Thursday, October 16, 2008
Final presentation: Creative and Educational Possibilities of Virtual Worlds.
Doug Anderson -- Seventh Grade art teacher. Notes that these are the college students of tomorrow.
Never another big thing, just lots of little things. Second Life won't replace another medium like TV replaced radio
SL has a 90% churn rate -- lots of folks try, few stay. High cost of entry vis-a-vis time, ramp-up.
Hmm. If this is an intro to SL session, it probably should have come before Evan Leek's session. Still, it's a good thing to have.
How SL works:
Client-server model. As in many MMO games, etc. Client software is the "viewer." Server generates virtual world.
Avatars -- characters. Ability to customize, run 'em as bots, etc.
Content creation -- can build, etc (sorry for going light on this, but this is what I consider basic SL -- or even MMORPG -- knowledge).
Navigation -- Walking for short distances or indoors, flying for outdoors. Teleportation eliminates the idea of "distance," and SLURLS (Second-life urls) allow links.
Economy -- Linden Dollar (L$). About 250L$ per US$. Can be bought and sold. Some people make full-time living creating and selling virtual goods.
Prim Economy -- given selection of land can support only so many polygons.
Accounts are free, but owning land costs money.
Communication -- text-chat local public, or IM. Voice chat - spatial, direct line. Avatar gestures can apply.
Land can be owned by multiple folks, thus there can be shared spaces.
History -- Ars Memoriae -- the art of memory. Ancient idea of creating a house in the mind with mnemonic ideas.
Piranei -- imagines spaces.
Dungeons and Dragons -- shared imagined spaces. Needed a system for resolving actions. Led into MUDS, MUSHs, etc.
Killer Apps (what is SL good for)? Remote Collaboration, serial design, water cooler.
Visualization -- fast sketching in 3d. Creating and saving multiple iterations of objects (I'm taking his word for it; all I've ever created are random and ugly polygons).
Art -- can create art piece, allows for almost every concept. "Where SL shines." "Purely conceptual realm."
Identity, Culture, and Ethics lab. "Like being on the Vegas strip." Frontier-town feeling. Identity is freed from appearance (really? I'd say it's more that you choose the appearance, but it's an essential part of the identity). "Chat room with a view."
What do you do on the second day? Major reason people get bored.
Pitfalls: First hour experience. Too much, too soon for most folks. Bus Station Approach to new folks. Institutions need to manage the avatar creation process.
Corporate America's attempts to us SL: AMerican Apparal, The Gap, etc set up areas. Hanging out a shingle isn't enough to impress me (why go to the American Apparel SL site instead of the American Apparel website). Store concept just doesn't work. Geograhy metaphor doesn't work in SL.
SL isn't a city, but a movie studio backlot. Lots of empty places.
Internal audience fallacy. Not many users.
Changing rooms in a fake store -- simulation over utility. Places can be beautiful, but not useful.
Proprietary environment. Zoning laws being adopted. Intellectual Property issues.
What does work? Sandbox -- public area where folks can build, and other folks help them.
Need an event-driven model (not a place-driven one). Scheduled meetings, etc.
Contents from external sources.
Sloodle -- import content from Moodle page into Second Life.
Trends
Sculpted objects (better than polygons), faster scripting, voice chat, more internationalizaion (75% from outside the US). Tech issues -- concurrency (major lag!), interoperability (avatars moving system to system), reliability (stuff gets lost).
Competition -- open source version being made, browser-based worlds (Lively, Wonderland, there.com).
Small group of core believers, but too much churn amongst casual users. Concern that there's no long tail of SL.
SL Username: Blackthorn Hare
Now we're visiting virtual Princeton. Three full sims, not a single person currently on. Example of a great site, but pointless.
"If you like to wait, then you'll really love Second Life."
Showing a giant egg sculpture. Created by making one block, which in turn scripted its own duplicates.
Finishes with showing his own piece, a little floating island with an orbiting moon and pool. And one last piece -- a giant star with stuff orbiting it, that can be modified and folded in to create a giant throne. As an artist, the ability to bring any concept into virtual reality is appealing (understandably) to him.
Time to head home!
Doug Anderson -- Seventh Grade art teacher. Notes that these are the college students of tomorrow.
Never another big thing, just lots of little things. Second Life won't replace another medium like TV replaced radio
SL has a 90% churn rate -- lots of folks try, few stay. High cost of entry vis-a-vis time, ramp-up.
Hmm. If this is an intro to SL session, it probably should have come before Evan Leek's session. Still, it's a good thing to have.
How SL works:
Client-server model. As in many MMO games, etc. Client software is the "viewer." Server generates virtual world.
Avatars -- characters. Ability to customize, run 'em as bots, etc.
Content creation -- can build, etc (sorry for going light on this, but this is what I consider basic SL -- or even MMORPG -- knowledge).
Navigation -- Walking for short distances or indoors, flying for outdoors. Teleportation eliminates the idea of "distance," and SLURLS (Second-life urls) allow links.
Economy -- Linden Dollar (L$). About 250L$ per US$. Can be bought and sold. Some people make full-time living creating and selling virtual goods.
Prim Economy -- given selection of land can support only so many polygons.
Accounts are free, but owning land costs money.
Communication -- text-chat local public, or IM. Voice chat - spatial, direct line. Avatar gestures can apply.
Land can be owned by multiple folks, thus there can be shared spaces.
History -- Ars Memoriae -- the art of memory. Ancient idea of creating a house in the mind with mnemonic ideas.
Piranei -- imagines spaces.
Dungeons and Dragons -- shared imagined spaces. Needed a system for resolving actions. Led into MUDS, MUSHs, etc.
Killer Apps (what is SL good for)? Remote Collaboration, serial design, water cooler.
Visualization -- fast sketching in 3d. Creating and saving multiple iterations of objects (I'm taking his word for it; all I've ever created are random and ugly polygons).
Art -- can create art piece, allows for almost every concept. "Where SL shines." "Purely conceptual realm."
Identity, Culture, and Ethics lab. "Like being on the Vegas strip." Frontier-town feeling. Identity is freed from appearance (really? I'd say it's more that you choose the appearance, but it's an essential part of the identity). "Chat room with a view."
What do you do on the second day? Major reason people get bored.
Pitfalls: First hour experience. Too much, too soon for most folks. Bus Station Approach to new folks. Institutions need to manage the avatar creation process.
Corporate America's attempts to us SL: AMerican Apparal, The Gap, etc set up areas. Hanging out a shingle isn't enough to impress me (why go to the American Apparel SL site instead of the American Apparel website). Store concept just doesn't work. Geograhy metaphor doesn't work in SL.
SL isn't a city, but a movie studio backlot. Lots of empty places.
Internal audience fallacy. Not many users.
Changing rooms in a fake store -- simulation over utility. Places can be beautiful, but not useful.
Proprietary environment. Zoning laws being adopted. Intellectual Property issues.
What does work? Sandbox -- public area where folks can build, and other folks help them.
Need an event-driven model (not a place-driven one). Scheduled meetings, etc.
Contents from external sources.
Sloodle -- import content from Moodle page into Second Life.
Trends
Sculpted objects (better than polygons), faster scripting, voice chat, more internationalizaion (75% from outside the US). Tech issues -- concurrency (major lag!), interoperability (avatars moving system to system), reliability (stuff gets lost).
Competition -- open source version being made, browser-based worlds (Lively, Wonderland, there.com).
Small group of core believers, but too much churn amongst casual users. Concern that there's no long tail of SL.
SL Username: Blackthorn Hare
Now we're visiting virtual Princeton. Three full sims, not a single person currently on. Example of a great site, but pointless.
"If you like to wait, then you'll really love Second Life."
Showing a giant egg sculpture. Created by making one block, which in turn scripted its own duplicates.
Finishes with showing his own piece, a little floating island with an orbiting moon and pool. And one last piece -- a giant star with stuff orbiting it, that can be modified and folded in to create a giant throne. As an artist, the ability to bring any concept into virtual reality is appealing (understandably) to him.
Time to head home!
Labels: Nercomp
Using Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning. Mark Frydenberg. Bentley University.
Repurposed as an IT-intensive course that teaches web concepts through the lens of web 2.0.
New course: Web 2.0 at a Business University.
Students are already on Facebook, might know about blogs and wikis. Some concept of what 2.0 is.
Class run on class blog and wiki where podcasts, etc are posted.
Notes that students see the RSS feed icon all the time, but don't always know what it means, or that it can be used on a cellphone.
Discussion of Skype and Twitter as ways to grasp technology and culture (Skype project with Australia noted the problems time zones create).
Google Docs, spreadhsheets, wikis, etc.
Final goal: Have students create their own web 2.0 applications. Which leads to tools for mashups. Sub-goal will teach some programming concepts.
Mashup: Data from one web source, used in another. Examples (mostly mapping) Earthquakes, zillow, facebook friends.
Tag Galaxy -- makes Flickr mashups.
Notable mashup sites:
http://Programmableweb.com
http://mashable.com
http://webmashup.com
http://readwriteweb.com
http://go2web20.net/
That last one has an insane amount of links.
Mashups -- teach programming concepts visually -- alice, scratch, logo, stagecast, visual basic all have hit this area. Create games, animations, stories, sims, graphics.
Wanted to create items that use the data the students brought.
Microsoft Popfly -- built for hobbyists, but usable in education.
Used Popfly because it required less programming knowledge than Pipes. Also notes that there are other tools from Google, Intel, etc. All will work.
Teaching IT Concepts using Popfly. Noted that advanced concepts like service-oriented architecture and web services come up when creating mashups.
Good slide showing how the object-oriented nature of mashups works. Noted for myself here, since mentioning it doesn't do anyone else any good without a link. :-)
Now we're looking at Popfly. There's a web page creator, a game creator, and a mashup creator. Today's for looking at the last one, of course.
Requires Windows Live ID, because Microsoft hates me. Also requires Silverlight, but I actually like that app.
Left side of edit screen has a number of pre-built blocks. Drag-and-drop blocks onto design surface. He just dragged the Wikipedia block onto the surface, opened the block, typed a search for an item and limited it to 15. Good example of where the data is coming from (and teaching webservices).
Takes that data into XML, which shows the data that comes in (and separates form and content). Real data teachs how XML can be used better than standard out-of-the-box XML examples.
Now he's taken the Carousel Block out, and connected them. An exclamation point popped up, which meant that PopFly needed more info (in this case, the data type -- an image).
That was an insanely small amount of work for a nice little mashup.
Question about the maximum number of blocks. He's now showing one called Fastfoodfinder. This one has 22. Starts with a datablock with the name of a number of restaurants and their favicons). First user input box provides drop-down for user to select. Second user input box gets zip code. Assorted blocks then use the first drop-down to pick proper picture for restaurant. Geonames block gets latitude and longitude, sends it to a phone book block to do a search. Yet another block creates list of pushpins (and a second for the second restaurant), final block sends it all to Virtual Earth.
From creating that, students learn sequence and selection, repetition, combining data of different types, etc.
Major catch -- requires MS's blocks. Notes that this works better as an educational tool, but wouldn't build a proper business on one.
Allows users to view how blocks are implemented in javascript and xml.
Showing a mashup now that's pulling in mutiple data sources and plotting on a map.
Spends four class days (two weeks) on teaching Pop fly. Day 1: Basic stuff (display images). Day 2: Combine RSS feeds, popfly blocks. Day 3: Facebook or map feeds. Day 4: Extending PopFly. That last one deals with processing the output, etc.
Some student demos (of freshman projects). One is a standard info search. The other takes common surfing locations, and combines with a map to show surfing conditions. Good examples to show how the students were taking data that was of interest to them.
Never uses the "P word" (programming) in class. Mentions that there's a perception that programming jobs are being outsourced. More about teaching them how to build applications.
It's programming, but in the sense of understanding the process and workflow, not the coding aspect.
Question from audience: Where do you expect to go with this from here?
Answer: Uses PopFly for seniors to create and develop blocks.
Has a nice guide for teachers and students for using PopFly. Lessons are up on Popfly's website (and one lesson is in our packet). PopFly Wiki.
Question about embedding mashups. Popfly normally puts an icon on their mashups, but there's a way to remove them.
Why it's useful: For any company, you need two things: an idea, and a business plan. Doesn't mater how good the business plan is, you need a proof of concept. Popfly might not give the full PoC, but it gives a sense of what might have to be done.
Repurposed as an IT-intensive course that teaches web concepts through the lens of web 2.0.
New course: Web 2.0 at a Business University.
Students are already on Facebook, might know about blogs and wikis. Some concept of what 2.0 is.
Class run on class blog and wiki where podcasts, etc are posted.
Notes that students see the RSS feed icon all the time, but don't always know what it means, or that it can be used on a cellphone.
Discussion of Skype and Twitter as ways to grasp technology and culture (Skype project with Australia noted the problems time zones create).
Google Docs, spreadhsheets, wikis, etc.
Final goal: Have students create their own web 2.0 applications. Which leads to tools for mashups. Sub-goal will teach some programming concepts.
Mashup: Data from one web source, used in another. Examples (mostly mapping) Earthquakes, zillow, facebook friends.
Tag Galaxy -- makes Flickr mashups.
Notable mashup sites:
http://Programmableweb.com
http://mashable.com
http://webmashup.com
http://readwriteweb.com
http://go2web20.net/
That last one has an insane amount of links.
Mashups -- teach programming concepts visually -- alice, scratch, logo, stagecast, visual basic all have hit this area. Create games, animations, stories, sims, graphics.
Wanted to create items that use the data the students brought.
Microsoft Popfly -- built for hobbyists, but usable in education.
Used Popfly because it required less programming knowledge than Pipes. Also notes that there are other tools from Google, Intel, etc. All will work.
Teaching IT Concepts using Popfly. Noted that advanced concepts like service-oriented architecture and web services come up when creating mashups.
Good slide showing how the object-oriented nature of mashups works. Noted for myself here, since mentioning it doesn't do anyone else any good without a link. :-)
Now we're looking at Popfly. There's a web page creator, a game creator, and a mashup creator. Today's for looking at the last one, of course.
Requires Windows Live ID, because Microsoft hates me. Also requires Silverlight, but I actually like that app.
Left side of edit screen has a number of pre-built blocks. Drag-and-drop blocks onto design surface. He just dragged the Wikipedia block onto the surface, opened the block, typed a search for an item and limited it to 15. Good example of where the data is coming from (and teaching webservices).
Takes that data into XML, which shows the data that comes in (and separates form and content). Real data teachs how XML can be used better than standard out-of-the-box XML examples.
Now he's taken the Carousel Block out, and connected them. An exclamation point popped up, which meant that PopFly needed more info (in this case, the data type -- an image).
That was an insanely small amount of work for a nice little mashup.
Question about the maximum number of blocks. He's now showing one called Fastfoodfinder. This one has 22. Starts with a datablock with the name of a number of restaurants and their favicons). First user input box provides drop-down for user to select. Second user input box gets zip code. Assorted blocks then use the first drop-down to pick proper picture for restaurant. Geonames block gets latitude and longitude, sends it to a phone book block to do a search. Yet another block creates list of pushpins (and a second for the second restaurant), final block sends it all to Virtual Earth.
From creating that, students learn sequence and selection, repetition, combining data of different types, etc.
Major catch -- requires MS's blocks. Notes that this works better as an educational tool, but wouldn't build a proper business on one.
Allows users to view how blocks are implemented in javascript and xml.
Showing a mashup now that's pulling in mutiple data sources and plotting on a map.
Spends four class days (two weeks) on teaching Pop fly. Day 1: Basic stuff (display images). Day 2: Combine RSS feeds, popfly blocks. Day 3: Facebook or map feeds. Day 4: Extending PopFly. That last one deals with processing the output, etc.
Some student demos (of freshman projects). One is a standard info search. The other takes common surfing locations, and combines with a map to show surfing conditions. Good examples to show how the students were taking data that was of interest to them.
Never uses the "P word" (programming) in class. Mentions that there's a perception that programming jobs are being outsourced. More about teaching them how to build applications.
It's programming, but in the sense of understanding the process and workflow, not the coding aspect.
Question from audience: Where do you expect to go with this from here?
Answer: Uses PopFly for seniors to create and develop blocks.
Has a nice guide for teachers and students for using PopFly. Lessons are up on Popfly's website (and one lesson is in our packet). PopFly Wiki.
Question about embedding mashups. Popfly normally puts an icon on their mashups, but there's a way to remove them.
Why it's useful: For any company, you need two things: an idea, and a business plan. Doesn't mater how good the business plan is, you need a proof of concept. Popfly might not give the full PoC, but it gives a sense of what might have to be done.
Labels: Nercomp
General Q&A:
Q: Retention policy?
A. Tufts doesn't delete content so far.
Q: Social open source tools?
A: PBWiki as an alternative to Blackboard. Allows collaborations, announcements, etc.
EDmodo Microblogging site for education. Allows class accounts, social networks, etc. Ended up not using it, but because students had too many places to look (Blackboard for course materials, wiki for other stuff, blogger.com for their made things too baffling.
Another suggestion: Google sites.
VUE -- mindmapping. MIT used it to create their sitemap!
Needs to be a reason to go to the site. "Social networking by stealth."
Q: Best way to get folks excited about virtual worlds or any tech?
A: "Show them. Show them that it works." "Find early adopters." Instructors make the best examples.
Q: With so many tools, how does on support them all?
A: MIT folks work in office of "Educational innovation," and thus don't do direct support. :-) Tufts notes that group training, as well as controlling the number of tools supported, are both nice.
Camptasia.
Mention of need for platform for student organizations. Bentley went with Wordpress because it was common, easy to use, met basic needs, and could be supported.
Q: Competition from third-party sites (Google, wordpress). Faculty bypassing IT, not asking for support. Should we worry about it?
A: Tell instructors to use what meets their needs. On-campus tools can provide support, and a guarantee that the data won't be bought out, etc. That said, students will still go elsewhere, and we can't (and probably shouldn't) compete. SPARK 2.0 will look to tag third party content (Flickr) as Tufts, and pull it in. Hooray for RSS and tagging! The key is to show the value that the campus tools can provide.
Q: Assessment of impact on student learning.
A: E-Portfolios have a pretty obvious outcome. As to web2.0 sites, not many being used for education, not a long enough time to really track. Things to measure are engagement, but otherwise, it's all stuff based on old models (tests, etc). Model needs serious rebuilding. If someone is comfortable with a tool and it fits into their teaching style, it's likely to work, but if people use the tool because they feel they have to, improved outcomes will likely be reduced.
Q: Hi, I'm restating the answer and agreeing with it, because I'm the sort of person who feels the need to say something, even if it's redundant.
A: Yes, it's still correct.
(Yes, that was bitchy. Sorry. But it's a pet peeve of mine).
MIT will be using an ethnographer to evaluate some of their online tools.
Audience notes: Offer something that other sites can't. Yale will keep track of all reading lists with links to library, links to local restaurants, etc. Notes legal issues regarding FERPA, proprietary content, etc. Also notes the need for momentum, etc.
Note about the Harvard use of clickers. More effective once students were broken into smaller groups (and not just listening to a lecturer droning).
Lunch now!
Q: Retention policy?
A. Tufts doesn't delete content so far.
Q: Social open source tools?
A: PBWiki as an alternative to Blackboard. Allows collaborations, announcements, etc.
EDmodo Microblogging site for education. Allows class accounts, social networks, etc. Ended up not using it, but because students had too many places to look (Blackboard for course materials, wiki for other stuff, blogger.com for their made things too baffling.
Another suggestion: Google sites.
VUE -- mindmapping. MIT used it to create their sitemap!
Needs to be a reason to go to the site. "Social networking by stealth."
Q: Best way to get folks excited about virtual worlds or any tech?
A: "Show them. Show them that it works." "Find early adopters." Instructors make the best examples.
Q: With so many tools, how does on support them all?
A: MIT folks work in office of "Educational innovation," and thus don't do direct support. :-) Tufts notes that group training, as well as controlling the number of tools supported, are both nice.
Camptasia.
Mention of need for platform for student organizations. Bentley went with Wordpress because it was common, easy to use, met basic needs, and could be supported.
Q: Competition from third-party sites (Google, wordpress). Faculty bypassing IT, not asking for support. Should we worry about it?
A: Tell instructors to use what meets their needs. On-campus tools can provide support, and a guarantee that the data won't be bought out, etc. That said, students will still go elsewhere, and we can't (and probably shouldn't) compete. SPARK 2.0 will look to tag third party content (Flickr) as Tufts, and pull it in. Hooray for RSS and tagging! The key is to show the value that the campus tools can provide.
Q: Assessment of impact on student learning.
A: E-Portfolios have a pretty obvious outcome. As to web2.0 sites, not many being used for education, not a long enough time to really track. Things to measure are engagement, but otherwise, it's all stuff based on old models (tests, etc). Model needs serious rebuilding. If someone is comfortable with a tool and it fits into their teaching style, it's likely to work, but if people use the tool because they feel they have to, improved outcomes will likely be reduced.
Q: Hi, I'm restating the answer and agreeing with it, because I'm the sort of person who feels the need to say something, even if it's redundant.
A: Yes, it's still correct.
(Yes, that was bitchy. Sorry. But it's a pet peeve of mine).
MIT will be using an ethnographer to evaluate some of their online tools.
Audience notes: Offer something that other sites can't. Yale will keep track of all reading lists with links to library, links to local restaurants, etc. Notes legal issues regarding FERPA, proprietary content, etc. Also notes the need for momentum, etc.
Note about the Harvard use of clickers. More effective once students were broken into smaller groups (and not just listening to a lecturer droning).
Lunch now!
Labels: Nercomp
David Grogan (Tufts) speaking on SPARK.
I've seen a SPARK presentation before, but I suspect this will be more thorough.
Nine developers in the group. Wow! I'm not sure we have nine developers on campus.
SPARK -- suite of flexible tools for communication and collaboration to support teaching, learning, research, co-curricular.
History: Would send RFPs to university, and winning proposals would get developed, but were boutique projects. If an instructor left, or the teacher moved on to a different topic, there was no room for follow-ups or evaluations.
In 2006, web2.0 got mature enough that they started to explore tools that could apply to lots of folks.
Current toolset (free, self-service to entire Tufts community):
Wiki (Confluence)
Blogs (MoveableType)
Podcast (homegrown)
Forums (jforum)
Maps (Google mashup)
Media Annotator (homegrown, mashup)
SParkMeetings (AdobeConnect)
Launched in 8/06, started with blogs, wikis, forums. Core team: Project manager, lead developer, interactive media designer, support roles.
REquirements: Must allow LDAP integration (Cosign for us), must allow customization of interface (allowing some Tufts identity), must have robust API, must have access to source code and database.
Common features: Single-sign-on, one-click creation of new items, Tufts directory integrated for setting permissions, permissioning at many levels (world, Tufts, private), tagging.
Demo time. Intro page is http://spark.uit.tufts.edu/
Showing Wikis, blogs. One-click is pretty consistant for all of them, but the tools themselves take different levels of work.
Vision: "A Tufts-based localized network of people and ideas."
Common theme (tying to previous sessions): The ability of these tools to tie folks from multiple campuses and abroad together.
Guest accounts: Admin for wiki, blog, etc has to be a current Tufts member, ldap allows guest accounts that are limited.
Any student, staff, etc can create items.
LMS isn't from the Academic Tech department. Blackboard on undergrad, Health Sciences has homegrown LMS, other campus has Angel.
Hunh. He mentioned Moodle as a possible LMS for the campus.
At the time, Movable Type was the best blog tool. Now considering Wordpress. As to upgrading or changing tools, Confluence has been upgraded (but is a point release behind the official one). Might simply add Wordpress, but not get rid of Movable Type.
Question about moderation. Speaker notes that there's a tech use policy which basically says, "don't do anything illegal." No complaints yet.
Framework not going to be licenced (or at least, not in current plans).
Any limits (i.e., if a student goes and creates twelve blogs a day)? Hasn't come up yet.
Biggest problem so far is if someone switches a wiki to anonymous editing, and gets spammed.
Use examples:
Wiki:
Digital Portfolios and Communities of Practice. Department of Education wiki. Using Confluence (has a themebuilding plug-in). Gives each student a website that allows them to basically build e-portfolio.
Digital Toolboxes. Each student given their own toolbox, but students can completely customize them. Tags are used, allowing similar items to be pulled together (video blogs, etc).
Very slick-looking tool.
Activities across entire student body are shared. Tags allow filtering, etc. activ
Using tagging capability of wiki to create workflow. Says that Confluence brought them 80% of the way there, and required only a few custom macros to be built.
Blog demo: Anthropology of Media course. Had each student create blogs analyzing media. Uses blogroll on the side, and a widget showing all new entries. Not as compelling as the wiki, as most of this could be done on blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc.
Also uses rss feed to build tag clouds (wordle, etc). Nice, but again, nothing that can't be done anywhere (that said, worth remembering that just because it can be done, doesn't mean that faculty always remember to do it; that's our job).
Sproutbuilder: Free tool for building flash widgets. Nifty!
Markup: Created a very basic tool that did what their faculty needed (not trying to do it all). Idea: Video a performance, load it to SPARK, make comments at certain time spots, and permission it properly. Youtube allows comments and annotations, but not the proper permissioning.
Very nice tool. Teacher simply hits one button to place a comment at the appropriate point. Won't let them use copyrighted material (why? If it's private and fair use?).
I just asked about licencing the video software (more specifically, releasing it as open source), and he says they're friendly to the idea, but need the time. He says that the more folks who email, the better the chances. So email him folks! This tool is very slick!
Google Maps GIS mashup: Released first, not based on requirements, not a lot of folks using it. Nice markups, although again it's stuff I've seen out there.
Podcast: They didn't like the copyright issues with iTunes, so they built a separate tool.
General permissions question: Wikis support groups (only manually created). LDAP currently doesn't support groups, but they're looking at this.
Default permissions: private until students open up the blogs (good!).
Backend stuff:
Uses VMware for each server. Stick to central resources (shared storage, authentication, etc).
Typical tool integration effort: 5 pages on SPARK, 3500 lines of code (mostly JSP, some servlet, database, javascript). 1.5 programmers, designer, manager, 2 calendar months. Trying to stick to YUI for Ajax, also used MySQL, JIRA for bugtracking, SVN for versioning. Dev/Prod servers. Secret unlinked launches on prod to get pre-beta testing.
New tools: Mediamarkup uses Adobe Flex, Sparkmaps uses Google Map API. New Javascript libraries, etc.
Future directions: More Ajax, reducing LOC for tools. Automated testing.
What's next?
New front-end interface. Bring some activity to the front. Start connecting people and content. Better communication and outreach.
Question from audience: Workshops for faculty, who promotes, etc? How is this funded?
Answer: Yes, they do workshops (reminds me a lot of ECIT at Emory), and one-on-one sessions. As for funding, they get a budget from the university as a whole.
Time for the general Q&A. Will post that in a separate post,
I've seen a SPARK presentation before, but I suspect this will be more thorough.
Nine developers in the group. Wow! I'm not sure we have nine developers on campus.
SPARK -- suite of flexible tools for communication and collaboration to support teaching, learning, research, co-curricular.
History: Would send RFPs to university, and winning proposals would get developed, but were boutique projects. If an instructor left, or the teacher moved on to a different topic, there was no room for follow-ups or evaluations.
In 2006, web2.0 got mature enough that they started to explore tools that could apply to lots of folks.
Current toolset (free, self-service to entire Tufts community):
Wiki (Confluence)
Blogs (MoveableType)
Podcast (homegrown)
Forums (jforum)
Maps (Google mashup)
Media Annotator (homegrown, mashup)
SParkMeetings (AdobeConnect)
Launched in 8/06, started with blogs, wikis, forums. Core team: Project manager, lead developer, interactive media designer, support roles.
REquirements: Must allow LDAP integration (Cosign for us), must allow customization of interface (allowing some Tufts identity), must have robust API, must have access to source code and database.
Common features: Single-sign-on, one-click creation of new items, Tufts directory integrated for setting permissions, permissioning at many levels (world, Tufts, private), tagging.
Demo time. Intro page is http://spark.uit.tufts.edu/
Showing Wikis, blogs. One-click is pretty consistant for all of them, but the tools themselves take different levels of work.
Vision: "A Tufts-based localized network of people and ideas."
Common theme (tying to previous sessions): The ability of these tools to tie folks from multiple campuses and abroad together.
Guest accounts: Admin for wiki, blog, etc has to be a current Tufts member, ldap allows guest accounts that are limited.
Any student, staff, etc can create items.
LMS isn't from the Academic Tech department. Blackboard on undergrad, Health Sciences has homegrown LMS, other campus has Angel.
Hunh. He mentioned Moodle as a possible LMS for the campus.
At the time, Movable Type was the best blog tool. Now considering Wordpress. As to upgrading or changing tools, Confluence has been upgraded (but is a point release behind the official one). Might simply add Wordpress, but not get rid of Movable Type.
Question about moderation. Speaker notes that there's a tech use policy which basically says, "don't do anything illegal." No complaints yet.
Framework not going to be licenced (or at least, not in current plans).
Any limits (i.e., if a student goes and creates twelve blogs a day)? Hasn't come up yet.
Biggest problem so far is if someone switches a wiki to anonymous editing, and gets spammed.
Use examples:
Wiki:
Digital Portfolios and Communities of Practice. Department of Education wiki. Using Confluence (has a themebuilding plug-in). Gives each student a website that allows them to basically build e-portfolio.
Digital Toolboxes. Each student given their own toolbox, but students can completely customize them. Tags are used, allowing similar items to be pulled together (video blogs, etc).
Very slick-looking tool.
Activities across entire student body are shared. Tags allow filtering, etc. activ
Using tagging capability of wiki to create workflow. Says that Confluence brought them 80% of the way there, and required only a few custom macros to be built.
Blog demo: Anthropology of Media course. Had each student create blogs analyzing media. Uses blogroll on the side, and a widget showing all new entries. Not as compelling as the wiki, as most of this could be done on blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc.
Also uses rss feed to build tag clouds (wordle, etc). Nice, but again, nothing that can't be done anywhere (that said, worth remembering that just because it can be done, doesn't mean that faculty always remember to do it; that's our job).
Sproutbuilder: Free tool for building flash widgets. Nifty!
Markup: Created a very basic tool that did what their faculty needed (not trying to do it all). Idea: Video a performance, load it to SPARK, make comments at certain time spots, and permission it properly. Youtube allows comments and annotations, but not the proper permissioning.
Very nice tool. Teacher simply hits one button to place a comment at the appropriate point. Won't let them use copyrighted material (why? If it's private and fair use?).
I just asked about licencing the video software (more specifically, releasing it as open source), and he says they're friendly to the idea, but need the time. He says that the more folks who email, the better the chances. So email him folks! This tool is very slick!
Google Maps GIS mashup: Released first, not based on requirements, not a lot of folks using it. Nice markups, although again it's stuff I've seen out there.
Podcast: They didn't like the copyright issues with iTunes, so they built a separate tool.
General permissions question: Wikis support groups (only manually created). LDAP currently doesn't support groups, but they're looking at this.
Default permissions: private until students open up the blogs (good!).
Backend stuff:
Uses VMware for each server. Stick to central resources (shared storage, authentication, etc).
Typical tool integration effort: 5 pages on SPARK, 3500 lines of code (mostly JSP, some servlet, database, javascript). 1.5 programmers, designer, manager, 2 calendar months. Trying to stick to YUI for Ajax, also used MySQL, JIRA for bugtracking, SVN for versioning. Dev/Prod servers. Secret unlinked launches on prod to get pre-beta testing.
New tools: Mediamarkup uses Adobe Flex, Sparkmaps uses Google Map API. New Javascript libraries, etc.
Future directions: More Ajax, reducing LOC for tools. Automated testing.
What's next?
New front-end interface. Bring some activity to the front. Start connecting people and content. Better communication and outreach.
Question from audience: Workshops for faculty, who promotes, etc? How is this funded?
Answer: Yes, they do workshops (reminds me a lot of ECIT at Emory), and one-on-one sessions. As for funding, they get a budget from the university as a whole.
Time for the general Q&A. Will post that in a separate post,
Labels: Nercomp
Evan Leek of MIT (still What is Web 2.0 and What Does it Mean for Education)
His focus has been on creating a common denominator for distributed members of the MIT community to reconnect and interact with folks and events on the main campus. Aiming at folks who are working or studying abroad, on sabbatical, etc.
Mainly talking about Second Life, but uses virtual worlds, and all of today's topics apply to virtual worlds in general.
We're going live! Let's hope the demo gods smile on us.
Logging in. He polls the room; about half of us have logged into Second Life.
He's now in the MIT Sim. It's been months since I've tried Second Life, but it looks like it's running better on Macs now than it had last I tried it.
(Wonder if my account is still active?)
The virtual MIT has a project attempting to transfer residence hall identities online.
Currently showing a virtual conference room with a live quicktime stream of Leek's presentation right now. So a virtual Leek is watching a streaming Leek. Good proof-of-concept.
Large amount of video lag; not a SL-specific issue, but the amount of pit-stops video has to make cause these issues (and need to be taken into account).
Back to the presentation.
UPOP (Undergraduate Practice Opportunity Program) -- allows students to simulate engineering circumstances. Virtual simulation of a company that dealt with a takeover and reshuffling, allowing students to deal with shifts in engineering goals.
Stuff learned from sim: Can be applied to some (but certainly not all) real world events. Need to find best real-world events and focus on them. Students and faculty were skeptical of the tech, but not scared. System needed improving: Video-latency, tech issues, no prior-consideration for coreographing of interaction.
Need to replicate interaction in real world, note types of interactions so that they can be seamlessly integrated in virtual world. Must get to the point where the teacher isn't sitting there, orchestrating action.
Big win: Re-introduces the importance of space into discourse (aside: I'm now thinking of the use of virtual reality and realspace in David Louis Edelman's books), which video conferencing and the like had eliminated.
Q&A:
Q: What E-portfolio tool should one use?
A. (Batson) Digication (from RISD -- http://www.digication.com/). Notes that there are 35-40 big ones. Notes that Sakai has a built-in one as well.
Q: Long, long question, but the gist is, "we need a lot of infratructure for virtual worlds or web 2.0 learning, whereas a real-world meeting can be better controlled." Valid point about the number of points of failure.
A. Correct, and notes the problems with ubiquity, ephemeral sites, etc.
Q:. Does one need to build a virtual equivelent to physical room?
A. No (notes that avatars can be seahorses, whatever), and a virtual room can be a grassy patch, etc. But there are social interactions that necessitate certain environments. A virtual-boardroom with chairs makes sense, even though avatars don't get tired of standing up. Notes that personal space applies to virtual worlds, too. Cost of a building: $3 (way cheaper than the real world).
Q: Honestly, I couldn't understand the question through the accent.
A: Seems to be a discussion of best hardware to optimize audio and video issues. Turns out that a $30 Logitech mike has been a godsend. Pipes audio separately from video, using the avatar's voice-chat over IP (which has very little lag), and the audio is generally more important that the video, but they're working on that as well.
Q: How much time would it take to create a room like the MIT conference room.
A: It gets easier each time (naturally), but there's a learning curve at the front end. No actual answer, though. Does note that there's a reason that people can get paid to create virtual items and buildings. This includes the types of video streams, etc (essentially, a virtual infrastructure).
Q: Empire State College person notes that their average student is 39 yrs old and not as familiar with web 2.0, and that their instructors are adjuncts. How do they get on board like younger students and full-time students.
A: No immediate solution, but notes that collaborative ideas pre-date Web 2.0 (the Eportfolio example Batson gave applies here; could be done with simple offline papers (and, in fact, was done without an Eportfolio; it was just a Portfolio)).
Leek notes that he had a one-night-a-week class at Emerson last year on urban planning with a lot of older students (30-65), and they picked up SL pretty solidly. 75-85% were able to use SL from home, and all were doing stuff in the class itself (which was set in a lab).
Q: What kind of skills are used for SL?
A: Leek had been using Maya (and doing computer animation) for a while. Yeah, that's not so much going to work for me. He did note that you learn what you do as you need to do it, so each project requires more knowledge. Notes that there's a great knowledge-based community, with a mailing list, etc.
Break time!
His focus has been on creating a common denominator for distributed members of the MIT community to reconnect and interact with folks and events on the main campus. Aiming at folks who are working or studying abroad, on sabbatical, etc.
Mainly talking about Second Life, but uses virtual worlds, and all of today's topics apply to virtual worlds in general.
We're going live! Let's hope the demo gods smile on us.
Logging in. He polls the room; about half of us have logged into Second Life.
He's now in the MIT Sim. It's been months since I've tried Second Life, but it looks like it's running better on Macs now than it had last I tried it.
(Wonder if my account is still active?)
The virtual MIT has a project attempting to transfer residence hall identities online.
Currently showing a virtual conference room with a live quicktime stream of Leek's presentation right now. So a virtual Leek is watching a streaming Leek. Good proof-of-concept.
Large amount of video lag; not a SL-specific issue, but the amount of pit-stops video has to make cause these issues (and need to be taken into account).
Back to the presentation.
UPOP (Undergraduate Practice Opportunity Program) -- allows students to simulate engineering circumstances. Virtual simulation of a company that dealt with a takeover and reshuffling, allowing students to deal with shifts in engineering goals.
Stuff learned from sim: Can be applied to some (but certainly not all) real world events. Need to find best real-world events and focus on them. Students and faculty were skeptical of the tech, but not scared. System needed improving: Video-latency, tech issues, no prior-consideration for coreographing of interaction.
Need to replicate interaction in real world, note types of interactions so that they can be seamlessly integrated in virtual world. Must get to the point where the teacher isn't sitting there, orchestrating action.
Big win: Re-introduces the importance of space into discourse (aside: I'm now thinking of the use of virtual reality and realspace in David Louis Edelman's books), which video conferencing and the like had eliminated.
Q&A:
Q: What E-portfolio tool should one use?
A. (Batson) Digication (from RISD -- http://www.digication.com/). Notes that there are 35-40 big ones. Notes that Sakai has a built-in one as well.
Q: Long, long question, but the gist is, "we need a lot of infratructure for virtual worlds or web 2.0 learning, whereas a real-world meeting can be better controlled." Valid point about the number of points of failure.
A. Correct, and notes the problems with ubiquity, ephemeral sites, etc.
Q:. Does one need to build a virtual equivelent to physical room?
A. No (notes that avatars can be seahorses, whatever), and a virtual room can be a grassy patch, etc. But there are social interactions that necessitate certain environments. A virtual-boardroom with chairs makes sense, even though avatars don't get tired of standing up. Notes that personal space applies to virtual worlds, too. Cost of a building: $3 (way cheaper than the real world).
Q: Honestly, I couldn't understand the question through the accent.
A: Seems to be a discussion of best hardware to optimize audio and video issues. Turns out that a $30 Logitech mike has been a godsend. Pipes audio separately from video, using the avatar's voice-chat over IP (which has very little lag), and the audio is generally more important that the video, but they're working on that as well.
Q: How much time would it take to create a room like the MIT conference room.
A: It gets easier each time (naturally), but there's a learning curve at the front end. No actual answer, though. Does note that there's a reason that people can get paid to create virtual items and buildings. This includes the types of video streams, etc (essentially, a virtual infrastructure).
Q: Empire State College person notes that their average student is 39 yrs old and not as familiar with web 2.0, and that their instructors are adjuncts. How do they get on board like younger students and full-time students.
A: No immediate solution, but notes that collaborative ideas pre-date Web 2.0 (the Eportfolio example Batson gave applies here; could be done with simple offline papers (and, in fact, was done without an Eportfolio; it was just a Portfolio)).
Leek notes that he had a one-night-a-week class at Emerson last year on urban planning with a lot of older students (30-65), and they picked up SL pretty solidly. 75-85% were able to use SL from home, and all were doing stuff in the class itself (which was set in a lab).
Q: What kind of skills are used for SL?
A: Leek had been using Maya (and doing computer animation) for a while. Yeah, that's not so much going to work for me. He did note that you learn what you do as you need to do it, so each project requires more knowledge. Notes that there's a great knowledge-based community, with a mailing list, etc.
Break time!
Labels: Nercomp
Liveblogging from the NerComp seminar on Using Web 2.0 for Teaching and Learning.
I'll be blogging each session, then posting at the end of each one. As always, expect typos and the like, as blogger's spellcheck sucks, and I'm writing too quickly. Plain text is summary and basic interpretation of the topic. Bold is stuff that stands out. Italicized are my own thoughts on the topic.
Intro session -- What is Web 2.0 and what does it mean for education?
Trent Batson and Evan Leek, MIT.
Batson speaking for now.
We start with the usual discussion about the tech (ajax, xml, semantic search) and other aspects (social sites [both social for individuals, and social in the sense that sites partner with others, as in sites that partner with Flickr or Youtube), separation of data and functionality, etc) that makes 2.0 possible.
"Web 2.0 is the cultural post-tipping point." The time when we let go of print -- no dictionaries, phone books, encyclopedias in the house, no need to read the NY Times on the bus to work, etc. Computers and the web have replaced them.
Implications: No value in just getting faculty to use tech. No need to hype tech, defend it, or be an apologist. We now need to focus on institutional reform. But can IT drive this? We can push things to a certain extent, but as long as instructors still view three classes a week and a textbook as the way to go, they won't leverage web 2.0.
Hey, he's got a chapter in Vijay Kumar's new book, Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. I'm attending a NerCOMP Educause Live session with him tomorrow!
Evidence-based learning (eVBL), coined by Batson. Thousands of new ways to create evidence of student learning. The evidence is no longer invisible; tools like chat, forums, blogs provide active ways to demonstrate (and reinforce) learning, instead of just sitting and hearing a lecture.
Eportfolio (yay) is a major part of eVBL. Batson hasn't heard of any university that doesn't have at least some kind of portfolio initiative underway (even if just a planning or discussion group).
Batson discussing his use of e-portfolios. Collected first five papers, allowed students to look back and re-write one or two. At end of class, made students look at all twelve papers, keep ten, say why they kept those ten, and wrote a paper on how their writing changed.
Suggestion: Switch from using Pedagogy (teaching children) to Androgogy (teaching adults).
Priniciples: Let adults know why what they're learning is important. Teach them to be self-directed and use information. Relate practical outcomes.
Andogogy and eVBL: Archaeological digs, gathering evidence. But it's the reflection on the evidence that makes the evidience interesting.
Service Learning Portfolio. Person traveled to Africa, collected, reflected on photos, mixed in Web 2.0 "spices," continuous, not segmented learning, stays with the student and is owned by him or her. Web-based, transportable.
Batson is handing off to Leek, so I'll post this and start a new entry.
I'll be blogging each session, then posting at the end of each one. As always, expect typos and the like, as blogger's spellcheck sucks, and I'm writing too quickly. Plain text is summary and basic interpretation of the topic. Bold is stuff that stands out. Italicized are my own thoughts on the topic.
Intro session -- What is Web 2.0 and what does it mean for education?
Trent Batson and Evan Leek, MIT.
Batson speaking for now.
We start with the usual discussion about the tech (ajax, xml, semantic search) and other aspects (social sites [both social for individuals, and social in the sense that sites partner with others, as in sites that partner with Flickr or Youtube), separation of data and functionality, etc) that makes 2.0 possible.
"Web 2.0 is the cultural post-tipping point." The time when we let go of print -- no dictionaries, phone books, encyclopedias in the house, no need to read the NY Times on the bus to work, etc. Computers and the web have replaced them.
Implications: No value in just getting faculty to use tech. No need to hype tech, defend it, or be an apologist. We now need to focus on institutional reform. But can IT drive this? We can push things to a certain extent, but as long as instructors still view three classes a week and a textbook as the way to go, they won't leverage web 2.0.
Hey, he's got a chapter in Vijay Kumar's new book, Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. I'm attending a NerCOMP Educause Live session with him tomorrow!
Evidence-based learning (eVBL), coined by Batson. Thousands of new ways to create evidence of student learning. The evidence is no longer invisible; tools like chat, forums, blogs provide active ways to demonstrate (and reinforce) learning, instead of just sitting and hearing a lecture.
Eportfolio (yay) is a major part of eVBL. Batson hasn't heard of any university that doesn't have at least some kind of portfolio initiative underway (even if just a planning or discussion group).
Batson discussing his use of e-portfolios. Collected first five papers, allowed students to look back and re-write one or two. At end of class, made students look at all twelve papers, keep ten, say why they kept those ten, and wrote a paper on how their writing changed.
Suggestion: Switch from using Pedagogy (teaching children) to Androgogy (teaching adults).
Priniciples: Let adults know why what they're learning is important. Teach them to be self-directed and use information. Relate practical outcomes.
Andogogy and eVBL: Archaeological digs, gathering evidence. But it's the reflection on the evidence that makes the evidience interesting.
Service Learning Portfolio. Person traveled to Africa, collected, reflected on photos, mixed in Web 2.0 "spices," continuous, not segmented learning, stays with the student and is owned by him or her. Web-based, transportable.
Batson is handing off to Leek, so I'll post this and start a new entry.
Labels: Nercomp
