Library & Information Services » Alex Chapin

Preview of Next Version of Shadowbox Theme

Alex Chapin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:58:02 +0000

I attended part of the LIS website team meeting today and gave a presentation of the ShadowBox theme and some of the new features that will be available in the next version including updates to author pages, more custom header options and most importantly, higher contrast text in comment fields. I also gave a preview of some new ShadowBox variations based on the new college website design. Below is a screencast from that meeting:

Towards a Unified Curricular Technology UX

Alex Chapin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:10:06 +0000

I recently created a version of the ShadowBox theme for Measure, an instance of Moodle used at Middlebury for online assessments. As a starting point, I used the Anomaly Theme Pack, created by the Patrick Malley, the Themes Manager for Moodle.org and the Creative Director of the NewSchool Learning design shop. I merged some of the styles and markup Patrick had developed with code from the WordPress ShadowBox theme to create a similar look and feel to the WordPress version. This is a great example of the power of open source to build upon and synthesize the work of others (much of this theme designers current work in no longer open source…)

Screenshot of Measure ShadowBox theme header

The goal is to create a more unified user experience (UX) and make it easy for faculty and students to move from one platform to another. You’ll noticed that Measure has links to WordPress and Segue in the upper right corner. These same links can be put in the same place on WordPress blogs that use ShadowBox. I’d also like to put these same links on all Segue sites to help with the transition away from Segue to other platforms.

As new platforms are introduced, they can be added in much the same way as Google Apps lists its various applications.

For more information about Measure, see the Measure Blog.

Seminar for Academic Professionals

Alex Chapin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:07:31 +0000

As libraries and technology services merge, librarians and technologists also need to merge, at least what they know. Mike Roy and David Wedaman (Brandeis) have organized a seminar whose objective is to develop a curriculum for academic information professionals. Librarians and technologists from Middlebury, Brandeis and Mount Holyoke are currently defining that curriculum through a series of presentations that make up the MBMH Seminar.

Joy Pile and I, along with Chrissa Godbout from Mount Holyoke and Karrie Peterson from Brandeis gave the first presentation of the seminar on “Blending Education and Entertainment” in late October. A summary of the presentation is posted on the MBMH Seminar blog and slides are available from Google Docs. Bryan Carson along with Mary Glackin from Mount Holyoke, gave a presentation this afternoon on the topic of “Do Students Learn Differently?”

Capture Quick Start

Alex Chapin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:19:27 +0000

The Curricular Technology team is working on the figuring out how to document technology, no small task… We are all in agreement that it would be good to have some sort of “quick start” documentation that provides people with the basics to get started with a given tool or a given task/objective. Below is a screencast of a “quick start” demo I did for how to capture.

See: Capture > Presentation > How to do it.

This screencast is definitely too long for a quick start, but the idea of using a screencast in conjunction with step-by-step instructions for quick start documentation is appealing. For other examples of screencast quick starts and/or overviews see:
Using audio/video from MiddMedia in WordPress
Segue > Step-by-Step Instructions > Adding Text and Images

Alas these screencasts are a lot of work and am not sure how effective they are or how they can be improved… Though I think generally they should be as short as possible.

ShadowBox Theme Introductory Screencast

Alex Chapin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:54:28 +0000

I made a ShadowBox theme introductory screencast during a presentation of the theme to Academic Consulting Services. This screencast describes some of the WordPress UI challenges I was trying to solve with this theme. The first was finding a consistent way to display the log in link and information about a given user’s role on a blog. I also wanted to create a UI for setting theme colors and layout and other options. Finally I wanted to more consistently map some of the blog editing UI onto the blog itself so people could more easily add new posts or edit existing posts.

(click on the button to view video in full screen mode)

Am working on a new release of ShadowBox that includes the display of category and tag RSS links, custom author pages and more header options. For more information, see ShadowBox Changelog. Contact me know if you would like to see a preview of this new version.

Curricular Technology Team Meeting Notes 10/6/09

Alex Chapin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:31:08 +0000

Key Topics: CT and CTLR collaboration, review of technology in education sites, curricular technology site information architecture, categories of technologies/tools and uses/pedagogies, tech buzzwords

CT and CTLR Collaboration

Alex met with Mary Ellen Bertolini, JoAnn Brewer and Shel Sax to discuss ways in which the Curricular Technology team and the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research (CTLR) can collaborate. It was agreed that at the very least we would cross link our sites in a consistent way so that visitor of either site could easily move from one to the other. Beyond that we discussed documenting “teaching with technology” stories that we would organize by means of “pedagogies” and “technologies.” The CT team with the help of Academic Consulting Services (ACS) would take the lead on developing an initial site for these stories and a basic organizational schema with the CTLR would review.

Review of Technology in Education Sites

Of the sites about technology in education that were compiled, The Tufts Academic Technology site seemed the best organized and well-written. Many of these sites included documentation such as A/V classroom support that we have decided is best maintained in our wiki. The team struggled with how to handle tech buzzwords that so many people use but so few really understand.

Curricular Technology Site Information Architecture

The overarching objective of the CT site IA continues to be finding a way to connect technologies/tools with pedagogies/uses with case studies/stories.
The team continued to struggle with the challenging task of categorizing different types of technologies and uses and how to label and describe these. Two strategies were debated:

Lists of specific Uses and Tools
This approach favors creating potentially long lists of different uses/objectives (real-time discussion, asynchronous discussion, collaborative writing…) and tools, both hardware and software (Audacity, Blender,…,Microphone,…,MediaWiki,…,WordPress). If the lists are properly organized, efficiently laid out and contain simple descriptions, then people ought to be able to find what they are looking for… Key to this strategy is short simple labels when possible for categories, particularly for higher level navigation (e.g. Uses, Tools, Stories, Help)

Categories of Technologies/Tools and Uses/Pedagogies

This approach favors categorizing technologies/tools and uses/pedagogies into a limited number (no more than 10). If these categories are well thought out and taken as a whole form some sort of narrative, then people ought to be able to browse and find what they need… The strategy requires longer, more descriptive navigation labels (Tools, Platforms and Media, Teaching and Learning Strategies, Case Studies, Help)

Tech Buzzwords

There was a lively discussion of tech buzzwords and whether or not to use them in our navigation. Many felt that it might be better to avoid these as much as possible and include a section on Buzzwords/FAQs

While part of the CT team charge is to create a “tech incubator,” it was briefly considered that we might include a section on Initiatives, many felt we hadn’t done enough in this area to include such a section in our initial IA.

CT Team Meeting Minutes of 9/28/09

Alex Chapin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:43:59 +0000

Topics: MiddMedia, ShadowBox theme, Classes Server, Web Redo Updates, e-portfolios, Breadnet, CT and LIS blog, CTLR and CT collaboration, CT IA…

MiddMedia

Adam added server-side transcoding to MiddMedia which will allow users to upload a wider range of audio and video formats (see: MiddMedia now supports more video formats). He chose video compression settings that sought a balance between quality and deliverability for most formats, settling on 720px X 480px as the largest resolution and a maximum data rate of 1000 Kbps. MP4-H264 (and the lower quality FLV) are the only formats in which the original user’s resolution and data rate is preserved and so MP4-H264 is the best choice for the highest quality video.

The LIS wiki has documentation for how to use MiddMedia and how to export video files as .mp4 files. Mack noted that the new version of Quick Time “dumbs down” some of the earlier features – and that we should look at Quick Time 9 to confirm comparable export options.

ShadowBox WordPress Theme

Adam reviewed the ShadowBox WordPress theme for Middlebury developed by Alex and installed it on the Midd instance of WordPress. Alex demonstrated some of its features in the CT team blog and noted that it is also being used in the new LIS blog

Classes Server

Discussed the “classes” server. Currently no one seems to have responsibility for making policy decisions about how this server is configured. Joy will draft recommendations, to be reviewed and edited by the Team and then passed on to the AD team for review.

WebRedo updates

It seems as if the template for Academic Depts is not one that the CT team wil be able to use and that we will likely be limited to the “Offices and Services” template. The primary difference between the “Academic Depts” template and the one for “Offices and Services” is the “juice bar”, the area at the top of the template with tabs for “features” such as videos, stories… etc. The “carousel” feature, the bar at the bottom of the page will be available on the “Offices and Services” template and this may be the place we can put our “teaching with technology” stories…

Education Studies e-Portfolios

Shel has been recommending to the Education Studies program to move e-Portfolios to WordPress – The team noted that WordPress does NOT meet the requirements of at least some of the faculty in Education Studies including Gregg Humphrey and Jonathan Miller-Lane. Apparently both Gregg and Jonathan ask their students to include information in their e-Portfolios that should have different access settings than other parts of the portfolio. Thus for these faculty granular access control is critical.

UPDATE: Shel has discussed the use of WordPress with all faculty in Education Studies and explained its pros and cons as as platform for e-portfolios. Some faculty in the department are currently trying out WordPress, others are observing…

BreadNet recommendations

Shel has reviewed our BreadNet recommendations and supports them. He has requested these be put on the agenda of the next AD team meeting. A proposal that First Class (the application that powers Breadnet) might be a possible solution for large file management was briefly considered. The team agreed that there are likely better solutions for this particular problem, solutions that would probably better integrate with our existing platforms.

CT Team blog to merge with New LIS blog

The team decided to include CT Team blog as part of the new LIS blog, but did not come to consensus as to where to put meeting minutes. Possible platforms for these would be the blog or a wiki or even Google Docs. Critical to this discussion was whether all meeting activity was suitable for public discussion. Some meeting activity might be too sensitive or unresolved for public debate or may simply be too boring!

CTLR and CT Collaboration

Shel is very interested in finding ways to get the CTLR and the CT team to collaborate. The team decided to set up a meeting with folks from the CTLR to discuss this issue. One approach discussed was to set up taxonomies for “uses” and “tools” that the CTLR & CT team could use on their sites to categorize and cross link technologies and pedagogies.

Information Architecture for CT

All agreed our top priority is to finish an information architecture for CT on new LIS site. With this in mind it might be good to look at comparable sites from other institutions.

Review of Technology in Education Sites

Alex Chapin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:21:39 +0000

To help us create a section of the LIS site on Curricular Technology, I thought it would be good to see how other institutions publish comparable information. What we are currently calling “curricular technology” is described in various ways including “instructional technology“, “educational technology,” “academic technology,” and “technologies for teaching, learning and research.” What all of these labels have in common is seems to be the use of technology in education.

Here is a list of sites related to technology in education along with the blurbs these site use to describe themselves that could serve as model for a Curricular Technology site at Middlebury:

Spark Tools for Tufts (also see: Tufts University Blackboard)
Spark is a suite of communication and collaboration tools sponsored by UIT and designed to enrich your teaching, learning, research and co-curricular experience at Tufts! Easily create online web pages and sites using a blog or a wiki, publish your podcasts, discuss ideas in online forums, upload and annotate video and audio, set up and participate in online conferences.
also see: Tufts Academic Technology
UIT Academic Technology enables the university and its diverse academic communities to realize their vast potential in teaching, learning, and research through the innovative design and meaningful integration of technology to meet broad and local goals. (Projects)

Technologies for Teaching, Learning and Research
Middlebury has a variety of technologies for teaching, learning and research available to Middlebury faculty, students and staff including tools for creating websites, blogs, wikis, podcasts and online discussions. For more information on these technologies and projects at Middlebury using them, see the LIS Educational Technology Wiki

Amherst Academic Technology Services (Amherst Blackboard)
Academic Technology Services (ATS) supports the faculty in the effective use of information technology in teaching and research. This includes training and consulting, identifying beneficial curricular technologies, and facilitating communication about successful practices.

Berkeley Educational Technology Services
Educational Technology Services is Berkeley’s central campus resource providing technology tools, training and support for faculty, staff and students in their work as teachers, learners, researchers and collaborators.

MIT Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT)
The Office of Educational Innovation and Technology works with faculty, staff and students to enable and promote the development and dissemination of innovative uses of technology in teaching and learning. OEIT focuses on three key areas… 1. Bridging Research and Learning 2. Linking Content to the Curriculum 3. Fostering Communities of Innovation and Practice
MIT OpenCourseWare:
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.

Stanford Technology Support for Courses (also see: Center for Teaching and Learning)
Technology Support for Courses is Stanford’s link-gateway to the rich array of services that support teaching and learning.
also see: Academic Technology Specialist Program
Stanford’s Academic Technology Specialists work in alignment with the University’s commitment to excellence in education and its general vision to improve teaching, learning, and research by implementing and developing new technologies. Academic Technology Specialists collaborate with faculty and staff in departments or programs and provide leadership in innovative uses of information technology for education and research.

New Blog Theme

Alex Chapin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:26:53 +0000

Adam reviewed the code for ShadowBox, the new WordPress theme I developed and installed it in on WordPress at Midd. Of course, I immediately used it on our CT team blog and took advantage of some of its capabilities to give a sense of the new possibilities for layout and presentation that it introduces.

I should make it clear that this theme doesn’t introduce any functionality that other themes haven’t explored. It is modeled first and foremost on Kubrick, the default WordPress theme. In addition to this basic theme, I looked at a number of the most popular themes at wordpress.org including Atahualpa, Ahimsa, iNove to get a sense of the direction of theme development in the WordPress community.

I am hoping this will help us determine where we want to publish our work. In particular, whether we want to merge all of our work into the new LIS blog and discontinue this blog or perhaps keep this blog around an example of innovative uses of WordPress…

Surveys and Focus Groups

Alex Chapin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:47:52 +0000

Clearly both surveys and focus groups are important tools for gathering information about a particular population. Usually surveys are used first, to a get general sense of the population. Surveys are then followed by focus groups that get more in depth information.

However a case can be made for reversing this order and starting with focus groups first, followed by surveys (see: “Use of Focus Groups in Survey Item Development“, The Qualitative Report, Nassar and Borders, March, 2002). Focus groups can often help to define survey questions or inform how questions are phrased. This can be particularly important for technology surveys, helping to couch questions in terms that those surveyed can understand.