June 2005 Archives

As part of publishing an article in Innovate: Journal of Online Education, authors lead a webcast. It was a good opportunity for me, as I've been looking at Macromedia Breeze for a number of months and thinking about how to use it with the summer class I am teaching. From our LTC page on software resources, we describe Breeze as:

Type Synchronous Communication, Video and Audio Conferencing Description Macromedia Breeze provides an online meeting place through the web. Breeze Live works through Macromedia Flash. Bring PowerPoint slides, digital video, FlashPaper documents, Flash simulations, and other types of media into live meetings. Interact and collaborate chat with a few or broadcast to many. Share applications, screens, images and documents with participants. Easily transfer files to facilitate collaborations. Use integrated tools to whiteboard or overlay annotations on slides, video and other content. Gather real-time feedback through polls.

For the presentation I prepared a little Powerpoint presentation that anyone attending the Breeze meeting could see and spoke into my mic to stream audio to the meeting attendees. As I spoke, they could type in questions or comments in the chat space. There was a moderator who could answer some questions in the chat space or take control of the audio, make a comment or ask me to expand on a particular point.

Overall it worked out fairly well. Being that we were information technologists or instructors using technology, we were not as critical of the technical glitches due to bandwidth. The UA has a huge pipe for bandwidth, thanks to our connection to the I2 Abilene Network. However, others could experience far more latency in the streaming due to their connections. This is the one big reason I didn't want to hold regular class meetings using Breeze with my online class this summer.

Innovate will have a link to the webcast up soon. If you visit the site (and log in) you'll see a link to a page listing all the past webcasts. With five issues appearing at this time, there are quite a few and I bet there are some that you will find interesting. There is only a little bit of tweaking you'll need to do to your PC to make Breeze work with it. Check it out.

"Instructional Blogging: Promoting Interactivity, Student-Centered Learning, and Peer Input," is now available in Innovate: Journal of Online Education, vol.1, no. 5, June/July 2005. As you can tell from the volume number, Innovate is a new journal. If you've not been to the site yet, do check it out. The articles are quite good, and provide a mix of application and innovation with scholarship. You will need to create a username and password but that only takes 30 seconds. Comments on my article are welcome. Here is the synopsis that appears on Innovate:

Stuart Glogoff expounds on the educational applications of blogs—simple Web pages that can have surprisingly complex classroom applications. Situating his commentary in the context of pedagogical theory, Glogoff outlines the ways in which blogs can enable receptive learning, directive learning, and guided discovery. Reflecting on successful practices in his own classroom, he also reveals how blogs can build community, promote interactivity, and increase student comprehension. This account of blogging technology as a learning tool provides models that instructors of both online and hybrid courses will find helpful.

With the long flights of the past weekend, and on the heels of doing some relaxing reading after too long a time of "work stuff," I read three histories that I can recommend to people who like non-fiction and particulary history slash biography.

The first I found truly fascinating and can't say enough about. I was in the UA bookstore picking up the copy of James Zull's Art of the Changing Brain and noticed A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer The Life of William Dampier, written by Diana Preston & Michael Preston. I think I found William Dampier's life to be the most incredible story since reading Endurance: Shakleton's Incredible Voyage, Krakauer's Thin Air, and Junger's Perfect Storm a few summers back. But most amazing is that his name seems to be hardly ever mentioned. One reason seems to be that he was branded solely a buccaneer and historians of later generations tended to dismiss him for that reason alone.

Once I finished A Pirate, I picked up Rubicon: The Last Year's of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland. This book begins with the origins of the Roman Republic and takes the reader through Octavian's finishing off its final remnants. Holland is an excellent writer and this history just flows. I'm going to look for other books by Holland. The third book I read, on the flight home yesterday, is Norman Cantor's The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era. Cantor uses John of Gaunt as the central figure around which he describes life in the 14th century and explains how the 14th century was a transitional period leading to the Renaissance and Age of Exploration.

I was flew to Philly Friday and was flipping through the America West in-flight magazine for June 2005. There is a short article called "iPodology" in the Gadgets&Gear section. It gave short blurbs with photos to seven devices that one can purchase for use with an iPod.

• H20 Audio SV iMini to enclose your iPod in a waterproofcase
• Voice Recorder
• TuneDoc iPod holder fits in your cars cup holder
• Universal Microphone Adapter
• Altec Lansing inMotion--docks your iPod in an 8" wide portable stereo system. Listen on the patio or take it with you on the road.
• TuneCast II FM Transmitter
• Digital Camera Link

I have a device with my iPod that I bought at the UA Bookstore that is similar to the TuneCast. (I forget the manufacturer's name) Like the TuneCast, it lets you select any one of scores of FM frequencies so you can play your iPod on you car's stereo. If you find Tucson radio stations as pathetic as I do, or if you find yourself driving I10 regularly, then this is a terrific acquisition.