Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Another view of podcasting.This article from Yahoo! Technology News points out some of the shortcomings of podcasting as a delivery medium for information. You can't "skim" or speed-read a podcast. You can't add marginalia. You can't link out of one. If the only thing in the podcast is information, people are going to be bored to tears, they are going to hate being chained to that iPod, they are going to want to take notes (which they can't do if they listen while they drive, jog, wait in the bank line) and then they are back to a piece of paper again. What was the point? Here's what I get from this: Don't make podcasting a solution in search of a problem. To me, the value of the human voice is in the emotion, the conviction, and the nuance it can convey. Use podcasts to give the big picture, not the details. Use podcasts to tickle the imagination of the listener, to get awareness, to generate interest. Use podcasts to persuade or to convince, to call to action. Use podcasts to entertain. But don't use podcasts to make your lectures portable, to provide dense technical information, or to give directions. Podcasting for Business: Next Big Thing? (NewsFactor). NewsFactor - IBM's (NYSE: IBM) announcement that it has embraced podcasting for delivering information to investors has sparked discussion in the industry over whether the technology is the next big communication medium or simply a gone-tomorrow trend. [Yahoo! News: Technology News] 2:43:50 PM 
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e-Textbooks.Lots of issues here. First, the stores are only offering a one-third discount on the books. So a $30 textbook will "only" cost you $20 to rent for five months. If you have to re-take the course, you get to rent it again for another $20. If you are in a "101/201" course where the prof uses the same textbook for both parts, you are going to pay $40 for use of a $30 book. You can't sell the textbook back. etc etc etc Not to mention that many textbooks are overpriced to begin with ... the academic version of the music CD business. They need to do better than this. How about renting the e-version for $10 per semester? or a 90 percent discount? Coming to campus: E-books with expiration dates. Bookstores at Princeton, University of Utah and others are offering bargain textbook downloads that expire after five months. [CNET News.com] 2:23:47 PM
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What happens to m-Learning when your mobile phone is a thin client?Quoting from the interview: "What about mobility? Oops. Hello? Thin clients: So out, they're in?. Wyse Technology CEO John Kish says history is coming full circle and thin client computing is about to get a second chance at the big time. [CNET News.com] 2:15:38 PM
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Flash 8.Flash 8 to begin shipping next month. Macromedia says the software offers improvements for authoring Web video and content for mobile devices. [CNET News.com] 11:43:50 AM
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More reasons to have a weblog.comScore Study Dissects Blogosphere, Finds Ad Audience. That blog visitors "are disproportionately likely to be affluent, young and broadband-enabled" - and therefore a demographically appealing target for advertisers - is one of the major findings of a... 10:40:08 AM
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More on losing the rights to your intellectual property.University as Author? - David Epstein, Inside Higher Ed. The Kansas Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Kansas Board of Regents has to negotiate its intellectual property policy in the future, or whether it can simply hand down a decree – even one that asserts ownership of all faculty work. If the court [Online Learning Update] 10:38:59 AM
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Move your thinking out of the classroom box.Schrage: Don't think of distance learning as just automation - Eric Kleefeld, Wisconsin Technology. Distance learning is about more than just doing the usual lessons away from a physical classroom, says Michael Schrage. Rather, technology is a medium that opens up whole new questions about what is taught, how it is taught, and what the relationship shou [Online Learning Update] 10:37:52 AM
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Quoting George Siemens: Internet Literacies.I just had a chance to view Will Richardson's powerpoint presentation on New Internet Literacies. A great overview of what's happened with how we approach knowledge creation and use. Will accurately captures the shift to "end user in control" (he terms it as the read/write web), and introduces the tools that have made the shift possible. [elearnspace]10:36:31 AM
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Computer-on-a-Stick.Got to wonder if this wouldn't have m-Learning potential! The Computer-On-a-Stick (COS) is a USB Flash Drive featuring its own Onboard Operating System together with a full suite of Microsoft Office-compatible applications; Mozilla Firefox Web Browser, Evolution email, and Yahoo & MSN compatible Instant Messenger for superior Internet connectivity; plug into your PC or Laptop and instantly transform your old environment into a new and powerful secure workstation - without a hard disk! Users get all the benefits of a thin client solution without changing their existing PC hardware or software. [FingerGear] Update -- Alternate Point of View [MAKE: Blog]: You can do this yourself for less than $149, and the COS really isn't a computer. GeekBlog.nl explains how here.Or: Get an Ubuntu H2 bootable USB 3GB hard drive with Ubuntu Linux and Open Office pre-installed. 135 EUR here. What any of these three alternatives do is to give you a dedicated environment that you can plug into any USB-bootable PC. The OS on the PC doesn't matter -- when you boot up from the device, you will be in a Linux environment. But I still wonder if it doesn't have some potential for m-Learning applications. 10:24:56 AM
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Podcasting with QuickTime 7.How to create an audio podcast by using Apple's own Quicktime. 10:17:55 AM
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WigiWigi.WigiWigi is the first public release of a video over IP application that is built on a completely new and unique protocol. Unlike other desktop videoconferencing applications, WigiWigi one does not require any specific DLLs, drivers, codecs, DirectX or dedicated third-party libraries. It doesn't even require an installation. WigiWigi has just entered its beta-testing phase and the GUI (user interface) is still crude and semi-functional - but the results on your screen may indeed surprise you very positively. Download WigiWigi here. http://www.wigiwigi.com/ [Robin Good] 10:15:41 AM
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WPanorama.Wpanorama allows smooth navigation of panoramic photographs by letting you pre-set viewing pans and zooms over them. WPanorama allows vertical and horizontal scrolling over any large standard photographic image as well as on 360° digital virtual panoramas (many available on the site). 10:14:02 AM
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ScreenHunter 4.ScreenHunter is a graphic utility for PC Windows computers capable of capturing your screen contents while providing lots of controls and flexible options. ScreenHunter can easily capture rectangle, window and full screen areas with or without including your mouse pointer. Screen captures can be saved in BMP, JPEG and GIF graphic file formats. 10:12:27 AM
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Competencies and training for online instructors."The focus of this paper is to;
Competencies of an online educator. Fifty-One Competencies for Online Instruction (.pdf) (via Jane Knight) - While I'm generally not a big fan of checklists (I'm more fond of "guiding principles" - they are intentionally less prohibitive at the application level, giving the educator greater freedom), this is a useful paper for new online instructors. Some of the competencies are quite vague (like "harness technology"), and measurement criteria is not included. [elearnspace]10:06:11 AM
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In case you missed this in yesterday's announcement.Macromedia drops FreeHand from bundle. The popular tool won't be included in the company's Studio 8 suite of products. [CNET News.com] 10:00:55 AM
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Last update: 10/8/2005; 1:09:06 PM .
