Tama’s eLearning Blog

As part of UWA’s Teaching Month (which, to be honest, is “Teaching 17 Days” but that just sounded naff on flyers and banners), the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences is running a group blog in which a number of academics, professional staff and at least one student are exploring the place of blogs and blogging in higher education. The blog is entitled Blogs: The New University Workspace? and so far topics that have been covered include:

• Writing and Thinking in Public
• Blogs and/as Digital Literacy?
• Multiliteracies for the digital era
• Of Students, Blogs, and Relevance

At this point, the bloggers would be absolutely delighted if anyone from the university community or beyond who has an opinion or thought about any of these topics could drop by the blog, have a read and, if you’ve time, leave a comment. We’re hoping that this can be one of those opportunities were a community of interest really does emerge!

Also, if you’re interested in following through on any of these ideas face to face, and you’re in Perth, staff and students across campus and beyond are invited to attend a Discussion Forum on Monday May 14th, from 12-2pm (including lunch) in Social Sciences Seminar room G2.08. The Forum will initially be led by those blogging in the Arts blog, but will be open to all ideas and opinions!

I hope to see you in the blog and, hopefully, face to face next Monday as well!

[Cross-posted from Tama Talk's Blogs.]

I’m participating in several projects at the moment which are centred around using podcasts and/or iPods in higher education. To gather resources for these projects, I’ve set up a wiki page entitled “iPod Use & Podcasting in Higher Education: An Initial Select Bibliography“.  Can I invite anyone who has any suggestions to either add them to the wiki yourself, or to email them to me.

I intend to leave this resource online indefinitely, so if anyone else wishes to expand it and use it for their own purposes, please feel free.

Blackboard quietly announced Scholar, their social bookmarking tool, during early January. Here’s part of the announcement:

… you can check Scholar out at http://www.scholar.com for a little hands-on exploration, and even subscribe to RSS feeds of various bookmark views. But a lot of the cool stuff that’s the “customized for education” part requires a Blackboard Building Block or PowerLink to be installed on your Blackboard Learning System. So since you can’t see it all from the public site, I’ll describe it a bit here.What makes Scholar different from other social bookmarking services you may have used or heard of (e.g. del.icio.us) is how it works in an education setting. Scholar has all the typical features you’d expect from a social bookmarking service (tagging, tag clouds, RSS feeds, a bookmarklet for browser integration, etc.), but we wanted to make social bookmarking more relevant for Blackboard-powered courses and academic research. We spent a lot of time thinking about the problems students and faculty encounter when they go about doing web research or building engaging courses, and gettting feedback on those ideas about how social bookmarking could be enhanced for education.

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will know that I’m not a fan of the big LMSes, of which Blackboard is the biggest, releasing scaled-down tools which claim to have the infrastructure of social software but cut back on who can use these tools (such as WebCT’s initial blog tool). Scholar, to my mind, is pointless because there is almost nothing gained by using Blackboard’s version and it locks out all non-Blackboard users (from contributing; they can still access bookmarks, they can’t store any). Check out their info page (click the image to enlarge):

The folks over at EdTechPost made this rather important comment in Scholar’s wake:

sure I’d love to see systems that instead of creating additional silos and enclaves allowed users to move in an authenticated form from the institution’s systems to ones out on the general web, you know, have my cake and eat it too. But the customers (that’s you, right) have got to demand this, not expect vendors whose whole business model is ‘lock in’ to simply just provide it.

I couldn’t agree more. So demand we must.

Let me emphasise why I think Scholar is a mistake and why we should demand it not be used: Public social bookmarking services like del.icio.us are open to everyone. They are truly social in the sense that anyone (online) can contribute and use the service. A course which uses a properly social software tool like this enhances students’ understanding of a tool they can use in other contexts (both in and outside of educational settings) and allows students to keep/build upon their initial bookmarking/annotation of the web. Scholar, by contrast, is linked to a proprietary LMS which users will cease to have access to once they leave their educational institution. Moreover, this tool is not, nor is intended to be, available outside of educational settings. Teaching students with tools they can learn for life with makes a lot more sense to me than tools which can only be used in a particular black box which students will cease to be able to open after a period of time.

e-Clippings blog is similarly vitriolic in their dislike for Scholar. What do you think?

Footnote.com is a new website which allows access to millions of public documents from the US National Archives — as well as documents uploaded by users.  More to the point it allows users to annotate documents with notes, translations and so on.  This seems like an excellent service for finding interesting class projects.  I can easily students annotating historical documents and clarifying difficult handwriting for their own learning while simultaneously contributing to a larger community resource.

Admitedly, there is a registration fee, but it’s not huge and I’d say well worth it for schools and university libraries.

[Via SmartMobs]

As more and more digital videos appear in university and secondary education, finding creative ways to interact with this media is increasingly important. One of the more difficult challenges is translating some of the textual techniques for criticism and engagement into comparable forms for digital video. Being able to annotate video is one thing I’ve always wanted to be able to do quickly and simply without having to resort to using a full-blown video editor. Now, thanks to the mass of videos on YouTube and similar flash-based services, a new option has appeared: BubblePLY.

Using a very simply interface, quick text annotations can be added to any flash-based videos, including those on YouTube, MySpace and Google Video. Check out an example here. The video quality isn’t stunning but for quick projects with minimal training and fuss, I think this could prove a very useful tool indeed!

[Via Jo]

Australian IT has an interesting article on a new Australian software tool and service called ChatAlert! which:

employs fuzzy logic to analyse phrases, slang and speech patterns in chat and instant messaging sessions, testing them against a range of threat categories. Depending on the parameters set by parents, children will be given an onscreen warning, while parents will receive a text message to their mobile phone, or an email

I’m in two minds about this level of surveillance, but I’m sure a lot of parents will buy this tool for peace of mind while their kids are chatting. However, I thought I’d check out the company’s website and found some interesting descriptions, but I was rather concerned by the prominence of typos on their “How does ChatAlert! work?” page:

For a service that relies on locating and evaluating specific words and text I find it rather concerning that they can’t even proofread their corporate website!

Update (28/11.06, 5.25pm): As Fraser Larcombe notes in the comments, the typos are fixed.

A new service called Slideshare caught my attention the other day; it’s styled on YouTube, but is for sharing slideshows (specifically PowerPoint slides). It has all the tagging and comment functionality of YouTube, and lets users embed slides the way you can embed YouTube videos. It seems like a great way to share slides. Here’s an example with the slides from my iPodium presentation.

Currently you have to ask for an invitation to use the service (which is also needed to view existing slides), but I got one within 24 hours of requesting and I imagine once the service heads into the familiar beta territory access should be easier. [Via Smartmobs]

I’m back in Perth after spending most of last week at the Internet Research 7.0: Internet Convergences conference which was held by the Association of Internet Researchers. It was a great conference and I heard some thought-provoking papers (which I’ll write more about in a day or two when time permits). The “Participatory Pedagogies: Convergence and the Extended Blogosphere” panel I was part of when well despite James Farmer sadly being unable to contribute as originally planned. Adrian Miles and I ended up with a whole panel which actually worked pretty well since his paper, “Networked Knowledge Objects (videographic pedagogy for new knowledges)”, and mine shared a lot of ground, with my focus on podcasting and audio, and his on video more broadly. Partially to record the event, and partially to test the new Belkin TuneTalk microphone for my iPod, I’ve created an mp3 recording of my talk. I’ll be writing up the paper on which the talk was based, but as I’ll be making some changes based on feedback at the conference, that’ll probably take a little to appear. For those interested, for now feel free to listen to a recording of my talk along with the powerpoint slides …

Abstract:

The term podcasting is a combination of ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’ and describes type of syndicated digital audio that results in automatically downloadable files which are playable in portable media devices, such as (but not limited to) the iPod. Podcasting has proven extremely popular in the last year and a half, with many online citizens creating their own regular online audio shows. Australian universities have been making lectures available as streaming audio for some years now, but with learners anchored to a computer in order to listen. Podcasting has also allowed students to take lectures and other audio wherever they go, but this ‘coursecasting’ or ‘profcasting’ model still relies on the top-down structure of lectures as academic content for student’s to consume. However, in The University of Western Australia’s Communication Studies course, in an honours-level unit ‘iGeneration: Digital Communication and Participatory Culture’ the tables have been turned somewhat and students are also podcasting in the tertiary setting. For their major assignments, students were asked to create an innovative audio podcast which engaged with the notion of participatory culture and the results ranged from a ‘pod play’ in the style 1930s RKO radio theatre to an alternative commentary for a Simpsons episode focusing on consumer culture and intertextuality. These podcasts are also cultural output themselves – they will remain downloadable indefinitely, allowing students to use them in future ePortfolios and also providing a resource (or entertainment) for others. Moreover, the same system which enables the creation of streaming and podcasted lectures, the iLecture or Lectopia system, is also been used to host and deliver student podcasts; in effect, students are stepping up to their own iPodium. With student’s having an opportunity utilise the iPodium, student podcasting acts as something of a leveling process, allowing two-way street for teaching and learning.

Extrapolating from the iGeneration experience, this paper argues that student podcasting can be usefully situated as part of a broader range of emerging participatory pedagogies wherein the socially-emergent tools and modes of participatory culture allow a more meaningful traffic between tertiary settings and the broader community. For students, podcasting can be far more than a content-delivery mechanism; it can be part of their ongoing participation in knowledge communities in both tertiary settings and beyond. Student podcasting also levels the playing field in relation to ideas of content-creation and can be part of the processes of helping learners develop the tools of cultural interaction, not just consumption, which are increasingly an essential part of digital literacy. This paper also focuses on student podcasting as something which can easily take place without reliance on institutional infrastructures. As such, student podcasting blurs the boundaries of formal educational settings and points to digitally enabled learning and teaching modes which link educational and social spaces via a nexus of creation, discussion and interaction enabled by digital tools and technologies.

The presentation: mp3 recording (with many other formats available); and the powerpoint slides .

The podcast and powerpoint slides are hosted by the Internet Archive using a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.

Feedback is most welcome!

[Cross-posted from Ponderance.]

Over at the iLounge, they’ve pointed out that the new iPod Nanos now support podcasting and work with the existing iPod Video microphone accessories.  With a flash drive rather than a mechanical hard drive, these devices use a lot less power to record and thus may actually last a lot longer in recording mode (no moving parts versus continual spinning of the hard-drive in the full-sized devices)!  As you can see, they don’t exactly look pretty with the microphones, but they do work …

… and Nano-sized microphones may just be around the corner (although, after the delay on the last Video iPod Mics, I’m not exactly betting on it!).  [Via Steve Rubel]

Way back in November last year I got excited about the prospect of the increased recording quality allowed by the software in the (then) new 5G Video iPods. With three different microphone plugins fairly quickly announced, but more than half a year later, Belkin’s page for the TuneTalk Stereo has been up for months, but still displays the disclaimer “Coming soon. Please check back for updates on availability”, while Griffin Technology haven’t even got an official page yet for their upcoming iTalkPro. Thankfully, the first microphone plugin to hit the market, the XtremeMac MicroMemo has arrived!

At first glance this is actually a pretty impressive little device. The MicroMemo plugs straight into the iPod Video (5G) with no fuss, and instantly the record menu pops up. There are two quality settings (16-bit audio at 22 kHz and 44 kHz) which can easily be toggled between and recording starts at the press of a button. Unlike past iPod mics, the MicroMemo has a microphone on a flexible lead, so it can be positioned easily for recording either one person or two in an interview setting (although, it should be noted, the recordings are not in stereo). The MicroMemo also has a switch to allow you to record line-in from any mini-jack (the bundled microphone can be unplugged, unlike the design of the iTalkPro or the TuneTalk). There is also an embedded speaker that’s by no means loud, but is adequate to check that your recordings are working properly (this can be toggled on or off by holding how the single button on the front of the device). Even though it records in uncompressed WAV, with a 30Gb iPod as the lowest usable size, you can record more than the average interview (and far longer in low quality). The only major drawback is that the while recording the iPod’s harddrive continuously spins, so the battery life is only a few hours for continuous recording (and, annoyingly, you can’t charge while using the MicroMemo). That said, in usability terms, it’s pretty smoothly designed and straight-forward to use.

In order to check the quality of the recordings, I conducted four tests of the MicroMemo with the microphone very close to my face (about 10 -15cm away) and also with the mic about 50cm away (which is the more likely distance if it was on a desk during an interview or similar circumstances). I recorded for roughly thirty seconds at both distances on the High Quality setting and the Low Quality. You can judge with your own ears, as I’ve posted these four tests, completely unedited (in their original recorded WAV formats) here:

[1] MicroMemo Audio Quality Test - Low Quality - Close to Face (1.5Mb)

[2] MicroMemo Audio Quality Test - Low Quality - Mic 50cm from Face (1.4 MB)

[3] MicroMemo Audio Quality Test - High Quality - Mic Close to Face (6.1 MB)

[4] MicroMemo Audio Quality Test - High Quality - Mic 50cm from Face (5.9 MB)

While there was a notable difference in the volume moving the MicroMemo away even to 50cm, a quick tweak with Audacity or any other audio editor to increase the volume finds pretty decent sound quality. The low quality is a lot smaller in size, but more than adequate for playback and for most podcasting recording (unless working to professional production values). For more detailed tests of the MicroMemo, check out reviews at both iLoungeand The iPod Observer.

In a nutshell, I wanted to know if the MicroMemo would be a useful device for student podcasts, recording interviews and other audio production citizen media rather than professional media in nature. I think the MicroMemo is more than up the the task and I hope with all the iPod projects going on in universities across the world, this little plugin will make student podcasts (not just lecture recordings or coursecasts!) a more sizable part of university curricula. My only major gripe is that the MicroMemo can’t record directly to a compressed format like mp3 - that functionality would really make this device ideal!