflect. No precise count of the number of e-portfolio initiatives in higher education has been established, but available evidence suggests that the number is high.”

and

“Today, programs like Clemson University’s psychology department are experimenting with capstone e-portfolios for graduation that connect a student’s entire general education experience at the institution with their education in a major. Spelman College is redesigning and extending its first-year electronic portfolio to address benchmarks during each college year, culminating in a capstone portfolio.”

The implications and inspiration are huge for our revamped courses in Essential Information Technology at Trinity. Look at some of the e-portfolio examples from Penn State, and you can see why I am so excited that I can't get back to sleep.

‘Scuse me, I have to go rewrite my entire curriculum and syllabus for the coming semester!

Mobile blog post sent from iPhone - nice to have unlimited texting. This would work well if I had to post w/o an Internet connection.

Welcome to a New Semester

There’s always something new going on in Essential Information Technology (CSCI 1300/03). Right now, I’m trying to get back to posting to my all-too-inactive blog by trying some new ways to send posts.

This is an introductory post sent through my personal email account to my email posting account at Blogger.com. While I’m not sure it’s the way I’ll post most often, it is a interesting alternative. I’ll also set up mobile blogging from my iPhone.

For an overview, try this article written in 2003 <!!> - it’s amazingly current:

http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/blogging/

And, as a test of emailing a post, I’ll attach a picture of our new kitten, Chico. He’s doing what most people in the 8:30 class would like to be doing. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ