It's been a while...

So I figured it is time to post. It has been a transformational time, with the birth of my daughter and the subsequent wonder that has come since.

This week, I checked out a few of the new postings for Web 2.0 tools. Ustream.tv looks interesting, and seems to fall under the category of videos postings that people can make about themselves. These video sites continue to amaze me because of the number of them that are out there, and that someone apparently watches all of these. Who has time to watch all of these? Furthermore, I heard a discussion lately about the upcoming generations obliviousness to the lack of security in posting information about yourself to Facebook or MySpace and them not realizing it can come back to haunt them. I see the same potential here. I guess I'm just too busy with other things to really consider this a possibility.

Bubbl.us (interesting name) offers brainstorming solutions. I like the potential here, because brainstorming can be helpful. Having a place to brainstorm could be good, but I often find a pen and paper to serve much of the same purpose. When I taught, we used Inspiration for this same purpose, and it was really helpful. I could see the same potential for this, with a free application. It may also be useful as a collaborative tool (although I'm not sure this is offered with this program).

I am simply happy to be on the homestretch of grad school. As Annabelle continues to grow daily, I will be ecstatic to come home at night and have the ability to just hang out with her and not worry about what projects I need to brainstorm for. I figure though, as I've said many times, if I can make it through this, I can make it through anything!

Week 6: Oh what a night!

This is going to be an interesting posting, as while I write this, my wife is in labor. The first stages of labor often take several hours (we've been here since noon) so I've got down time and wanted to try to get this in while she's laying and contracting.

I thought this week's choices were diverse, interesting and offered some good potentials. Jing and Screen-cast-o-matic seem like interesting free alternatives to the standard camtasia/captivate/snapz pro options. As noted on the Jing site, it is like camtasia lite. But the alternative is that it provides faster access, quicker deliverables and most importantly it's free. I thought screen-cast-o-matic was interesting as well, but it seemed like a cheaper version of Jing. Jing's site seemed much more organized and clean, whereas s.c.o.m's was more jumbled and not as professionally clean. I haven't watched their tutorials as much, but I think given the options I'd go with Jing.

Diigo is another choice that provides an alternative to del.icio.us but kicks it up a notch with the highlighting and notetaking options. You can also more easily group yourself together with others, as we have done in the 5650 class to pool our resources. I have found del.icio.us an interesting way to get some sites I never would have found, and I often bookmark sites and forget what was so neat about them that made me bookmark them in the first place. So this seems to have some good potential for that.

Finally, I think Poll Everywhere is just what high school teachers everywhere have been looking for (if teachers could allow students to use text messages in school that is.) It combines the ability to test your audience with the technology students love to use anyway. I had experience with polling and question systems like this in my classroom experience, and found that the students loved it as a tech, yet simple alternative to raising their hands or taking tests in class on paper. I think there is some neat potential with this. On a larger scale (and with their membership packages) I could see this being a great easy way to test large scale audiences.

So, hopefully this baby will come soon and my world will be completely upheaved. In the meantime, that's all for now.

Week 5 Update- Exploring the new tools

So this week, I examined a few different new tools including: Picknik, Mogulus, Skrbl and GE Whiteboard. Mogulus is one that really stood out to me the most, although I am not entirely certain I would ever make effective use of it. It used streaming video from around the world (and of the tools we have examined, this one certainly seemed to carry the largest worldwide impact) and broadcast events that people wanted to share. From my examination at 8:30 at night, there were a wide mix of different events ongoing at the time. I do wonder, as I consider it now, if the reason that there were so many different languages being spoken was because of the time as it is reflected around the world right now. People were able to broadcast streaming video, schedule a show, or set up special events. I was interested to see just how many people were on and broadcasting at the moment. While I found this tool interesting, it also seemed to show a lot of pseudo radio shows where the broadcast was a camera recording a "DJ" with callers sharing their thoughts.

Picknik was the next interesting tool, which stood out because of its ability to pull pictures from social networking sites to be modified and played with. At first, I thought many of the features were not unusual or special beyond what I could access in my Kodak Easy Share modifier, but the ability to pull and play with the photos from so many different locations added a new and interesting twist.

Skrbl and GE Whiteboard I will group together, although they are different tools. Both had some interesting possibilities, but are not tools I see using in the future soon, especially the GE Whiteboard. Skrbl seemed to imitate the ideas that are popular right now with the SMART board technologies that allow people to share a screen, and others collaboratively to input their thoughts, highlight, circle and discuss. Good idea, but not sure I would make use of it. GE Whiteboard was again neat, but had not practical use that I could surmise for what I would ideally be working on. The tool gave the opportunity to draw objects, shapes, and play around and the screen would record your actions to be played back later. I'm not real sure the practical applications of this, other than a neat, free version of a drawing tool. It may require more investigation.

On the project side, I am slowly moving forward with my Message Design. I am working to assemble a poster, based on a Materials Handling course I am currently devising for work. I have done a fair amount of research lately related to how the back works, and how it is affected by lifting. So I am looking to put that knowledge to use and make the poster based on those ideas. It seems like a great idea, but my "glitches" seem to be occurring related to my lack of knowledge on Illustrator and Photoshop. I have the benefit of these tools on my work laptop, which I have never had before, but it is a lot to absorb. I have the benefit of the Lynda.com videos which my boss has allowed me to get, but that's a lot of videos, and I don't have a lot of time! Additionally, I've been finding there's not a lot of space to really cram in all of this information. Joni emphasizes the need to consolidate our ideas, but this could be tough.

Thanks for reading!

Keeping my shift together

Okay that was a bad pun, but I'm tired and sick of thinking.
As I have read on other people's blogs, I am happy to know that I am not alone in the boat of being completely overwhelmed by how much reading we have to try to accomplish between the two classes. This is a complete struggle to stay afloat. Reading about 145 pages in a week on top of other activities for one class alone is a little more than I can really handle right now. That doesn't take into account the second class which requires about 200 pages to read and other activities. I don't feel bad anymore about complaining to say this is ridiculous! I realize it's a shift getting back into grad school again, but when my daughter gets here I am going to sink.

Anyway... this week has been interesting trying to find a good message design. My wife says I am probably over thinking it, but I have found what I hope can be a reasonable image to use. I've been searching all over at work, and I came to realize for a training department, we don't necessarily have good message designs. I found a watercolor painting book that features awesome visuals and good layout of directions. I am excited to get it scanned if for no other reason than to take one more check off on the list for the week.

In terms of the week's tools, I have used Skype many times before, and find it to be a great collaborative tool. I was more impressed with last week's ooVoo if only because I tried it shortly after freezing up multiple times on Skype while trying to see video of my nephew in Indiana. Kindling is also an interesting concept. I brought it up at work with mixed interest, but I think the potential is there to benefit our group, especially given how spread out and isolated we can all be. Conference calls and weekl meetings don't always cut it. I studied and used Audacity quite a bit recently in preparation for an interview, so I have some background on it. I think it is a good tool to use, but it can also be very complicated, especially for an introductory podcast user. Personally I love Garage Band a million times more. It is so much easier to use, comes installed with iLife '08, and makes podcasting a breeze. ClassSpot seems like a good idea, but it was hard to tell as it was not as easy to play with. It does require self discipline from students though to make it effective.

Thats all for now, off to dream about all the readings I should be doing!

Switching blogs to separate classes

Hi all,
I think I am going to switch my blogs to make it easier to balance between the two classes. This blog will stay as my ideation blog for Instructional Message Design. I will be creating a second blog at:

http://philhavlik5650.blogspot.com

Check out my Policies and Procedures for eLearning Environments (5650) posts there!

Policies and Planning Online Learning Post #1

The readings for this week were interesting, especially the Teaching and Learning Online reading. I found it contained a thorough examination of the principles of eLearning and readers will hopefully learn from it that eLearning is more than having readers just read and interact online. If done effectively, eLearning can be an extremely powerful and engaging tool. Although, as pointed out in the DE article, eLearning is a relatively new concept with widely ranging results of success. It is not a perfect concept, but it is also a new one. Distance education, as the article suggests is a concept that has been around for quite some time. However the methodologies and means that the learning is presented in have changed substantially.

As the TALO article discusses, it is critical to have the Learning Tasks, Supportss and Resources to make an online learning setting work. While having all three is important, it is also important to provide a variety of all three. It is important to remember that even as the learning takes on new mediums for instruction, any learning environment is supported best through good, engaging instruction.

While the debate is present for asynchronous versus synchronous learning, it is and always will be an unanswerable question about which is best as all learners will learn in different methods. No one way is going to always work for everyone. Just as some will engage in lively debates in a classroom, the same can be done online. Granted the medium allows for the quieter students to more easily speak out, it still requires bravery and thought to put your words out there. Unlike in a traditional classroom, words are often permanently documented and can be re-read more easily by those seeking to review. This is a big brave step to take for anyone to make a comment. I often find myself writing "If this makes sense" at the end of any discussion thread as a disclaimer of sorts that my words may not be cohesive after all.

Week 2 Message Design- ooVoo, TalkShoe and more(oo)

I checked out ooVoo tonight as a new site recommended by Joni. It is interesting how much develops and how little we sometimes know. I was familiar with free online chatting based on experience with Skype, which has made family conversations a lot different. My in-laws are big into Skyping with us now, especially surrounding grandkids. This seems like another great tool to use for that, as Skype can sometimes be touchy during high usage times. It's good to have alternatives, and I'm surprised I'd never heard of it.

Jott I had heard of before, but haven't always used it. It's neat because it's free, but I think it will take a while to get used to before I really make use of it. I had heard of it from a David Pogue vidcast (vodcast?) where he discussed it as a tool. I definitely can benefit from a "to do" list, but it's part of the adjustment to get used to. It also seems like just when you get used to a tool, another better bigger faster one comes out. Man I am getting old for 29.

I also have never heard of TalkShoe. Another interesting new idea. The community chats make it like a call in radio show run by the listeners. I really like the potential there, but a big concern becomes reliability. I love the push towards chatting online more where it is free and you can view those you are talking to. We're heading towards what we've seen in all of those "futuristic" movies with the video conferencing. It reduces a lot of walls, and makes communicating more authentic.

Relevance and meaning also come to mind when thinking about many of the Web 2.0 features like this. I love the potential, but am scared of the current use. I think of how many postings I have read attached to numerous news stories, YouTube videos and the like that contain something like "U R gay" or "Obama sux" or something equally mind numbing. I think over time the conversations will improve, but I can only hope.

I was thinking about the use of these materials in my job. It would be hard to push too hard for the use of these, as I'm still very new, but I think there is a lot of potential. I don't like VPs being able to see my face though after 70 minutes of an ongoing conference call.