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Tuesday, July 10, 2007
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Instrumented GIMP To Identify Usability Flaws. Mike writes "New users of the GIMP often become frustrated at the application's unwieldy user interface. Now Prof. Michael Terry and a group of researchers at the University of Waterloo have created ingimp, a modified version of the GIMP that collects real-time usability data in order to help the GIMP developers find and fix its usability problems. Terry recently gave a lecture about ingimp and the data it collects. During each session, ingimp records events such as document creation, window manipulation, and tool use. A log of these events is sent to the ingimp server for analysis. The project hopes to answer questions such as 'What is the typical monitor resolution of a GIMP user?' and 'Is the GIMP used primarily for photo editing or drawing?'"
Read more of this story [Slashdot]
1:46:28 PM 
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FCC Head Wants New Wireless Devices Unlocked. [TheBORG] writes with news that FCC chairman Kevin Martin wants 700-MHz wireless devices and services to be unlocked. Spectrum auctions for the 700-MHz airwaves, being opened up for fixed and mobile broadband, are scheduled for early next year. "The proposed rules would apply only to the spectrum being auctioned, not the rest of the wireless business, which still makes most of its revenue from voice calls. But Martin's proposal, if adopted by the FCC, could reverberate through a U.S. wireless industry that has tightly controlled access to devices and services... Like most devices sold in the USA, the iPhone ... allows only features and applications that Apple and AT&T (T) provide and works only with an AT&T contract. The FCC chairman said he has grown increasingly concerned that the current practices 'hamper innovations' dreamed up by outside developers. One example:... 'Internationally, Wi-Fi handsets have been available for some time,' Martin noted. 'But they are just beginning to roll out here.'"Read more of this story at [Slashdot]
12:48:16 PM
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I am finally back to blogging a little and aggregating a little. I was sidelined with Shingles in February and again in May and it as left me with a whole new perspective on pain. In an ongoing effort to work through it an move forward I have begun a couple of pain related initiatives: an ACT-R pain module with Terry Stewart (the Guru behind PythonACT-R) and a Virtual Pain Clinic in Second Life with David Kaufman. All in all the recovery road is a long and slow progression as the original pains are replaced with phantom pains of lessor intensity and frequency. On the up-side I discovered that there is now a Shingles vaccination that I would highly recommend to those who sometimes think of retirement. The fundamental progress on scientific understanding how shingles virus functions and what occasions an episode is poorly understood but in any event you do not want to experience one. -- Bruce Landon
12:45:53 PM
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The Psychology of Facebook Examined. jg21 writes "In this analysis of the psychology of Facebook, a British FB user makes some telling points about how simple the reasons behind its success are. Among them, fear of 'online social failure' features prominently. From the article: 'Facebook also digs away at the insecurities in people...your peers can see your profile on Facebook, and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number, confirming your worst fears about the low opinion they have probably held of you over all those years etc.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 [Slashdot]
11:09:59 AM
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Yale to Make Selected Course Lectures Open. Inside Higher Education reports on Yale's project to make selected course lectures openly available to non-registered students and calls the project "The Next Step in Open Source." Of course, lecture materials have been made available from other universities such as MIT, Harvard, and UC Berkeley, so Yale's decision is not the first step in this direction, but it is important as part of the opencourseware movement to have a major university supported by a major foundation (Hewlett) commit to making full lecture materials systematically available for some of its courses. Instructors and students outside Yale who access the materials will undoubtedly benefit from having more content than they could find in just syllabi, quizzes, and course notes. _____JH
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"In 2001, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology started placing materials for its courses online--and making them available for anyone to use, at no cost. OpenCourseWare, which currently contains materials for 1,400 courses, has been a huge success, and thousands of people use the MIT materials each day.
The MIT project and others like it--such as Connexions, at Rice University--are based on the model of putting curricular materials online, but not the actual courses (although a few professors at MIT, Rice and elsewhere have put videos of their lectures online).
On Tuesday, Yale University announced that it would be starting a version of an open access online tool for those seeking to gain from its courses. But the basis of the Yale effort will be video of actual courses--every lecture of the course, to be combined with selected class materials. The money behind the Yale effort is coming from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which was an early backer of MIT’s project, and which sees the Yale project as a way to take the open course idea to the next level." [EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online]
8:49:36 AM
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Real World Learning Objects Resource Library. The RWLO repository contains instructional resources for Community College teachers. The library is searchable and browsable, with resources categorized into four broad subject areas: Mathematics, Science, Teacher Education and Educational Technology, and Language Arts. This resource should be useful for both teachers and students. The RWLO site includes a Technical FAQ and links to other online repositories for instructional resources. _____JH
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Real World Learning Objects are concise core instructional internet-based activities focused on discrete topics in higher education mathematics, science, educational technology, and language arts. They utilize unique and compelling (real time data, collaborative, primary source, or web publishing) resources that are easily used in similar courses at other institutions of higher education and focus on inquiry-based and/or problem-solving activities that are relevant to students.
Specifically, each RWLO has following eight (8) components:
- Overview: Provide a short overview of the RWLO
- Student Learning Objectives: List the specific student learning objectives that will be addressed by the RWLO. Similar to lesson objectives, these can be written in the form of “The Student Will be Able To…” if desired. Most RWLOs will have more than one student learning objective. Consideration should be given to splitting the RWLO into multiple RWLOs if the number of student learning objectives and lesson materials can be divided into more than one discrete instructional topic.
- Procedure: Provide the overall procedure for implementing the RWLO. This section is a set of written instructions for the instructor about the instructional use of the RWLO and serves as the instructor’s manual for teaching with the RWLO. For example, the procedure may contain instructions for how to use as part of a lecture or as a homework assignment. Or the procedure may have instructions for how to implement as small group work or as an individual hands-on assignment. Any additional background information for the instructor about the RWLO should be included in this section. The Procedure section describes what the instructor does, and when and how student materials may be used in the instructional sequence. The procedure lists the student materials in the context of the instructional sequence. This is not to be confused with the instructions for student materials. The specific student instructions are found in the actual student materials, which are found in the Content Materials section.
- Content Materials: The Content Materials section contains the course content material that students will use for the RWLO. It will contain the resources and specific instructions that students will use for this lesson. For example, it may contain an assignment for students to complete, data for students to analyze, materials or documents cited in the RWLO (when appropriate), or questions for students to answer. Any content material that students would need for their assignment would be provided here
- Assessment: Describe how student work for the RWLO will be assessed. It is recommended that each RWLO provide a sample assessment or rubric for assessing student work.
- Course Competencies: When possible, name the specific courses titles for which the RWLO would be appropriate and provide a list or links to the course competencies that are satisfied by the RWLO. As a minimum, identify the course(s) for which this RWLO might be appropriate and a list or links to the course competencies. The course competencies may or may not be more general in nature than the student learning objectives.
- Supplementary Resources: Links or references to material that can be used as supplementary resources such as background information, online calculators, or information for further exploration into the topic.
- Recommendations: Provide recommendations for how other instructors might integrate this RWLO into inquiry-based or problem-solving activities, where appropriate. Other recommendations for integrating the RWLO into course material may also be included here as well as “lessons learned” from a prior implementation. Additionally, it is recommended that backup instructions for using the RWLO in class with students be provided here in the case that the Internet becomes inaccessible during class time or if particular web sites used in the RWLO are down.
[EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online]
8:48:15 AM
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StatCounter--Statistics Tracker for Weblogs and Other Web Sites. I want to pass along Scott Leslie's EdTechPost review and recommendation about StatCounter, a free web-based statistics tracker for website. I've started using StatCounter with this EduResources Weblog and found it extremely useful. The script code is easy to install in a weblog and StatCounter is free of pop-ups. In the past I've used commercial tools for tracking hits on my web sites, but StatCounter does all I need now and does it efficiently. ___JH
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StatCounter - great free web tracker (and why that's important).
As Stephen pointed out, a little while ago this blog began launching annoying pop-up windows on visitors' browsers. Unbeknowst to me, the free stats program that I had used had a little clause in its user agreement that stated at any time it could choose to use the tracking image and code embedded in your page to launch advertising. Whoa. Not nice. As soon as I realized what was going on, I ditched the tracking code and I believe the problem resolved.
So the downside of that (on top of tarnishing my reputation with annoying pop-up ads) is loosing a few years of stats, but the upside was finding a better solution. I like the web-based model, a simple program that I can check once in a while online and not have to worry about web log analysis. So off I went in search.
I knew a lot of people I read used Sitemeter so I quickly installed it. It worked fine, but the major drawback for me was that the free version did not aggregate the referrer stats, which is for me a primary reason for looking at these numbers in the first place.
I had been running Google Analytics for some time too in the background, mostly to get a feel for how it worked and if it was useful on other sites I deal with, so it didn't require me to do anything other than see if the reports it produced were to my liking. I can see how Google Analytics could be really useful if you are using Adwords and are trying to analyze and improve how you drive traffic to your site, but I found the reports overkill for what I was wanting. So off to other options.
Which led me finally to StatCounter which is what I've settled on. Why? Well, the tracking code is invisible. It does a good job of giving me one click access to aggregated referrer data and gives the option of showing these by URL or Title. And it gives you some "Path" data. Nice. But the icing on the cake was its Recent Visitor map. Sure, this looks at first like the kind of thing you get with GVisit, but click on any of the map pointers and you realize that it is actually mashing up the IP geolocation data with the referrer info, session length and search term data. Sweet!
So lots of the function of these free web trackers can be relegated to a service like Technorati, and I know that is how some bloggers get some of this data. What's interesting to me, though, is how little I've seen written on the use of web stats to build your social network. I see lots of people introducing blogging to newbies, but I also see lots of puzzlement on those newcomers faces about why blogging is essentially a social process, and how they can become embedded in existing networks. To me, web trackers (and services like Technorati) represent one side of the equation - how to find out who is reading you and how people are finding you. The other side seems obvious, and yet many fail to grasp - point to others, as they are looking at their referrer logs too! While some might look on this as evidence of the essential vanity of bloggers, I'd argue that it is instead a critical aspect to becoming a good (read "connected" or "social") blogger and an emerging online 'social' skill.
So please, someone, tell me if I ever start popping up annoying ads on your browser again. I promise, this is something I would never do intentionally! Ick! Luckily, it seems like it's as anathema to StatCounter's creator as it is to me. - SWL [EdTechPost] [EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online]
8:46:29 AM
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© Copyright
2007
Bruce Landon.
Last update:
8/1/2007; 8:29:03 AM.
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