Monday, February 22, 2010
BP9_2010023_Web2.0GoogleForms
This week I spend a little time investigating Google forms. I had heard people discuss these online forms as a great way to collect information and had thought this was yet another Google application. In fact this data collection system is merely an addition to the Google Docs online spreadsheet application. All you need to do after setting up the form is send the URL to your intended audience and wait for incoming data to accumulate in your spreadsheet. To me, this is a key strength. In my world, a spreadsheet is the most likely mechanism for final data storage in any case. What a time saver.
Another attractive feature is the level of customization available in form design. Each question can be formatted in one of seven different ways. Question setup options include: text, paragraph text, multiple choice, checkboxes, choose from a list, scale and grid. These last two might require explanation. The scale option is similar to choosing from a list but the list is preloaded with numbers. Users might rate a particular statement on a scale from 1 to 5 for instance. The Grid option essentially embeds multiple questions that share the same possible answers all in the space of a single question. With each question set up to best meet your needs it’s easy to choose from available themes to make the form itself more attractive and professional looking.
When the form is submitted, each answer will be lined up in its own column of the initial spreadsheet, ready for analysis. One additional column is maintained to hold an automatically generated time-stamp to signify when the user submitted the form. They really did think of everything on this project. I will soon be employing this powerful tool to gather information from each incoming class.
Monday, February 15, 2010
BP8_2010022_OneMinuteMessage#1
http://www.sibelius.com/products/scorch/index.html
BP5_2010022_Web2.0Scorch
Sibelius music notation software comes packaged with a nifty little tool for Internet publishing called Scorch. This tool includes a browser plug-in that allows sheet music to be embedded into a web page. When in the stopped mode, the embedded widget simply displays staff notation as a graphic. Clicking the play button allows the user to hear music performed in time as the cursor scrolls along the staff. Anyone can freely download Scorch to properly view the page, much like the Flash player plug-in. This ability to share and play musical scores over the Internet has great potential for Web2.0 educational use. The download is available at the following URL: http://www.sibelius.com/products/scorch/index.html.
Full Sail’s new Music Production degree will include Sibelius (and Scorch) as part of the student laptop package. I plan to take full advantage of this web2.0 tool in the new online version of my Music Theory course. To share my work from Sibelius, I can simply choose ‘Export Scorch Web Page’ from the file menu. The resulting html file can then be uploaded to a web server along with the Sibelius sheet music file it refers to.
Students could easily accomplish this using a Mobile Me iDisk account. One would simply navigate to http://www.me.com and log in with the appropriate user name and password. Once logged into the online interface, clicking the iDisk icon will quickly show the file system for this account on the server. The ‘web’ folder has a subfolder called ‘sites’. This is where the code would be stored for any site created through the iWeb application. The intuitive tools provided on site make it simple to create a new subfolder and upload the Scorch files with no need to use iWeb at all. The URL for this new page will be http://web.me.com/username/subfolder/file.html.
Once the page is uploaded to the web we can easily share our musical efforts. Pasting a Scorch link into a Blogger blog post for instance would be a great way to share music and invite comments from the rest of the class.
Monday, February 8, 2010
BP4_2010021_Web2.0Tools
I chose to spend some time investigating Appcelerator’s Titanium application from the Web2.0 list. This is a cross-platform software-authoring environment that’s truly revolutionary. For one thing, the code itself can consist of any contemporary Web authoring code including Html, Flash, Javascript, Python, Ruby or PHP. This allows people to use any pre-existing Web skills and quickly apply them in exciting new ways.
Users typically interact with their local machine through a variety of software but only access web content through a browser. Software applications built with Titanium are able to straddle the two computing environments of the desktop and the World Wide Web.
Titanium’s cross-platform claims are truly cross-platform. The same code can be compiled to run on Windows, Linux, or Macintosh. With the proper prerequisite downloads from Apple and Google respectively, you can even build Apps for the iPhone or Android mobile operating systems.
I have designs to build a custom solution in a Macintosh lab here on the Full Sail campus. I have currently set up a Web server to serve custom educational content to a group of Windows machines in an adjacent room. I’d simply like to extend the functionality of this system to the Macintosh room as well. There is one catch however.
Rather than have students browse to a URL, I’d like all the typical features of a Web browser to be disabled. For educational evaluation and testing purposes, there should be no way to browse to a site other than the one I set up, no way to resize the window, no back-button, no print button and no way to save a page to the desktop. Essentially, I’ll build a Web browser that only points to one address. This will allow me to leverage the power of a distributed network with a Web style application so that the grades all show up in one place on the server. At the same time I can still restrict lab activity to my prescribed exercises like regular desktop software.
The last screenshot included above shows the test application I built last night. This stripped down little browser brings up the Google website only. The page can’t be printed saved or resized. This represents a proof of concept for my plans for educational software in the Mac lab.
Other attempts to fill this nitch in software authoring are Microsoft’s Hyper Text Application and Adobe Air. In my opinion, Titanium is more powerful and far more flexible than the competition. Links are provided below.
Titanium
Adobe Air
Microsoft HTA
Sunday, February 7, 2010
BP3_2010021_GoogleReader
Setting up Google Reader and choosing the five feeds was a new experience for me. My prior understanding of RSS was purely theoretical. Now that I’m actively receiving content without having to search all over again, I believe I’m a true convert.
The first RSS feed I selected was called Educational Technology and Life. Many other education themed distributions dealt with the requirements, legalities and politics of working in the K-12 education system, a world far different from my own. This one by contrast, will clearly pertain to both my professional and academic endeavors. The Full Sail experience and culture is well steeped in technology and its educational applications. Keeping up with current developments is becoming even more crucial as the school expands in breadth and scope.
The next feed, Music Technology in Education, will surely provide more job specific information. I am now overseeing six courses is Full Sail’s fledgling Musical Studies Department and actively creating content for additional music courses online.
My third choice is titled Suite101: Computer Programming Articles. My Music Theory labs take place in a thirty-six computer, Windows environment. Since my hire date in 2002, I’ve made a serious study of programming for the PC to reach specific goals of customizing this lab-room for maximum educational benefit. My programming endeavors have expanded into the office as well as a way to creatively solve problems.
The Automated Workflows feed deals with automation on the Macintosh computer, chiefly through the Automator application and Applescript scripting technology. Several years after my hire date, my employer negotiated an agreement with Apple Computers to provide each student and with a Macintosh computer. Each Course Director was armed with the same formidable tool. Since then I’ve made a continuous effort to get comfortable on the Mac. It has been quite a humbling experience to go from a power user and programmer on the PC to a complete novice on this unfamiliar operating system. I finally reached the point where I’m actively experimenting with advanced features like scripting and automation.
My final selection was Applied Cognitive Psychology. The Multiple Learning Theories course from EMDT helped stoke my long held interest in this topic. As teachers we are intimately involved with cognitive processing and psychology in general. Even in less obvious ways, this could only be professionally applicable. To better understand cognitive psychology is to better understand ourselves and other people, be they family, friends, students or peers.
BP2_2010021_EducationalUsesForBlogs
Instructors may choose from various approaches to implementing blogs in educational environments. Contributing factors to this decision may include the students’ age or possible network restrictions in the school. By far the most important consideration however would be the desired educational outcome of any specific blogging implementation.
Approaches to classroom blogs and the desired educational outcomes might include classroom management, learning journals, online notebooks, class discussion and personal expression (Echlin, 2007). A classroom management or online notebook approach may need to limit the blogs readership to the class itself or perhaps even just the individual student, teacher and parent (Echlin, 2007). While a student to teacher approach may have its place in a given circumstance and provide the desired advantage, surely the true power of blogging involves wider interactions. A learning journal or class discussion seems closer to the mark of leveraging the most value from this format. As Davies and Merchant (2009) point out however, merely creating an open blog in an educational setting wouldn’t guarantee enhanced learning through social participation or necessarily represent some new information-age literacy for instance. Such aspects must be specifically encouraged through careful lesson planning utilizing the blog.
Learning through social participation for instance would involve some requirement to read the blog posts of others and comment appropriately to create true discussion postings. The teacher would need to outline acceptable practices in commenting and generally oversee student interaction. Promoting new literacy practices might involve sending older students to research various topics through reading external blog posts and perhaps starting a topical blog themselves to engage a larger community. According to Davies and Merchant (2009), such exercises would essentially represent mature blogging practices save for the guiding hand of the instructor.
Surely, the benefits of educational blogs may reach far beyond the blog topic itself. Additional benefits include enhanced social skills, Internet etiquette, and new literacy practices. I believe the biggest benefit however lies in the actual writing of blog posts and responses. Having a larger audience to write for and receive feedback from gives students a reason to put forth their best effort at framing their thoughts and communicating through the written word. While quality writing could surely be an end unto itself, it also requires students to organize their own thoughts in a structured way. Writing for Edutopia, Moulton (2008) observes, “Writing is a reflective process, and the creation of content your going to share causes you to work hard to make your thinking clear”. In other words, clear writing encourages clear thinking. Surely this epitomizes educational goals for the twenty-first century.
References
Davies, J., & Merchant, G (2009). Web 2.0 for schools: Learning and social participation. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Echlin, H. (2008, April 9). Digital discussion: Take your class to the Internet: How to set up a blog in your classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved February 6, 2010, from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-discussion-take-your-class-to-internet
Moulton, J. (2008, March 25). Blogs, blogs everywhere: Does everyone need an Internet journal. Edutopia. Retrieved February 6, 2010, from http://www.edutopia.org/blogging-purpose
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