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

Colleges Struggle to Keep 'Smart' Classrooms Up to Date? Not at Trinity!

Recently (10.17.08), the Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the frustration professors in many colleges and university are feeling about the lack of maintenance and upgrades to the so-called “smart” classrooms that were built a decade or so ago. Carl Pletsch, assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado, says the situation has gotten so bad that administrators "are now discouraging faculty members from using technology because they can't predict if it is going to work." Another professor quoted in the article noted that "The smart classrooms are now dumb.They have not been upgraded or adequately maintained."

Trinity’s commitment, by contrast, is impressive. Classroom computers and software are routinely and effectively updated. In our classroom, for example, we were experiencing a software problem. I requested help, and one of our IT staff was there, in person, in minutes. This reflects both a philosophical attitude and financial investment in providing the best for Trinity students.

Last week, my students paid a visit to the updated AT&T Center for Learning and Technology, which is available to all students. Their blog entries reflect the kind of impressive information literacy opportunities Trinity offers.

“It still completely astonishes me when I look around and see how technically advanced Trinity University is. Sure, it is a university and should be able to offer its students the best technology for their own personal educational advancements, but it has truly gone beyond that expectation.”
~Angel Dominguez, First-Year

“The Technology Classroom (Library 310) seats 27 in a three-tiered semicircle. Each student workstation has a computer connected to a switching system that allows the instructor to take keyboard, mouse & monitor control of or all student computers as desired.”
~Jen Wight, First-Year

“Each station is comprised of a group of computers, and each station has a different focus. This is the area primarily available for student use. Here you will find the latest hardware and software. All of the computers here are equipped with the full Adobe suite for all kinds of projects. For video editing, the Apple computers are equipped with iMovie and the PCs are equipped with Sony Vega. There isn't much one couldn't do in the studios to make an impressive presentation. I could use these studios to create and/or edit a video or multimedia presentation for this or another class.”
~Jordan Enloe, Junior

Web 2.0 and the New Semester

The new semester is almost here. I’m excited, anxious, and looking forward to working with new students, new colleagues and new challenges.
When I started teaching at Trinity five years ago, I did not incorporate blogs, wikis or any other aspects of Web 2.0 as part of the Computer Skills curriculum. I had not heard of podcasts or You Tube (which apparently didn’t really exist until April of 2005).
Now, one of the first things we do is to set up our class blogs in order to share thoughts and reflections about the class content, lab activities, and material from guest presenters. We also use the Class Wiki almost immediately to add to the body of knowledge that we’re developing.
Brad DeLong, Professor of Economics at Berkeley, has described has described the academic blogosphere as a kind of Invisible College. Students (and instructors) who blog and contribute to wikis within a higher education environment should probably keep this in mind. It’s not Facebook, although Facebook is definitely another way to share information. In fact, some professors are apparently using as part of a classroom experiment ("Academic Facebook: Lessons learned so far")
Our classroom blogs and wikis are here to stay. We are part of a dynamic academic community, and we’re all in this together.

Collage: Art or Theft

I recently came across an interesting blog developed by Peter Friedman and the students in his Legal Analysis & Writing classes at Case Western Reserve University of Law during the spring 2008 semester. The posts navigate the tricky waters of Fair Use and artistic license to parody, incorporate and generally use existing material in a new and original manner.

As a graphic designer, I often incorporate snippets of existing images into digital collages for personal and commercial work. Is this theft? The image used as an example in this discussion is a collage by Robert Rauschenberg that combines (possibly copyrighted?) partial images to make an artistic statement about the political and social turmoil of the 1960's (on right).

The blogger says, "Artists who routinely appropriate, on the other hand, are not attempting to profit from the marketability of their subjects at all. They are using elements, fragments, or pieces of someone else's created artifact in the creation of a new one for artistic reasons. These elements may remain identifiable, or they may be transformed to varying degrees as they are incorporated into the new creation, where there may be many other fragments all in a new context, forming a new 'whole'. This becomes a new 'original', neither reminiscent of nor competitive with any of the many 'originals' it may draw from. This is also a brief description of collage techniques which have developed throughout this century, and which are universally celebrated as artistically valid, socially aware, and conceptually stimulating to all, it seems, except perhaps those who are 'borrowed' from. "

It seems that this could be taken further, perhaps past the realm of two-dimensional collage to multimedia productions of various kinds which use parts of existing video, music or still photography in combination as part of an "original" project.

I don't know how I'd feel if my own work were borrowed and transformed - it's an interesting question, and one that probably produces more controversy that it does answers.

“Clicking in the Classroom” Delivers

In a March 28 commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled How to Find What Clicks in the Classroom , Judith Tabron writes, “I'm surprised at how low the adoption rates of technology really are. Colleges and universities have ended programs that rewarded early adopters for trying the latest gee-whiz thing. At the same time, many of my IT colleagues still give presentations on gee-whiz technologies that they built in the hope that someone would come.”
Tabron, director of faculty computing services at Hofstra University, finds that not much has changed since the mid 90’s when universities spent a lot of money adopting class management systems such a Blackboard. Their bit for Instructional Technology was done. But as Tabron points out, these systems do not facilitate true academic interaction. Basically, they deliver the course content on a computer screen with the same old instructions – read it, absorb it and review it.
In order for this to change, she says, “IT-staff members with teaching experience and an understanding of the mission of liberal-arts education need a place in which to demonstrate the latest technologies. And they need both space and time to help professors develop new types of lessons, assignments, and grading methods that can fundamentally change how teaching and learning happen.” Unfortunately, they often end up fixing printers.
It would be tempting to quote her entire commentary – it’s that good. Here, for example, is her final thought in this short but inspiring article:“Our students live online. They fall in love, they shop, they order pizza on the Web. Their iPods, TV's, and Xboxes are sophisticated technologies. They instant-message their blogs from their cellphones, and they can't picture college having a place in any of this, because we haven't shown them that it can. It will be a dismal future if the only thing our graduates cannot do online is learn.”
Read How to Find What Clicks in the Classroom – and you will be ready to listen, talk, challenge, answer, try, fail, try again.

Gimmick or Godsend?

From The Wired Campus, February 5, 2008:

“The smart pen that Wired Campus flagged back in May was unveiled last week at a technology conference in Palm Springs, Calif. The company behind it, LiveScribe, has been aggressively marketing the device to college students with the slogan ‘Never miss a word.’”

I took the link and watched the demo video. It looks impressive, it looks like fun. It’s basically a combination recording machine and camera. Students can take lecture notes while a minirecorder, embedded in the pen, records whatever is being said. Later, the user can touch the pen to a specific spot on the notes page and listen to a recording of the instructor speaking those words. A tiny camera links what is being written to what is being recorded.

The comments following the article are definitely worth a read – how well does it work, what are the ethical implications, and, my favorite, “Reading course materials and paying attention in class are the right solutions, unless the problem is to show how rich your parents are.”

On the other hand, as an educator who worked in special education for many years, I can see that it might be a useful tool for students with learning disabilities who need additional resources to process and review information.

Take the link, watch the video, and see whether the smart pen is for you! It will apparently be available just in time for this year’s fall semester.