Archive for the ‘Curricular Technology’ Category
November 19th, 2009 by Dan Frostman
The members of the Curricular Technology team would like to get some feedback from the rest of LIS on our new website, if you are so inclined. The basis for the information architecture is a three-pronged approach: what you can do (Uses), what you need to do it (Tools), and how are other people doing it (Stories). Not everything is fleshed-out yet, but for examples, see: Uses>Audio>Music notation or Tools>Voice recorders or Buzzwords> Blog. Here are some of the points on which we are waffling:
- The labels / descriptions under the various Uses. Are they too wordy? Can a user find what they are looking for?
- The left-hand menu under Uses – should it appear at all?
We welcome your comments, thoughts, suggestions, accolades, applause, donations, etc.
November 18th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
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:
November 17th, 2009 by Michael Roy
Megan Battey shared with us a nifty tool from SF MOMA for looking at a large collection of images at the same time. It’s called Artscope and can be found at
http://www.sfmoma.org/projects/artscope/#r=64
November 16th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
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.
November 16th, 2009 by Joy Pile
In attendance: team members minus Sue Driscoll. (Joy Pile, minutes)
Mack and Alex are working at the helpdesk. Alex tangentially wondered if and how the CTT should be more involved in the helpdesk. It was noted that the team has a number of issues on its plate – not the least of which was the original charge to find a replacement for Segue. If the team is to be involved in other projects – then we need direction and new goal setting from the ADs. It was agreed however, the CTT could have a hand in training staff at the helpdesk once a replacement application is chosen. It was suggested that the team could also have a hand in application development – particularly for MiddMedia and could help determine which features and applications are most appropriate for curricular use.
For the rest of the meeting CTT discussed its new website. There was some disagreement about the current navigation – but it was agreed to seek feedback from a few potential users before changing the navigation from the current mock up.
Discussed the philosophy behind Quick Starts, and came up with the following rubric:
- That we need to post some information that relates to the different labs on campus
- That there needs to be information about some of the free for download applications such as Audacity that are included among the tools
- Discussed what essentials might be included in a Quick Start Guide as it related to Audacity.
November 6th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
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.
November 6th, 2009 by Sue Driscoll
Meeting minutes of CTT 11/03/2009
In attendance: all team members, Sue Driscoll (minutes)
The focus of the meeting was the IA of the CT website and how to build the site.
Decisions we made:
We agreed that we will use Drupal for the quick starts and overviews, which will then link to MediaWiki for more detailed documentation. The existing Ed Tech site was an initial attempt at a curricular technology site, and should only be used for its content.
We agreed that Dan, who volunteered, will be the ‘project manager’ of the CT site. His responsibility is to oversee the building of the site and make sure that others are doing what they said they would do. Others will be involved in finding and writing documentation. He will begin by adding the lists of Tools and Uses to the site.
We decided that each Tool will have its own page and will include an overview, a quick start and a link to more detailed documentation. Alex will write an example ‘quick start’ before the next meeting.
We decided that each Category of Uses will have consistent headings:
1. What is it? (overview)
2. What do you need to do it? (software, hardware)
3. How do you do it? (quick start)
4. Tips and Suggestions
Also, a link to more detail than the average user wants, or to a glossary and/or buzzwords
Alex will create sample text for the Video category of Uses.
Joe commented that it is important to identify who is going to do what. For example, who will curate the stories? What is a story? We agreed that a story is a 3 sentence blurb about an activity using curricular technology that links to a longer story on another department page or blog. There may be photos and links to our tools. Someone on the team should be responsible for finding these stories as they are reported around campus, write a blurb, perhaps add a photo and put them on the CT site.
Where do pdfs live? They should be linked to Midd Files because Drupal is not the place to store large files. Word documents can go into the Wiki and video files can go in MiddMedia. CT should set the example on this.
October 27th, 2009 by Adam Franco
Topic 1: Segue v1 shutdown notice.
Team ok with Alex sending out the notice he presented. Team decided that the notice should be sent to all faculty rather than a limited group. Team decided that Segue 1 should be made unavailable at the end of Fall 2009 classes and not postponed until later.
Topic 2: CT Site IA.
Team looked at the Uses categories started by Alex. After much discussion and a few changes, we agreed to use the following IA as a starting point for our build-out:
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October 20th, 2009 by Adam Franco
Topic 1: Team collaboration processes.
Tasks to accomplish between meetings should be proposed during the meeting, not proposed between meetings. If proposed between meetings, should not have no expectations of accomplishment.
Communications strategies, EMail vs. Google Docs. Be clear about what is up for debate, what is not.
Vote: Email will be sent to team list. New message threads with descriptive subjects will be created for new topics. (unanimous)
Q: How does the CT site relate to our main charge?
A: A good CT site helps direct users to CT tools and services and helps users make better usage of all things we provide.
Topic 2: CT Site IA
Uses will be categorized under the following categories (to start):
- Video
- Audio
- Graphics
- Web Publishing
- Data Collection & Analysis
- Presentation
- Course (stuff?)
- Discussion
Uses will often fall under multiple categories. This should be encouraged to allow our constituents to find things even if they would assume categorization different from us.
Vote: Alex (and possibly others) will fill in uses into the categories for the next meeting. The categories decided will not be changed. Other categories can be proposed at the Oct 27th meeting. (unanimous)
Vote: Do we want to keep the Buzzwords category? Yes (unanimous)
Vote: Are we generally happy with the buzzword list? Yes (unanimous)
October 19th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
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
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October 6th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
Topics: MiddMedia, ShadowBox theme, Classes Server, Web Redo Updates, e-portfolios, Breadnet, CT and LIS blog, CTLR and CT collaboration, CT IA…
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September 30th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
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.
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September 29th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
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…
September 28th, 2009 by Adam Franco
I’ve just completed an update to our video hosting system, MiddMedia, to enable it to support the upload of additional video formats.
The Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) — the software on MiddMedia that handles streaming the video data to clients — only supports the MP3 Audio (.mp3), Flash Video (.flv), and MPEG-4 video with H.264 encoding (.mp4) formats. Up until this point, users were required to convert their videos into one of the two supported video formats before uploading them to MiddMedia. Depending on the user’s operating system and the software they have installed, this could be a challenging proposition. With this update, videos in a variety of formats can be uploaded directly to the MiddMedia server where they will be automatically converted.
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September 23rd, 2009 by Dan Frostman
CT Team Meeting Minutes 9/22/09
Present: Alex Chapin, Joy Pile, Adam Franco, Joe Antonioli, Bryan Carson, Dan Frostman
Minutes joyfully taken and presented by Dan Frostman
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September 14th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
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.
September 8th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
In this meeting we took a step back and reviewed what we have done to date and how to proceed this fall.
September 7th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
The Curricular Technology team did a lot of brainstorming over the summer. This seems like a good time to step back and compare what we have done to what our priorities are:
We have a lot of projects started whose focus is to find one or more replacements for Segue including a CT feature matrix, a CT needs “knowledge grid” (i.e. what do we know and not know about technologies that faculty and students need), course site platform survey questions.
September 2nd, 2009 by Alex Chapin
This meeting focused on brainstorming about the use of curricular technologies at Middlebury in terms of:
- What we know about how faculty/students are using curricular technologies now
- What we need to verify about their technology usage
- What we don’t know about what faculty/students want or need in terms of curricular technologies now and/or in the future
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August 19th, 2009 by Alex Chapin
Key Topics and Debates:
Curricular Technology platforms, WordPress, Segue, plugins, themes, configuration, surveys, recommendations, needs vs technologies, migration strategies
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