Warning: squirrels.

Cal State chooses Angel and Moodlerooms ... for now

For those who think that accessibility is not important, here is a cautionary note from California. Last week, the California State University [CSU] system announced its intent to award master enabling agreements with learning management system providers Angel Learning, Inc., and Moodlerooms.

One of the reasons why Blackboard/WebCT, the largest educational learning management system provider in the world and the system used by 18 of CSU's 23 campuses, was not chosen was that BeachBoard failed to meet the CSU's minimum accessibility requirements. Blackboard's barriers to accessibility were found to be both serious and densely distributed across the application.

Desire2Learn was not chosen both because of concerns about its possible patent infringement and because it too has accessibility gaps, although those gaps are few and may be repairable.

The California State University system recently established the goal that all instructional materials and instructional websites [including learning management systems] for all course offerings at all 23 campuses will be accessible by the start of the Fall 2012 semester.

Blackboard and Desire2Learn will be given a chance to fix their accessibility gaps and resubmit a proposal for reconsideration at a later date.

<opinion>Considering the fact that it usually takes campuses up two two years to migrate from one learning management system to another, and considering that the CSU's 100% accessibility deadline is only four years away, time is rapidly running out for BlackBoard and Desire2Learn to 'cure their ills.' One thing is for certain: The higher education academic technology community is in for some interesting times.</opinion>

Young people not so good at searching, should get off my lawn

One of the common urban legends in the education world is that that children are born with the innate ability to operate electronics but, sometime in their early to mid-twenties, these [former] children go through some sort of technological menopause and become technologically-challenged like you and me.  Researchers at the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee decided to investigate the validity of the first part of that theory by measuring how well [British] children born after 2003 perform certain internet tasks. 

The results are disappointing. While information literacy is now embedded into the curriculum, "[a] careful look at the literature over the past 25 years finds no improvement (or deterioration) in young people’s information skills." Children may be swift at searching, but "the speed of young people’s web searching means that little time is spent in evaluating information, either for relevance, accuracy or authority." This may be because "young people have a poor understanding of their information needs and thus find it difficult to develop effective search strategies."

In other words, kids kind of suck at Google.

You can download the complete report in Adobe Acrobat format.

True story from the ed tech support line

Fresh on the heels of the instructor who yelled at me because my university had misspelled her name ... on ratemyprofessors.com ... comes the following.  Like most universities, we keep courses on our learning management system [LMS] for a set period of time and we then remove those courses to an offline archive.  Unlike most universities, however, our archive includes every course ever taught on on our LMS and faculty can request that we restore their old courses at any time. Requests to restore courses from 2001, 2002, and 2003 are not uncommon.

 

What is uncommon is the restore request I received last night.  A faculty member wanted me to restore three of his BeachBoard courses ... from the Fall 1980 semester.  No, that is not a typo.  Fall *1980*. He wanted his BeachBoard courses from the last semester in the Jimmy Carter administration.

 

Here is my [passive-agressive] reply:

Thank you for contacting BeachBoard Services.  We regret to inform you that are unable to restore your Fall 1980 courses to BeachBoard because the University did not use BeachBoard that semester.  In fact, neither the personal computer (introduced in 1981), nor the modern web browser (introduced in 1993), nor the Blackboard software (introduced in 1997) that powers BeachBoard (introduced in 2000) existed in 1980.
 
If you would like to see the grades that you received from the courses you took 28 years ago ...

Bonkian Youtubian Researchian

If you have been to an educational technology conference in the last few years, you’ve most likely seen a presentation by Dr. Curt Bonk. Bonk is a Professor of Instructional Systems Technology and adjunct in the School of Informatics at Indiana University (IU). One of the topics he’s currently researching is YouTube, in particular

why people post, view, share, comment on, or subscribe to a YouTube video. Areas of interest include motivation, engagement, instructional design, and learning or educational value in a YouTube video.

So, Bonk and his colleagues at Indiana University recently created a survey that asks about 40 questions ranging from “how often do you watch YouTube videos” to “have you ever shared a YouTube video link with a friend?” If that sounds like something that interests you, point your favorite web browser to http://trainingshare.com/video/ and click on the link at the top of the page to start the survey.  You can preview all of the survey questions before you participate and you don’t have to enter any personally-identifiable information other than your email address ... and even that’s optional. [You only need to enter your email address if you want to be entered into a drawing to win an Apple iPhone.]

If you don’t want to participate in Bonk’s survey but would like to view the results when they are published, that’s cool too.  Just make sure to bookmark Bonk’s “Bonkian Youtubian Researchian” page at http://indiana.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6703696942 or his blog at http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/ because I am betting that Bonk will post the results to either or both of these pages in the not-too-distant future.

GaETC 2007 Podcasts

About three weeks ago I had the honor of being a featured speaker at the 20th annual Georgia Educational Technology Conference. As in years past, the folks at the conference recorded two of my sessions and turned them into podcasts:

Keeping Up With the Googlebots: What’s New at Google (as of November 2007)

• Podcast
• PowerPoint presentation [zipped]
• Flash presentation

What’s New and What’s Different in Microsoft Office 2007

• Podcast
• PowerPoint presentation [zipped]
• Flash presentation

Podcasts for presentations of many of the conference's other featured speakers--including David Pogue, Leslie Fisher, Gail Lovely, Curtis Bonk, Doug Johnson, Annette Lamb, and many others--can be found on the GaETC Podcast page.

Enjoy!

Podcast: Back-to-school computer recommendations

As promised, here is the podcast from a few weeks ago where Steve, Johnnie, and I talked about what you should look for when buying a new computer for a student.  While Gray recommends that you get a Mac, keep in mind that Gray makes his living from servicing Macs.  I respect Gray's opinion, but I still stand by my original recommendation: Don't buy a Vista or Mac computer until you first talk to your campus' helpdesk.

Follow-up: Back-to-school computer recommendations

Last week I shared with you my minimum hardware recommendations for a back-to-school computer.  To prove that I actually "walk my talk," here are the specs for the new back-to-graduate-school laptop I ordered Sunday night:

• Make and Model: Lenovo Thinkpad T-61P
• Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium.  [USC's Information Technology Services does not yet support Vista but they will "in a few months."  Besides, having a Vista laptop next to my XP desktop will enable me to answer most of the Windows questions we get on Website Wednesday Night.]
  
• Processor: 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300
  
• Hard drive: 100 GB, 7200 RPM
• Memory/RAM: 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (667MHz) plus an additional 1 GB Intel Turbo Memory card
• Screen: 15.4" WUXGA TFT powered by an NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M video card with 256 MB of memory (1920 x 1200 max resolution)
• Optical device: DVD recordable 8x dual layer
• Ethernet: Gigabit [10/1000] ethernet
• Pre-installed office software: None.  [I purchased a copy of Microsoft Office 2007 from my campus bookstore.]
• Pre-installed antivirus software: None.  [I'll purchase a license for ESET NOD32 [$39] when the laptop arrives in September.]
• Laptop wireless card: Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN [yes, I actually got an "N" card ... but that's only because the other two WiFi cards offered by Lenovo were horrid.]

Total cost?  Don't ask.  Thank God for financial aid.

Back-to-school computer recommendations

On tonight’s Website Wednesday Night, we’ll discuss what you should look for when purchasing a back-to-school computer.  The following list is what I recommend as the absolute minimums. This is what I'd look for if I were buying a computer today and wanted to ensure that my computer would still be usable in four years. If the desktop or laptop computer you purchase meets or, better still, exceeds these minimums you’ll be good to go.

• Operating system: Before you purchase any computer, check with your university's helpdesk and see what operating system(s) they support.  You don't want to purchase a Mac OS-X or Windows Vista computer only to discover your university offers limited support for those operating systems.  Oh, and if your university has a recommended hardware list, ask for it ... and ignore the rest of my recommendations. If you are buying a computer for a kindergarten through 12th grade student, pick the operating system [Mac or Windows] with which your student is most comfortable. 
• Processor: 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or Centrino Duo/Pro [A little explanation: the goal of this list is to help you buy a computer that won't be completely obsolete before you graduate in 2011.  Both Apple and many major PC manufacturers have recently settled on the Core 2 Duo as a standard platform, so I don't expect it to go away anytime soon. The same cannot be said about the Pentium 4, Pentium M, or AMD Athlon. ]
  
• Hard drive: 80 GB, 5400 RPM
• Memory/RAM: 512 MB for XP, 1 GB for Mac OS-X or Vista [2 GB preferred]
• Screen: flat panel - 13” for a laptop, 17” for a desktop [13"-15" preferred for a laptop, 19" or greater preferred for a desktop]
• Optical device: CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo
• Ethernet card: 10BASE-T (10 Mbps)
• Pre-installed office software: None.  Purchase Microsoft Office from your campus bookstore or Costco/Sams Club instead.
• Pre-installed antivirus software: None.  Ask your university's helpdesk to see if they offer free or discounted versions of Norton Antivirus or McAfee Virus Scan.  Most do.  If they do not, consider either AVG [free] or ESET NOD32 [$39].
• Printer: black inkjet [multifunction printer with built-in photocopier preferred for college students]
• Surge supressor: Anything over $30 and NEVER plug your printer into it [an uninterruptible power supply is recommended if you will be living in the dorms or an older apartment]
• Laptop wireless card: Wi-Fi G - 802.11a/b/g
• Laptop security cable: Combination (keyless) notebook lock
• Warranty service upgrade/protection services: Yes for a laptop [look for a service that covers accidental damages], no for a desktop
• Theft insurance: Contact your insurance agent and have your computer added to your homeowners or renters insurance

Again, please remember these are are absolute minimums.  Try to exceed each.

To save 5% to 10% off the purchase price, buy your computer either from your college bookstore or a computer manufacturer like Apple, Dell, or Lenovo that offers student discounts.

Bama bound!

Well, I am off to the deep south tomorrow to speak at the Alabama Educational Technology Conference, see my family, and chow down on some exceptional barbecue, chicken fingers, and mexican food.  If you are going to be in Birmingham any time this week, stop by the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center and say hi.

Watch Frontline episodes online

For the past 23 years, Frontline has been the flagship public affairs series on America's public television network. Frontline presents long-form public affairs documentaries that "fully explore and illuminate the critical issues of our times." In fact,

FRONTLINE remains the only regularly scheduled long-form public- affairs documentary series on American television, producing more hours of documentary programming than all the commercial networks combined.

Now for the cool part. If you head over to the Frontline web site you can watch nearly three dozen Frontline episodes in their entirety, online, free of charge. No, really.

Each Frontline episode is divided into 12 minute chunks, and both high (DLS/Cable) and low (dial-up) versions are available. While you can't actually save the video chunks to your computer without using special stream recording software [which I am NOT going to talk about], the 12 minute chunks are available in both streaming RealPlayer and Windows Media Player formats. Just click on the episode you want to watch, click on the clip you want to play, choose your bandwidth, and you're off to the races.

A few of Frontline's episodes also have links to analyses, interviews, chronologies, discussions, and even teachers guides. Look for the links somewhere on the episodes' homepages.