EdVentures in Technology
teaching, learning and change
February 1, 2008 at 12:30 pm · Filed under Diigo Links
SMART - DT770, Features
tags: cts, interactive, monitor, psu-cts, smart, sympodium
NCSU Tech-enhanced Lectern - Wall-mounted Articulating Arm Style (800×600 JPEG) Annotated
tags: cts, lectern, psu-cts, technology
NCSU Tech-enhanced Lectern - Black Desk Style (800×600 JPEG) Annotated
tags: cts, lectern, psu-cts, technology
NCSU Tech-enhanced Lectern - Black Lab Table Style (800×600 JPEG) Annotated
tags: cts, lectern, psu-cts, technology
IET : Great Epic Cinema
tags: cts, portable-cinema, psu-cts
MILK - Innovative technology station to replace current lecterns
tags: cts, lectern, psu-cts
ClassTech at NC State | What is ClassTech?
tags: classroom, cts, psu-cts, technology
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April 11, 2007 at 11:59 pm · Filed under Twitter Log
- Still sick but at work - stuffy head, can’t think but probably not all the different from any other day…
#
- @jutecht: Sorry about your M’s but go BoSox! Dice-K throwing tonight against Hernandez. #
- WebCT support with faculty member #
- Lunch then ITS Manager’s Meeting #
- Back from meetings. Podcasting gear starting to come in. Mic stand and pop filter are in the house! #
- Still working on that Moodle book review. #
- @dnorman: I’d be interested in seeing how you are coming along with BlogBridge’s Feed Library. Trying to generate some buzz around it here. #
- @dnorman: Just saw your posted link, looks good! #
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January 17, 2007 at 12:20 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts
I’ve seen this “quiz” floating around the blogosphere for the past few days so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Now bear in mind I’m no programmer. I know enough to ID php or html in a line-up and wrote a bit of BASIC in the good old days of my TI-99A and the Trash-80 TRS-80, those silly choose your own adventure games but that’s about it. So how did I fare on this quiz? Take a look…
The description fits me to a T, but what the hell is PROLOG anyway?
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January 10, 2007 at 2:00 pm · Filed under TechTalk, Web 2.0
I’ve been testing Office 2007 for compatibility issues on our Plymouth State University campus. For those who haven’t seen the interface, it is SIGNIFICANTLY different from Office 2003 and will likely require some bridging support for those who may not enjoy being beta test guinea pigs like the rest of us! Our Office of Teaching & Learning Technologies anticipates an increase in demand for user training.
Note: All of the images below can be viewed in larger format from my Flickr account by clicking the image.
Microsoft Outlook 2007
I’ve dropped a couple of comparative screenshots of Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 below.
Image 1: 
Image 2: 
One interesting thing to note is that Outlook is the one app in the suite which doesn’t look radically different. It has the same general interface with the addition of another column on the right which provides a heads-up display of your calendar, events and tasks.
Image 3: 
Microsoft did add RSS support to their app in this version. It integrates with mail and new
posts are treated as unread mail.
Image 4: 
Here is an example of the feed from think:lab
Image 5: 
First the things I like:
- Integration with my mail client is nice although not necessarily new compared to say Thunderbird. The ability to flag items and mark them for follow-up as you would your email is convenient.
- I like the display format as it doesn’t require retraining.
- Integrates nicely with Internet Explorer 7 for finding and adding feeds.
- Outlook provides the option to download the post and any embedded files as attachments (although I don’t know that it has a particular methodology for viewing or integrating those items with its other products such as Windows Media Player mimicking iTunes podcast service.)
- There is a nice context sensitive search feature (with an additional plug-in) that makes for quick searches through your feeds.
That said, therre are a few oddities with Outlook 2007 that I find inconvenient and/or frustrating:
- It may just be my install, but it takes forever to run through a Send/Receive process as Outlook processes both your mail and feed at the same time. Not a big deal for those on high speed internet but it has the potential to bog down dial-up users.
- My Inbox feeds don’t automatically refresh, it shows I have new mail but unless I click on another category and then back to Inbox, I can’t see my new messages.
- I’d also like the option to separate my new RSS posts from my actual mail when it comes to Unread items.
- The feed view also does not seem to provide a way to view all new messages as is found in most other feed readers. You have to click on each feed individually to see the feeds. Clicking on the RSS Feeds header simply displays the screenshot seen in Image 4 above which touts the new RSS feature.
- Not all my feeds imported nicely from my OPML file. While the feeds render just fine in other readers, for some reason Outlook 07 has issues with some feed formats. I’ve seen posts around the web which mention that Outlook 2007 really depends upon Internet Explorer 7 so I did upgrade my browser to see if that would remedy the problem. I now do not have as many errors but still see a few feeds which will not render. Hmm… I sincerely hope that Microsoft is not taking a proprietary stance with its RSS reader to ensure that it only works well with IE7 rather than via other browsers and/or the copy/paste or import of feed URLs.
All in all, Outlook 2007 is an interesting development. Now I am no seer, but I do feel that the adoption of RSS in Outlook and its integration with IE7 will lead to a surge in the use of RSS, particularly among those who aren’t familiar with the technology. It may not be my primary offline feed reader as I prefer the simplicity of SharpReader but with a few improvements I might consider using it instead.
technorati tags:microsoft, outlook, 2007, msoutlook2007, rss
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January 4, 2007 at 9:41 pm · Filed under TechTalk
Ok, so we just posted about LEDs providing backlight to LCD screens in laptops and the potential for increasing battery life in systems. Now consider what it might mean to have a flash-based hard drive (or drives) in your laptop. How much more life might we eek out of the battery and how much less heat might the system produce without moving parts? Thanks to SanDisk, we’ll find out soon enough.
I’d heard rumors about flash-based hard drives before but now ZD-Net UK has posted a piece on SanDisk’s new product. These are 32GB solid-state drives, and if SanDisk is to be believed, blazingly fast.
In its own tests, SanDisk says its flash drive can boot up WindowsVista — the next version of the Windows operating system — in 35seconds, 28 seconds faster than the 55-second boot-up time requiredwith a conventional drive.
ZD-Net was quick to point out that the drives will cost about $600 initially but if we compare this to the initial cost of flash drives when they first came out and what they run now, I would venture that the cost of these drives will fall substantially as they gain a mass market.
They also mentioned that hard drive manufacturers were claiming that flash based drives were no threat to their market, but has anyone reminded them that in only a few years flash drives have grown from 16MB to 32GB?
technorati tags:flash, drive, laptop
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December 31, 2006 at 6:06 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts
I’d been thinking back on the year and was wondering what my blogging meant to me. Then through my feeds came the Top Ten meme and I thought that not only would I consider what my blogging meant to me, but what it meant to those who visited my blog this past year.
So here are the top ten most read posts for 2006, surprising to me was finding that half of them were only just recently published*:
- New 2005 ECAR Report on Students and Information Technology - ECAR published the findings based on their 2005 surveys. Re-reading the post reminds me that I never did take the time to parse their findings.
- Our new home - 2006 saw me make the move from my original wordpress.com blog to hosting my own Wordpress blog on my site. Ah, the joys of home ownership!
- News from WebCT Impact - My first, and last, Impact conference. Lots of info about what would come of the Blackboard-WebCT merger but would later pale in comparison to the press over Blackboard’s patent and subsequent lawsuit against their next leading competitor, Desire2Learn.
- Revealing the title of Harry Potter Book 7 - Only a few weeks old and already #4. It just goes to show that popular culture has its own trends and they don’t always follow yours!
- The truly world-wide web, or my blog’s travellog - This was a fun post for me as I realized the global impact that today’s netizens enjoy. What I’ve found even more meaningful is cultivating relationships with those from around the globe, opportunities that I would not have had without the reach of the web.
- Online Connectivism Conference - Another recent post which speaks to the rise in popularity of “un-conferences” such as the incredibly successful K12 Online Conference.
- Encyclopodia - Wikipedia for your iPod - Wikipedia at your fingertips, or at least as close as your iPod’s dial! But I repeat my plea for a 5g compatible version!
- Links - 4 December 2006 - This was just a list of links I wanted to remember to come back to, although looking back, I don’t believe I ever did.
- Casey Bisson receives Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration - Another open-source initiative, this time targeting the library OPAC for greater accessibility. More will come of this in the new year, with a new name. Stay tuned!
- TikiWiki as a university knowledge base - Plymouth State launched an internal knowledge base intended to serve as a point of reference for frequently utilized HelpDesk and IT information as we did not have a content management system. However as of 1 January, it will be retired as we now have a content management system, Hannon Hill’s Cascade, which we hope will launch our knowledge base into the next decade with improved authorship capabilities.
*Ok, I found out why so many of my recent posts showed so high. BSuite was showing activity in the past 15 days rather than the entire year. So I changed my selector and here is what popped up. Many are the listed above and some are downright boring but in the interest of full disclosure here are the top twelve for the full year, although two of them: Resume and About the Author are pages rather than posts.
- New 2005 ECAR Report on Students and Information Technology
Tot: 1,052, Avg: 4, Max: 20
- News from WebCT Impact
Tot: 1,040, Avg: 6, Max: 66
- Resume
Tot: 630, Avg: 2, Max: 14
- Google Calendar available
Tot: 475, Avg: 2, Max: 20
- The Ten Faces of Innovation
Tot: 438, Avg: 2, Max: 8
- About the Author
Tot: 432, Avg: 2, Max: 10
- Interesting theme problem
Tot: 426, Avg: 2, Max: 15
- Our new home
Tot: 419, Avg: 2, Max: 15
- The Highlight of My Day
Tot: 408, Avg: 1, Max: 6
- WebCT Portfolio
Tot: 357, Avg: 2, Max: 14
- We’re moving!
Tot: 350, Avg: 1, Max: 13
- Dead Air
Tot: 312, Avg: 2, Max: 7
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December 4, 2006 at 3:43 pm · Filed under Higher Education, TechTalk, Web 2.0
Woot! Woot! « MaisonBisson.com
I’d like to take a post to congratulate my colleague and fellow re-visioning conspirator Casey Bisson on his Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration. The focus of this award is his work on WPopac, a Wordpress based OPAC, or online public access catalog. The best way to understand WPopac is to read the WPopac post.
Casey’s mantra is “findability” and he often quotes Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability. His attention is directed towards more than simply making library catalogs publicly web accessible but making them more valuable by encouraging interactivity and user feedback. Although the term Web 2.0 has been hacked to death by those who love it and those who revile it, the bottom line still remains that web denizens are no longer content to be consumers when they can become contributors. WPopac looks to bridge the gap between patron and library and reinvigorate libraries in the process.
The details of his award can be found in the following press release.
Congratulations again Casey and Plymouth State University!
UPDATE:
More WPopac goodness:
From NHPR: Library Collections Could Soon Be On The Web
From the Shifted Librarian, Jenny Levine: Libary 2.0 in the Real World
From Information Wants to Be Free, Meredith Farkas: Casey Rocks…
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July 9, 2006 at 7:34 pm · Filed under Higher Education
I’m in Chicago, IL for the WebCT Impact conference held at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. I’m in a bit early as I am attending three pre-conference tutorials over the next two days:
- Exploring WebCT Portfolio - which is something our campus is currently evaluating
- Podcasting for Educators
- Building Online Community
Last year my colleagues came here as we were preparing to upgrade from our old Campus Edition 4 app to the Campus Edition 6 app. Their focus was primarily on adjusting to the new environment. Now that we are firmly enaged with CE6, I am shifting the focus to content enrichment. This will be my guiding theme for this year’s conference. If my program schedule is any indication, I may need another suitcase on the way home just for the session handouts.
If anyone out there in the blogosphere is attending, drop me a comment and we’ll catch up.
Now for the personal notes:
I’m staying at the Fairmont Hotel and all I can say is OMG! It’s a classy place just down the street from the Sheraton but you pay out the nose for everything. There is a locked but stocked bar with snacks but the prices are out of sight! As an example, they have Jack Daniels for $8.00 and small serving Pringles for $3.50. They also stock Glenlivet for $38/375ml! That’s one bar that will stay locked for my time here. And unlike smaller chains such as the Holiday Inn, Internet access is not complimentary. I’m currently paying $15/day for access. Luckily the conference will have wireless access so I may only pay tonight.
O.K. another side note, I’m dying here! The BoSox are playing the ChiSox and it’s tied at 5 in the 17th inning! What’s worse is that none of the hotel TV channels are carrying the game! Thank god for MLB Gameday - though I’m peeved that MLB doesn’t support Macs as I have a Gameday Audio subscription and I’d love to hear Joe Castiglione calling the play by play right now!
April 13, 2006 at 9:02 am · Filed under TechTalk
Seems like the big news today is the release of the Calendar app from Google. If you have a G-mail acccount, it is a simple matter of logging into calendar.google.com and accessing your account.
While this is a beta app, there are a few tweaks I’d like to see. For those of us tied to Microsoft products due to institutional arrangements, it would be great if there was a cleaner import app direct from a local calendaring agent. Here at Plymouth State we have a portal based calendar and synchronization is effected through the use of a Sun product formerly known as iPlanet and now simply called Sun ONE Synchronization. It would be great if Google provided a tie-in to support this type of linking app.
I tried using the Import feature but it only pulled in some of my events and Outlook does not support the export of recurring events, rather it converts them to one off events (painful to be sure as my recurring meetings often find themselves rescheduled due to the availability of our team members!). I believe this to be an issue with my Outlook app but it is disappointing nonetheless.
On another note, I like the ability to configure Google Calendar to email you a daily agenda and to even text message you when you have an upcoming appointment! Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out how to connect it to my Verizon provider since that is not one of their currently listed carriers. Given my chaotic lifestyle, another reminder cannot be a bad thing!
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