August 2005 Archives

A new Web document is available for instructors and faculty interested in how blogging is being used at the UA in instruction. Instructional Blogging Best Practices & Case Studies describes how this easy to use technology is flexible enough to suit a number of different pedagogical styles and learning objectives. Comments are welcome.

For the course I taught this summer for the School of Information Resources & Library Science, I introduced podcasts. If you are not familiar with podcasting, they are basically MP3 audio files that can be downloaded directly from a webpage and played on a computer or wrapped in an RSS feed that one subscribes to through a "podcatcher," such as is found in iTunes, and then played on a computer or sync'ed to an MP3 player. If you go to my course homepage and scroll down a little you will see how I presented them to students. I created one for each course content module -- five total -- and they ranged from 8 minutes to 21 minutes.

Listen to my podcast about my doing the podcasts for the course and an overview of the results from the students surveys. View survey breakdown

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Update: after a week of using Pluck, I uninstalled it. It was fine for news feeds but I found it messed up my podcatching.

A colleague of mine here in the Center alerted me to an article in yesterday's USA Today entitled "RSS feeds college students' diet for research." One of the two resources written about is Pluck. I think it is a great way to manage your RSS feeds, including your students' blogs.

Here's what it says on the Firefox extensions page about Pluck.

Using Pluck, you can easily navigate between the RSS Reader and Bookmark Manager via an integrated sidebar. Via a free subscription service, you can synchronize your RSS Feeds and bookmarks across multiple computers at work or at home.

I have Pluck installed on my Firefox and IE browsers now and after only five minutes of using it I can wholeheartedly recommend trying it out. You can download it for your browsers and you really only need to set up an account. do check it out when you get a little time to explore.

Here is something new from the Syllabus 2005 conference that I attended last week. Campus Technology reporters interviews with attendees at the conference and videos of all the keynotes are up on the Web.

FYI, the keynotes title/presenter were:

Technology Initiatives to Move the Campus Forward by Tracy Futhey, Duke U.
From a Different Perspective by Diana Oblinger, Educause
Coming Face2Face with Synchronous Learning, by Judith Boettcher, consultant UFLA
From the Digital Campus to the Connected City, by Lev S. Gonick, CIO Case Western U.
Emerging Technologies--What's on the Horizon? a panel
Orchestrating the IT Enterprise--The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, by Barbara White, CIO UGA
Technology in Education--Past, Present, and Future, panel moderated by Victor Edmonds

Yesterday I published my report re: Syllabus 2005 in L.A. last week. I enjoyed the conference on several levels--location, day trip to UCLA, and a number of interesting presentations that spurred ideas. I had 5 post-its with 3-4 ideas noted on each.

Syllabus conferences spend the first day at a near-by university where researchers from that institution present about their projects. UCLA is a beautiful campus and leaving behind 37 straight days over 100 degrees for L.A.'s terrific temps only added to my enjoyment.



During our lunch break I was able to take myself on a walking tour of campus featuring a mini-tour of the Powell Library. The Lawrence Clark Powell has special meaning to the UA because Powell retired to Tucson and was involved in founding the library school here. He also was a major scholar on the literature of the Southwest. Powell Library is an architectural beauty in its own right. The walking tour handout I had included this about the library:

"Powell Library, the main undergraduate library, is another striking example of Romanesque architecture. The octagonal tower resembles the Church of the St. Sepolcro in Bologna, Italy, and the entrance is based on the Church of San Zenove in Verona, Italy."

I also presented at the conference and you can view my presentation [PDF 1.5MB] too. Questions and comments are always welcome.