Roadtrip for Lutefisk

Link to the video "Roadtrip for Lutefisk" from the Minneapolis Star & Trib:

https://gwwa.clcmn.edu/gw/webacc?action=Item.Read&User.context=rpasu0QbcuhbphfLma&Item.drn=63590z2z0&merge=msgitem&Url.Folder.type=Folder.UNIVERSAL

Foreign Service Jobs

Interesting article from the NY Times on the foreign service jobs: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/jobs/21officers.html?_r=1&em

Link to the US Dept of State website with 40 question suitability quiz "Is Foreign Service Right For You":
http://careers.state.gov/resources/foreign-service-right.html

OK Don't buy a Sony Mini DVD video recorder

OK This is just my personal opinion here, but I HIGHLY recommend you buy any other type of video camera other than a Sony Handycam mini DVD recorder. I was hoping to do some editing of my travel experiences but it is becoming quite apparent that this is easier said than done when it comes to working with this particular Sony camera. You see it saves files in IFO and VOB format which is not recognized by the major editing software programs--Windows Movie Maker, Apple's imovie. The camera is not equipped for firewire. So I'm basically out of luck (that was not my first or second choice of phrases to use here!) I have learned alot about file formats and file conversions, however, not of it is helping me be able to do what I want to do with it--EDIT and USE IT!!! It's become very frustrating (and part of the reason why I haven't been able to do anything with it before because who has a whole extra week to fiddle around with google searches on recommendations, and failed file conversations and trips to computer stores for help and assistance that all comes back to the same results--FAILURE! So my recommendation to anyone out there looking for a new video camera don't go with the Sony handycam minidvd 301 if you want to do anything with what you're trying to tape!

Archives and an Assessment

Since I will be teaching Mass Communication this summer I found a few resources while researching the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attacks that I thought I would document.

The first site is a collection of newspaper articles on Pearl Harbor:
http://www.thepearlharborarchive.com/MediaRequest.aspx

From that site a series of other interesting collections and free archives are linked including:
NewspaperARCHIVE.com
KennedyAssassinationArchive.com
September11Archive.com
TitanicArchive.com
FBIArchive.com
ImmigrationArchive.com
TornadoArchive.com,
EarthquakeArchive.com

Argument, Persuasion, or Propaganda Chart:
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson829/Argument-Propaganda.pdf

Document Analysis Form:
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson829/DocumentAnalysis.pdf

AWESOME ASSIGNMENT FROM RESOURCE LINK "Read Write Think" (readwritethink.org)that has students analyze a WWII poster. First students pick a poster from a great set of collections. Each poster has background information and a student comment dialogue box which pulls up for notetaking. Next the student is asked to analyze their choosen poster by answering questions revolving around "purpose, author and audience". The third step involves analyzing it further by looking at questions about the poster's "evidence, support, and outcome". Finally in the fourth step the student is asked to discuss overall impressions of the poster and then to categorize the poster as one of argument, persuasion or propaganda (justifying their answer of course). Upon completion the student can click on"finish" and a dialogue box will appear that asks if the student would like to print or save their assignment. The site even comes with a designed rubrik to help instructor's assess the students' permance on the assignment. How cool is that? http://interactives.mped.org/view_interactive.aspx?id=571&title=

A picture of Roosevelt's Reading Copy of his "Day of Infimy" Speech and correlating cool assignments can be found at this address: http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/day-of-infamy/activities.html

CRS (class response systems)

There are alot of new and innovative ways to engage students with technology these days. One of the latest tools is a crs or classroom response system. Turning point and clickr are just two of the many companies that are in the business of selling units for the classroom. These units are still quite expensive (in my opinion) but are rather cool. Here's how they work. Here's a site that explains what it is and what it can do: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/resources/teaching_resources/technology/crs.htm#what

If you didn't click on the link above but want a short version here it is: A crs is a combination of hardware and software that provides planned interactive classroom experiences. Students need to have an individual piece, usually referred to as a "clicker" that has multiple buttons on it for multiple choice type questions or survey options. Then there needs to be a main unit that is the receiver system which needs to physically be in the classroom. Using the special software, teachers create questions that then dropped into a powerpoint format for the class period. Then during class, when such a slide comes up the students can then make their own individual choice on their individual clicker. The overall results are tabulated and appear on the screen instantly. Kinda cool huh?

It's a good way to check and see if students are really getting the material you are presenting. It can also be used as a review game or as a survey. However there are some downsides to the crs. Besides the cost factor of the units, there's the fact that the clickers need and go through batteries. So then the discussion becomes who's responsible for the clickers? Do students buy their own? Does the individual instructor or the particular department purchase them? Or does the school buy some and instructors reserve them on a need to basis? If individual instructors are in charge of buying their own, how is the technology supported? Does the IT department need to learn a whole bunch of programs? Or if it is up to the students to purchase them, will one clicker work for different systems? If not, how can we prevent students from being required to buy different clickers for different teachers? There are alot of questions that still need to be discussed and recommendations made. Unfortunately, I applied for a grant to help fascilatate such discussions, but it didn't go through.

Another option that's out there now is software programs that do similar tabulations but a student uses their cell phone. When Michael and I tried one such site, my cell phone didn't register. Apparently some other students had similar issues at the student success day where they were trying the program out. Here's an article that talks about how they are being used:

The entire article may be viewed at http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/22_10/news/602056-1.html

And here's the website of the company mentioned in that article: http://www.polleverywhere.com/

Don't know what's going to happen on our campus as far as recommendations, but I'm excited to think about the possibilities these technologies provide.

World Aids Day Resources

In preparing my other blog on World Aids Day, I found some interesting resources I wanted to document for potential class inclusion. First and foremost is the world aids day website:
http://worldaidsday.org/

Videos:

The Problem of HIV Stigma http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5TLjMZzCQ1U&feature=related

World Aids Day 2007 from amfAR.org http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGcnc2tgjZI Which is a great conception piece on understanding how many people are infected and what those numbers really mean.

The Meaning of Food

I watched a video called "The Meaning of Food". It was on my netflix que but it was a PBS show. It was really good. It had different segments that talked about how food was connected to life and culture and personal identity. Only an hour long, it would tie to my food and culture unit for my Intercultural Communication class. Or be a nice small unit for the nonverbal chapter in the Interpersonal Communication class.

When I went to pbs.org to see if the video I also found a whole bunch of additional eductaional resources. There are self quizzes that students can take and there are sample assignments for different grade levels. Two quizzes jumped out at me for class one was on food rituals around the world connected to new born babies. Another resource that would make a great crossword puzzle has to do with unusual food served around the world that people outside of that culture might view as "weird".

But the most powerful insight I gained from watching this video was the introduction to a book called "In Memories Kitchen". It is a collection of recipes gathered from women in one of the concentration camps. The juxtaposition of these starving women dying of malnutrition finding hope in the sharing of their favorite recipes (one many of them would never get to make again) is something that will lingers with me for a long time. From what I learned the original manuscript was sewn together with a needle and thread and passed on to someone after the war who honored their memories by publishing it, not as a cookbook but as a tribute. They talked about how some of the recipes are missing ingrediants, some do not have all the directions, some seem to just end begging the reader to wonder what it was that caused the author to end so abruptly. One entry ends with the directions to "wrap in pink paper" as if the hope of humanity rested in the perfect completion of these simple directions. In a time when those in power where trying to eliminate a whole race, to strip individuals of their identity the sharing of recipes must have given them a sense of uniqueness and at the same time a sense of community. I am requesting this book for Christmas because I feel the need to honor these women and the memory of their kitchens. And that is the most important thing I learned on sabbatical today.

Vimeo

Thanks to my friend Kirsten, I learned about a new video sharing site called vimeo found at, you guessed it, vimeo.com which seems to have alot of functions.

The first category is video sharing. According to their site "Vimeo makes it easy for you to upload any kind of video you make. You get 500 megabytes of storage every week, and we keep the original files so you (or others) can download them at anytime. We really pride ourselves with our video quality so your videos will always look the best on Vimeo. We even support High Definition. Yeah, that's right, HD." It also allows you to share that video or an "album of videos" with whomever you choose. It looks like they have set privacy regulations so that's good too. It also allows you to post directly to other hot spots like facebook, digger, myspace and flickr.

The next category is groups. According to the website, "groups allow you to create mini communities within Vimeo around the things you like. Share and discuss videos, photos, music, and events with other people that enjoy the same stuff. There are currently6135 Groups to view or you can create a new group right now."

Next up...channels. "Vimeo Channels are an easy way for anyone to showcase videos around a common theme. Do you rock-out in a band? Do you have a small production company? Make a Channel for your videos, or videos you find on Vimeo. There are currently 13597 Channels to watch or you can create a new channel "

Projects appears to be an area of vimeo where you can work together or challenge other members to post videos. I only explored it for a few minutes but some of the more recent postings were challenges like "post five 5-second vignettes" and "make it interesting" which encourages people to take one subject (i.e. a mailbox) and by using different camera angles, panning, music and other effects create something visually fun to watch even though it is the same subject. There also appears to be spots where you can post questions or get technical help from each other like camera choices and preferences.

And the last category I'll talk about is vimeos widget creater. Here's what they say, "Widgets make it easy to publish or watch Vimeo videos on other web sites. You can customize a widget for your blog, social network profile or anywhere else that supports embed code. When you upload a new video to Vimeo, your widget will update automatically"

So I think this site has alot of potential. Thanks Kirsten for the tip!

Who Knew?

Who knew my laptop had a built in microphone? Not me. I still have no idea where it is located but it's there somewhere. There's no little icon indicating its presence, but apparently I have one. And that little bugger seems to have been the problem with my conference calling. Since both the laptop and the webcam that I was using had an audio recording function, it was creating static by interferring with each other. Through trial and error, Michael figured out that I have a default setting on my control pannel of my computer that I have to leave on--it's called soundmax hd audio. The other option is USB. Since I currently do not use headphone microphones, my best option is to use the soundmax. But I then need to make sure that I change the webcam setting to soundmax hd as well or I get static. I've discovered that I can not change the setting after the connection has been made--the static will only continue. So I need to make sure that it is on soundmax hd before I initiate a call. My control pannel will stay set at the soundmax default, but the webcam does not appear to have that ability.

As for my analysis of the 4 different platforms for what seems to work best between a PC and a mac:

1) Skype tops the list. The picture seems to be clear for both the PC and the mac user. The sound levels are easily adjustable and seem quite clear. Setting up through skype 1:1 is an easy taks. Once you've put someone in as a contact they are brought up as potential callee's which is nice since I'm getting lost in the wave of usernames with all the different logins we have to live with these days. It's hard enough remembering all of mine let alone someone else's username or address. Finally, the calling features are easily recognizable through familiar icons (at least to me--the old fashioned hand phone receiver is something my students have never had to use which makes me feel really old) The size of the video on the screen is also decent and you can enlarge if you choose. So overall, this seems to work the best under the given circumstances (my pc to a mac computer).

2) Tokvox is a nice program in that it allows you to set up for a video call, copy the url to that connection, and then invite someone to join you by just sending them the url. The other party does not have to register with tokvox in order to join you. So that's a nice feature. However, both of our screens were a little jumpy and pixalated. So we lost some clarity. When Michael and I tried it between our two PC's it seemed to work better. www.tokvox.com

3) Yahoo's messenger. I like this option. For a pc user, the icons are pretty understandable. This is my favorite IMing format as you can do games and draw pictures together. The first time Kirsten and I tried those features I nearly peed my pants from laughing so hard it was so much fun. Unfortunately the webcam features were not as good. The picture I was receiving was a little more grainy although the image being sent out apparently was all right. Sound was good. Process not too bad, although there seems to be more steps involved. You have to accept the image coming through and if your dialogue box doesn't self scroll you may miss it if you're not remembering to look for it. So it looses a few points in the ease category for me.

4) Aim's video calling feature. Seems to work perhaps better between two macs. But is also doable between a pc and mac. There are alot of extra functions and icons and gizmo deals with aim. The star-up screen is a little busy for me. When I first signed up for it I did the streaming music option as well. Found out quickly I did not like that feature. So had to go back to my control panel and delete the program after the fact.

My friend Deb visits with her sister Barb via ichat and that works really well for them. Had to throw that in since I was reviewing and since it really seems to be a good program. However since I have a pc it really isn't an option for me.

Some people at school have used webx.com for conference calling. It has come with mixed reviews. From what I've gathered it is an ok program to use if you are doing more of a presentational style conference. It allows you to talk and show data which is a nice feature. There is a fee to this program but comes with a free trial period.

Last year, when we were working directly with an educational company called lodestar, we discovered an error in their program and ended up working with one of their representatives on a program through "gotomeeting" which seemed to work really well. There's a fee for that one too, but it allows you remote access which was nice because that enabled them to send a patch for their software program without needing the software. Of course, as an instructor I wouldn't need such access, but thought I'd include gotomeeting.com in my reivew anyway.

So that's what I've learned on sabbatical this week in terms of video calling. Perhaps you now know a little more too.

Conference Calling

Yikes! I learned today not to make the assumption that the only thing needed for a conference call was a webcam. Wrong!! I got the webcam but still had trouble on 4 different conference calling sites. First we tried AOL's Aim, then Yahoo's Messenger, then tokbox.com (with a different person even) and finally skype. All I can say is UFF DA! None of them seemed to work. Whether it was my webcam (a logitech), my computer's capabilities, my internet connection (Charter high speed internet) and its ability to live stream video/audio or something else, it was a frustrating struggle. I couldn't see my friend as clearly as I'd like in many of the programs and she couldn't always hear me. Seemed to go into chopped off sentences or worse yet, what Michael (CLC Dean of Tech) experienced as well-nasty static.

So, I learned not to assume it would be easy for me. Therefore, I can't assume it will go smoothly for my students either. I had hoped to do conference calling for office hours if students wanted it, but if my laptop isn't able to process live streaming I'm not sure what there is to do. I'm checking with Michael tomorrow so maybe it will all be OK.

But I didn't want today to be totally unsuccessful, so I completed my first quiz for my Mass Communication class based on the video I created on "A Local Glimpse of Political History" on the '08 Presidentially Election. So yeah!! I also found some cool links and resources which I added to the D2L site. So now I can rest a little easier tonight. And hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to communicate easier as well.

Headaches and Textbooks

Besides dealing with migraine headaches this past week, I was trying to narrow down my choices in new textbooks for my classes. Choosing a textbook in the past has not been easy for me. In fact, in the past I would have described it as a big pain, kind like the headaches I had this week. So I tried not to change textbooks unless I absolutely had to. Unfortunately, I couldn't put if off much longer. Mainly because I will be teaching a brand new class this summer so I didn't have an old one to go off of. So I buckled down and started exploring.

Holy Toledo there are a lot of options out there these days. And wow, textbook publishing companies have come a long way. I was exploring one book's online resources and was just amazed. There were not just powerpoints and textbanks available. These days you can get tailor made textbooks (order the chapters as you'd like them to appear--or add your own content.) Many companies even have their books put online so the students end up paying less than they would for a hard copy. There are also tons of web resources and actictivy sites that come with particular books. This particular site I looked at today even had a job opportunity and internship section. Pretty cool! Add on top of that iclickr questions ready to "cascade" directly into the corresponding powerpoints and I was about hooked! This one company even has content and quizzes that are ready for import directly into Desire2Learn--no respondus needed!!!

I haven't been this excited about a textbook in a very long time. Previously the mere thought of having to choose a new textbook and thinking about having to retype a whole new set of quizzes and chapter resources was enough to give me a headache. Had I known it was going to be this exciting I might not have put it off. In fact, maybe seeing the advances the publishing companies have made maybe helped cure me of my migraines. Ok I guess I won't go that far. But let me just say it has been very exciting to not only be free of headaches today, but to also feel freed by my textbook choice. Wooo Hooo!!!

Out on an Assessment LImb

I finished up the last of the quizzes on the Bhante Sahti interview today. YEAH!!! I ended up doing separate quiz questions for each video clip. I ended up with a total of 59 questions which will be randomized by video clip. Each student will have the same number of questions on each video but they hopefully will not be the same. I then combined the quiz questions into two total quizzes each worth 15 points (one point per question). That way a student will be able to complete the assessment on the Bhante Sahti interview in two different sessions if they'd like.

I like the randomizing feature because I do open book quizzes that aren't timed. This way no two quizzes will look exactly alike because not only are the quiz questions randomized, but the answer options within each question are randomized as well. It's just adding an additional layer of making each quiz unique. If students are working together, they are more than likely having to work through more questions than it first appears they would.

I'm content with this set up although it may not be right for everyone. I have found that I am lessed stressed doing it under this format, and my students for the most part are too. I have heard many students describe the anxiety of working under the little ticking clock on their quiz screen. Again, some instructors may need to have their tests timed. I have found that by doing the quizzes this way, I am able to add in additional assessments and it seems to be a win-win. It was definitely scary and I felt I was putting myself and my course integrity out on a line. But some of that pressure was self-induced because of my enculturation in a Westernized education system and the way I was taught.

Personally, I don't always agree with the way I was taught. I think parts of our education system only encourages short term learning and memorization over life-long learning and true understanding. I was an A student and yet, I bet if I had been given the same tests I aced even a month after I had originally taken them, I don't know if I would have passed too many of them. You see I learned to be a great memorizer and good test taker. I guess this is part of the reason why I was willing to go out on that limb and try an alternative style of assessments for my class. Luckily, I think it's working.

Editing

Ok I've spent the last four days working with video editing. It takes more time than I would have expected. We were experimenting with two different programs--windows movie maker and imovie on the mac. It appears that imovie allows more options and editing features but we had trouble uploading the video clip into this blogspot. We're going to try again today. We also tried uploading it to Youtube. That went more smoothly. I was also able to upload it from a flash drive from my computer into my blog. Not sure why that was. I did have trouble uploading one of my window movie maker videos, but figured that might have been due to the fact that I already had 5 videos in that blog. I was able to upload it to another blog entry. So I maybe had exceeded the space limit. Also note, that the uploading and processing of videos to this particular blog host takes a chunk of time. You are able to continue working with the text within the blog entry but can not close the window or publish until both pr0cesses are done. So that's just a little about what I learned over the last four days trying to edit my videos from the interview with Bhante Sahti.

Perception Photos

These are just a few of the photos we took at the zoo this past fall that are now part of my perception survey in my Interpersonal Communication class. Finally got that done today. When you look at each of these animals, what adjective comes to mind to describe it?

Photos courtesy of Deb Jacobson's Famous Photo Shop. But I took some of them too with her awesome camera.

PS I learned that when uploading pictures into a D2L question library you have to change the pixel size (not the image size) to 600 or under otherwise you get a MONSTROUS picture. It took a very long time to get this right and the files may still be a bit too big but at least you can see the whole picture on the screen now.

Mission Possible

Uff da! Making movies can take a very long time!!!! I thought it would be kind of cute to respond with a video to an email I received from Matt Fort. Why? Because he was asking me if I was willing to accept a nomination. However he used the phrase "accept this mission" and I thought he signed it Agent Phelps.

Now mind you I am not an old Mission Impossible fanatik. So I had to look up Agent Phelps online. I had to find a female character name and everything! My friend looked up the exact wording the the missions Phelps would receive. I had a general idea but would have missed alot of it.

So there I was with all this information and I was going to reply to his email with a boring old email but now that darn theme song kept running through my head. So my first thought was to try and type out the theme song using some word and spaces to capture the rhythm. But I couldn't figure out the right word and then couldn't figure out how to do the rhythm. It just wasn't coming together. I mean what was it supposed to look like? "bum...bum...bum bum bum...bum...bum bum..." And then what about the "do do doooo.....do do dooo....do do dooooo....do do" part? It just looks stupid!

So I decided I should find the music and just add that to the email. Well, I had the music on youtube, but didn't know how to edit it down from over 3 minutes in length. So as my friend searched music files, I started on a video.

This is only the second time I've worked with the video editing. Unfortunately, I have alot of hours of tape to work with and little in actual completed projects when it comes to videos. My first attempt at editing videos was the great feature "Hissy Cat" which can also be found on my blog sites. This however, was a new adventure because it was the first time I added and played around with audio. That was something else!

First we put it on a flash drive from her computer and then tried to play it on my computer. That seemed to work. I even dragged it into movie maker and it seemed to play from there. Cool! So I started my slides and brought in some photos. Everything seemed to be going well until I tried to move the music and my computer crashed!!! Apparently the audio file was not saved in a workable format. So after I decided I had to just shut down and reboot, I was able to log on and luckily the project was saved in draft form. Yeah! So I put the flash drive in again, saved it directly to "my music files" and then uploaded it into the movie maker program. Once it was there I could drag it into the audio line of the timeline/storyboard. Phew!!

Then I started playing with the lengths of the clips, moved the sound so it came in at the right time and everything ended at the right time, added a few transitional effects and picture effects and voila! I had another movie. Oh, and I found a site with free sound effects which I was also able to take advantage of for my final clip on the storyboard. Here's the site: http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/mechanical_sounds.html There are 10 different categories and probably hundreds of free sound clips they've put out for anyone to use (appropriately of course).

So take a look at my not so impossible mission movie:

I Catch My Breath with Bhante Sahti

I interviewed a Buddhist monk today for my Intercultural Communication class. He was very gracious to be willing to share with me some of his insight into the value of meditation. "Bhante" means teacher and although it was only a 20-25 minute interview I felt like I learned alot from him. It will be fun to have that video as a resource. After I edit the video I'll come back and past the clips here.

In the meantime here are a couple of notes:

"ama" - female teacher

"dana" - the practice of generosity or giving, not asking for provisions. This is a value Bhante Sahti practices and the way he is able to be provided for by his students who freely donate money after each session.

"What the Bleep Do We Know"-documentary or movie that Bhante Sahti recommended especially for college age students.

Bhante Sahti website: http://www.triplegem.org/

I used to give a meditation assignment to my Intercultural Communication class when it came to the chapter on cultural values. The United States is a doing culture and so it is very difficult for people to "take the time" to meditate because many feel they should be "using the time" to do other items on their "to do" list. He advised that first time meditators should go to a class where they can be fascilatated by a leader trained in meditation. That way they aren't picking up bad habits or thinking they're meditating if they're not.

He also commented on the fact that meditation has become commercialized and that there's alot of books out there that may be misleading.

All one really needs is to stop, listen, and go badk to their own breathing. I commented that I thought this was interesting as in US culture we have the phrase "I have to catch my breath"--we push ourselves going so hard trying to do so many things that we sometimes lose our breath and almost quite literally need to "catch" it.

Guess I have some more studying to do myself before I can better teach my students on the cultural practice of meditation. I think this video interview today is a great start.

Intro to Mass Communication and the Election

Interestingly I received my new Mass Communication textbook and started reviewing it on Election Day 2008--a day of historical significance that will long be remembered. In this day in age of technology and the influence of mass media in our digital age--this election takes on even more historical significance. And as a teacher I wanted to be on it. Especially since the new textbook is going to have a section on the campaign. The funny thing is that the textbook is already out and there's so much more to it. It's going to be incomplete--so it will be up to me to complete it. And it's going to take special care to do it in an appropriate manner that does not involve my political perspectives. But here's a few sites to consider:

Dixville Notch NH: First city to vote:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/04/obama-wins-dixville-notch_n_140790.html

Hollywood Declares Themselves video for You Tube Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPqw_lzHN70&ytsession=W4MDNVI3ibfUb1ILS4SE_hgHZQfmQwMFsgaGNjaG6Dh9reKg5fmWT5DjkLcmd_zd-ky7AOj2U0bjuVHy2qut70mgDuDhsmfUuzumCF737jg0z-sJCvBPzYZDnNfEsV8qxjc4GypoNXPBPSMmUQ2WN5UV_6R4z1rYIA8Se-Vv5npqabqfYRyG-GzTmwnC9IgOTyEGu3dfXGgGCWnjPiA5oYO45QjwVCyXHsgUZCD_VY8JdabEM4l5YjFjcdBf1oM-

Another Hollywood Declares Themselves video for You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olpCyDA4kYA&feature=related

Facebook resources:
BARACK OBAMA: Thousands of links--too numerous to know because results tag anything over 499 as just "over 500"
Over 500 groups, over 500 events, over 500 people, 45 page results and 77 facebook applications

JOHN MACCAIN: 29 total results
15 groups, 0 events, 13 people

Ann Nixon Cooper article and video:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_re_us/centenarian_voter_2

Record turnout:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_el_pr/voter_turnout

NYT Civil war finally over article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/opinion/05friedman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

taggalaxy

When I was at the D2L conference in Memphis this past summer, one cool site that was recommended was taggalaxy. Months later, I finally had a little more time to go in and play with it. It is a simple website that allows you to gather published pictures from the web with common tags.

When a person puts a photo onine they have the option to "tag" it which is like a key word or theme. It varies from a caption in that it is usually just one or two words whereas a caption might be a phrase, sentence or even paragraph. Typically you can mark your pictures with more than one tag. When someone else comes onto the web they can look for pictures with certain tags to help them narrow down all the options in order to help them find what he or she is really looking to find.

Taggalaxy allows you to put in the tag you are looking for but the matching pictures materialize into an interactive globe. You can turn and rotate the globe to see the pictures. You can also click on individual photos in order to get more information about it like the full caption. It's just an appealing way to gather and display world wide web photos. I think there's potential there for a couple of my classes.

A downside to this particular program is that I can't seem to find a way to save or export a created globe. So I don't know if I can guarantee that my students would see exactly the same globe if they created it on different computers at different times. It did seem to pull the picures in some form of sequential manner so maybe they would see many of the same pictures. But still I think it is a fun resource.

The website is: www.taggalaxy.com

Observing Colleaugues

I went to school to observe one of the new adjuncts in the speech department for whom I'm a mentor. It is not required that she have me do this and yet she asked me to sit in on her class. I think this shows great character in wanting to be a good instructor. Personally I think the hardest presentation to do is one in front of my colleagues. Then add on top of that the fact that I'm in her discipline and I think it would add even more pressure. The pressure was on for me too. Good teaching comes in many shapes and forms and I had to step outside of what I would do to anaylze how she was doing. I made some notes and we were able to talk right after her class. Overall, I think this was a great experience for both of us.

Empathy Applied

I created an online version of an assessment I do in my face to face class called "Empathy Applied". It's a handout I created a few years ago and have used when asked to report on the college wide assessment of the competency "Applying Abstract Ideas to a Concrete Situation". I think it will be a great resource to have online.

The assessment starts by asking students to identify the definitions of two terms: sympathy and empathy. Next they are given a concrete situation: "You just found out that your best friend's mother has passed away." After laying out a few more contextual details the students are provided a list of behaviors/responses to that situation. They are asked to identify which statements would be representative of an empathetic response, which ones would be representative of a sympathetic response, and which ones given the situation would be neither sympathetic nor empathetic and therefore "not appropriate".

I've found that many Interpersonal textbooks do not spend a great deal of time discussing grief and how to help those who are sufferring with grief. Over the years I've found a few resources that I like, but this assessment is a great tool for helping us move away from just reading about empathy to actually talking about what it looks like. So it will be nice to now also have it online.

Incivility in the Classroom

If you're a teacher ask yourself these questions: Ever had a student make disparaging remarks in class? How many cell phones have gone off in your class this year? Do students who fall asleep in class bother you? Do student's come in late or leave early for your class and does this disrupt you? How many textmessages do you think students send and receive while in class? Would that distract you? How about those students who are obviously doing homework for another class? These are just some of the behaviors that have been earmarked as uncivil for some instructors. I know they bother me. But are some behaviors worse than others and just how often do they really take place? Well I'm following St Cloud State's lead in trying to figure that out.

St Cloud State University created a survey that was conducted in order to better understand what is happening in the classrooms on their campus. As part of this survey students and faculty were asked to rate both the degree of severity as well as the frequency of 25 different behaviors. Twenty three of the behaviors are generally accepted to be uncivil while 2 are considered positive behaviors instructors expect from their students. With the developers' permission, I have replicated the survey for use in my interpersonal communication class.

One of the interesting outcomes of the SCSU survey is that there is a difference between what teachers are reporting are happening and what students self-report that they see happening in the classrooms. There's also a difference in what teachers as a whole and students as a whole report as "uncivil" behavior . I think this is a great topic for discussion in my interpersonal class as what some perceive as offensive, others may not. Sometimes students don't understand that their behavior affects those around them. So I plan to have the students take the surveys which I typed up today using the D2L format. Then we can look at the results together and have a discussion about how and why those survey's relate to interpersonal communication.

Tracking the blog visits

I met with Michael earlier in the week and he gave me some ideas for tracking the visits to my blog. It's amazing what all I can find out about people just from them clicking into my blogs. It's kinda a bit "big brother"ish. But on the otherhand kind of interesting. Hopefully it will also help me assess how the blog is working, or not working, in the ways I intended. So here's some quick notes about a few options I looked at:

clustrmap: diagrams the visits to your site by where in the world the user is hosted. A little map of the world can be added to your site that pinpoints the locations of your visitors.

feedjit: imports a live traffic feed so you can see the users in a timeline of most recent or currently at your site. There's also a little flag icon next to each line so you can see the country from which that visitor is accessing your site.

sitemeter: a statistical blog summary that allows you to also view how a visitor entered and how they leave your site. It tracks the total number of visits, how many pages they opened and the length of time spent before exiting. There's alot more this site can track as well.

I decided to start with the sitemeter as I'm not anticipating too many international visitors. I was able to set up an account farily easily but ran into a little trouble on getting the link to appear directly on my blog site. There were directions listed for how to do this according to what blog program you use, but the directions given for my program appeared to only get me half way there. So I'll try again later.

**I also created my D2L quiz today on the "FTF and other acronym" blog so I feel good that's done.

Channels and Choices

On Friday I found out that my good friend's brother passed away from a heartattack. So my blogging came to a bit of a cease because I didn't quite know how or what to say about it. I didn't want to write something frivilous. So I gave it some more thought and after awhile came back to blog about it. I decided to honor his memory as a teacher by not just blogging about his passing, but to use it as something that could be a learnable moment for my students. So I opted to talk about the choices people made in how to pass on the news of his death. From the college where he worked calling his mother, to the police officers driving up in their driveway; from my phone call to my parents to the message I posted to our elementary school classmates, even the assignment itself where the students read about his death on the blogsite, all channels were included. So today I created a 10 point objective quiz that students will take on the blog entry. I also intend to talk to them after the quiz about the subjective part of what "communication rich" means and what type of contexts would be appropriate for each of the different channel choices.

Constellations and Cultural Influences

I was with the delegation from Thailand as they toured Brainerd High School and Forestview Middle School. One of the stops on the agenda today was to Forestview's planetarium where Brian Wallace lead us through an intergalactic exploration. It was one of my highlights of the day.

The planetarium was really interesting. I'm glad it was such a visual medium though because even with English being my first language, it was complicated material. Before going into the filmed presentation, he started with the night sky as we see it in Minnesota, and then adjusted it to show us what it looks like in Thailand. It was a cool perspective shift. He then talked about some of the mythology behind certain constellations. Like the big dipper, or Ursa Major. He told us about the American Indian story of "the big bear" and the Thai story of the Alligator. It was interesting to hear the cultural perspectives on the stories that become enculturated within the different parts of the world. And I thought that could be a cool assignment: To research the different mythologies to the same constellations and then compare them to each other through Hofstede's cultural vaue theories (individualism vs collectivism, high context vs low context, masculine vs feminine, etc.)

Here's some online resources for stories of constellations from around the world:

http://www.coldwater.k12.mi.us/lms/planetarium/myth/index.html

But I digress

I just had fun writing my blog "But I digress..." This is going to be a fun exercise to use with my students because there is so much we can talk about with it. To name just a few points:

1) Communication Myths. We can talk about the length of the sentences and correlate it to the chapter concept about communication myths. Specifically, the myth that more words will make a message more clear.
2) Tangents. This blog goes off on several tangents. My students sometimes have trouble with the term "tangential". This could help.
3) Acronyms. I use the acronym "TRF" which somepeople will know and others won't so we can talk about the importance of avoiding acronyms.
4) Knowing your audience and language choices. We can look at word choices like "ricer" which I'm assuming some people are not going to be able to visualize. We can also look at slang language. I don't use the word "hell" because I say I might have students read the blog. Yet I turn around and use "sh*thead" as if that's OK because I used an asterick.
5) The use or overuse of parantheses. I actually took it further and used a bracket within a parantheses too. So we can analyze when adding points that way helps and when it hinders the communication process.
6) Stereotypes. I talk about good scandinavians and good Lutherans.
7) Grammatical errors like ending sentences with prepositions. I struggle with this one myself. At least I know when I do it and if I'm typing I will correct it. It's harder for me when I'm talking. I notice many of my students are guilty of this as well, so can be one way we talk about catching our bad speaking habits.

These are just some of the ideas of how I can use that blog entry. I'm sure I'll be adding more to the list.

Side assignment: have students brainstorm a list of acronyms they have heard or personally use with the assumption others will understand

Side Effects

I've discovered there are some side effects to being on sabbatical. First and foremost I've reverted back to my natural body time--staying up and getting up a later than during the school year. Second, I've discovered that my interpersonality doesn't necessarily jive with a full year sabbatical when I'm home alone and 30 miles away from the place I work and basically live. So I had to manage a new set of dependencies that I wasn't necesarrily prepared for especially at the beginning of the year. It is in reaction to those emotions that led me to the third side effect. I'm addicted to my computer.

I've been very good about getting in and doing work on my computer almost every day. It's not like I'm playing games, but I spend probabl spend at least 6-8 hours online. Part of it is checking emails, part of it is blogging, and OK and part of it is checking in on my facebook account. I noticed that I kept blogging but didn't get into finishing all the D2L pieces, so over the last couple of days I've spent some time incorporating all my blog ideas into actual discussion forums, assignments, and quizzes. As of right now I have a total of 68 blog entries and many of them have corresponding assessments. I think that's pretty cool considering all of that is a "side effect" to my initial idea about blogging. In fact, none of this is in my sabbatical plan. So sometimes side effects can lead to positive outcomes!

Abstact/Concrete Language--'The Thing Is..."

I blogged in my "Showing Reality" site about making pumpkin pie. As I wrote it I specifically had a class exercise in mind. What I did was use the word "things" several times instead of a more concrete term. The assignment for the students will be to rewrite the blog entry replacing the abstract term for one that is concrete and specific.

A second step to this assignment could then be to get into small groups, discuss what word each students used to replace each "thing" in the blog and then to compile them according to the abstraction ladder theory (linear progression of terms that move in steps from the abstract to the concrete).

Facebook Teachers and Facebook Students

I met Susan for lunch today and had a really nice visit. She's a friend and a colleague who just happens to also be on sabbatical this year. We're hopefully going to get together again a couple of times this year, at least check in with each other, as we're both working on integrating some cool technology into our classes. We visited about a wide range of work-related items, but one part of our discussion I really needed to take to not only take to heart, but take some action as well.

She had had a conversation with another colleague about facebook and the student-teacher relationship. Both Susan and I started facebook approximately the same time. We both relatively new to this environment. I orignally started mine as a "business only" account so-to-speak. I did not join any groups that would have political affiliations. I participated in quizzes that only President Lundblad would approve of. I did not put too much personal information on my site and I certainly did not include any personal photos besides my profile picture.

My first "friends" were my international club students as they had so many questions I was unable to answer at the beginning of the school year since I was no longer their advisor nor was I on campus. It was fun to search through their photo albums for the pictures from our club activities. And before I knew it, almost the entire club had access to my account. Some sought me out and I accepted them. It didn't seem like an issue until I started seeing pictures that I didn't want to be associated with on my business account. And it wasn't just the pictures it was sometimes the status line. When the lines about being drunk were coupled with innappropriate pictures started to fill my "news feed". I had to take action. I actually defriended (just made that up) a student. Which brings me back to my conversation with Susan.

Both she and this other colleague had experienced similar situations. In one case a student did not want to accept his teacher's request to be a "friend" for class. In another case, asking nieces and nephews to be a friend seemed like a good idea until you truly learned what was going on in their world. So the conclusion eventually came around to the thought of separation of chats and state. As teachers, most of us would not advise becoming "friends" with our in class students so the same rules should probably apply online. I've learned more about some of my students than I cared to know and more than I probably should now.

So I made the decision to "defriend" my students and just be their teacher--at least until after they've left CLC.

Thanks Susan if you're reading this :)

More YouTube Videos for Class Collection

Today I added some more videos to the playlist collection for my classes. I found a couple of videos on racism that I liked and one I liked that I didn't dare share. So I saved the ones that were class appropriate. I also found out about the "thinkb4you speak" campaign that has PSAs aimed at explaining why "that's so gay" is an insult. I found two video's on you tube but guess there could be others out there too. I need to go see if they have a website.

Then my video searching got even more serious as I saved some links to videos on the Darfur genocide and Rwandan genocide. I was thinking that with the Darfur videos I could create an assignment that had students compare and contrast 3 different style videos (picture/print, music video, and personal narrative) for which one had the most impact on them personally. This way the students are not just learning about Darfur but are exploring the means of the message.

Before I left the youtube site I had to bring myself back to something lighter so I watched a cat that was fascinated by a printer to the point it attacked it (but the printer attacked back!) I needed that.

Cool Avatar Function

Thanks to my friend Deb, who has been following my blog, I learned about a cool function through the voki avatar program. She discovered that within the avatar's "player" there was an icon for leaving a comment. By clicking on this icon she was able to be transported to the "create an avatar" function of voki. She created her own avatar without having to giver her email address out or create a new account. Then she was able to leave a message for me. She told me that she had left a comment so I went back to the link where I had posted my avatar and the original message. All I had to do was click the icon which looks like a dialogue box and up popped her avatar pictuer. With one click I was able to hear her message and see her avatar "talk" to me.

After this fun find we experimented a little more. I was able to leave a message to her message. Everything stays in the one link. The discussion is threaded so you can play in sequence or just play the latest message. Deb even beat me to adding her own voice to her avatar. That was pretty cool.

One down side to the voki site is that your avatar's player (the frame that surrounds the picture) is going to have an advertisement on it. So currently my avatar looks like she's the posterchild for "Bridezilla". That's the "price" we pay I guess when we use free sites. So as long as you know that going in, then avatar away!

The final note I want to make about this experiment is that I received an email notice that a message had been left for me with my avatar. So that's good to know. You don't have to go back to check just in case someone left you a message, it will tell you. Nice huh? So thanks Deb for helping me discover that cool function.

Avatar Assignment

After working on avatars Monday, I decided to create an assignment that looks at some of the factors individuals use in creating their own avatar. I sent them to the same site I used www.voki.com. The tentative plan is to have them publish their avatar on their efolio site. Then they will have to answer some specific questions typing up their answers and submitting their word document into the drop box. Maybe there are some good online resources that I could use as resource links. Then a small quiz could be created. If I go that route, then I will put the questions into a discussion board forum. That actually would probably be more beneficial. I'll go make the addition right now!

Talking Avatar

Today I played around on trying to create an avatar. I did so at a site recomended by an IT friend. The site is www.voki.com. It's a site that allows you to add voice to your avatar and then import them to other places. You can pick certain pictures and then manipulate certain aspects of how they look. I played around with hair styles (although didn't find one quite like mine), hair color, eye color, width of face, length of face, skin tone and even the size of your nose. You can also change the clothing, the accessories and the amount of makeup your avatar wears. The avatar is animated and its eyes will move around and follow your cursor.

The neat part about this is that it allows you to record your own message and synchs your avator to the audio. I didn't have a microphone home (will have to add that to my wish list). The site however has a text to voice function that allows you to type in a short message that can be "read" by several pre-set voices with either American or Brittish accents. I left it on English, but there's probably several other types of accents available as well. It's hard trying to figure out how you look as a character. I wonder if it would be easier to design someone else than design yourself. Could be a fun exercise for class!

Press the play button below to get my first sample of how this all works.



Get a Voki now!

Tibet:Cry of the Snow Lion

Today I watched a documentary titled "Tibet: Cry of the SnowLion". I have to admit that I wasn't as informed as I should be on the history of Tibet. For this I am a bit ashamed. So today was the first step in trying to better understand the deep cultural and religious elements that have had such an international impact on our global society. Besides the 30 second news clips tied to protests over Beijing's hosting of the Olympic games, I hadn't heard much about Tibet in our Western media coverage. Watching this documentary was very enlightening. Of course, it also seemed to raise a few more questions as well. I guess that 's the sign of a good teaching tool.


Note to netflix members: This documentary is available to "watch instantly".

First Movie using Windows Movie Maker

I created my first movie using windows movie maker and some sample video clips taken from my friends new Flip video camera. I still have a lot to learn even with this short video I was able to implement the following techniques:
* import videos
* basic edit of videos (splitting and trimming)
* add title and text (before clips and as overlaying text)
* add special effect transitions between clips
* do some basic work on moving items on the storyboard.
* how to save video
* upload video to blog (uploading takes a little bit of time and waiting for the video to process takes even longer)

I think it turned out all right for my first attempt. Enjoy "Hissy Cat"

Funerals and Flip Bits

I didn't have alot of time to play with the video we took yesterday on the new Flip Ultra. However, I was able to download it on my PC (we had downloaded it on an apple last night). Seems that the software contained in the Flip iteself works pretty well with both the Mac and the PC. Deb put the video on her computer first and there was an upgrade to download. I'm assuming this is to match the software features that are now coming with the Flip Mino (the newest version and probably the camera I'm going to try and get). So the software was ready to go when I put it on my PC.

Although most of the readings listed the maximum storage time at 60 minutes. I noticed that we got 67:08 minutes on our first day and still had room to go. We took a total of 61 video shots and to download all the footage onto my computer only took 5 minutes. I didn't think that was bad. That's about as far as I got since we had to go to a funeral (see blog on Funerals for whom). He was a colleague. In his obituary was a line he used to use in his classes. I don't think he mind if I passed on the tradition. In every class he'd ask his students "Name 3 people who care you are here" and if the student didn't include themselves his response was "if you don't care, why should they?" Words to live by from a wise old soul who left his mark on the educational journey of thousands. Here's to you DS!

Great Unexpectations - Day one of Title IX videotaping

Today we started the video portion of the Title IX project that I’m working on with Deb Jacobson. She is documenting the history of women’s sports at Northland College where she taught for 34 years. She has been tracing the team history and electronically converting old photos for over a year. Seeing as she was the one who pioneered all women’s athletics for the school I felt it was important that her story be told as well. That’s where I come in. I get to be the one to interview her. So I created a set of interview questions and a basic story board and came up to Thief River Falls to get started on it. I learned that I needed to both plan for the unexpected as well as not assume all things unexpected would be negative. In fact some unexpected events can turn into something really good. See Blog titled “The Unexpected” under the blog “From Reality Shows to Showing Reality”. Just like in the classroom, I need some organization and yet some flexibility.

What else I learned today:
Many kids today do not know what Title IX is or why it was needed.
Many kids today do not have a concept how recent Title IX legislation was passed it terms of who it affected (parents, coaches, adults living today)
Plan more time than what you thing for video taping in order to account for some of the unexpected.
It will take longer than expected to save the video clips from the Flip video cam to the computer.
Pat Summit, one of the Pioneers of women’s progress in athletics and women’s basketball coach of the Tennessee Tarhills, was offered the coaching job of the men’s team, but declined it because she felt that would be degrading to women (giving the impression its more impressive to coach the men’s team than her champion women’s team).

Other ideas for class:
Survey my students on history/influence of title nine
Have my students survey other students and/or community members on the history/influence of title nine
Title IX link and short quiz for Intercultural class

PHOTO NOTE: This is a still that we captured from the streaming video.  The flip ultra seems to have pretty decent quality for a very small camera.  

Flip Ultra Directions/Mino Mac warning

Directions from Gina on using the Flip Ulra:

I'm a computer artist and animator and I haven't been happy with a lot of cameras. I was drawn to the Ultra Flip because of the lack of wires, I like the idea of the USB stick. They include a set of batteries with the package so you can start recording right away (as well as a little velvet drawstring bag). It was very easy to use, it's just as promised, click the red button to record (and to stop) then flip (ha-ha) the USB stick out and put it in your computer's USB slot.

I read a reviewer of another model of the Flip saying he needed an extra part to hook up his USB, I don't know what he was using but you don't need any middleman if you have a current USB port. Of course it might have been that he didn't feel comfortable with the camera sort of weighing itself down a bit when you have the USB attached to a tower. I'm using mine with a laptop which is on a table so the camera can rest comfortably on it. He might have gotten a USB extension so that he could set his down if he was using a desktop computer. I did try the flip out in my desktop and I did have to make sure that the dog didn't jump around it as it does feel sort of vulnerable, but I will mainly use it in my laptop.

After you have it in your USB port, you will then go to "my computer" and see a new blue icon (unless you're Mac, you'll see a folder for you instead), click it and it installs the program - which seems to run on the stick alone, not taking up any space on your system, although it does put a small encoder on your system. (Side note: - I did try to click "explore" before I installed the program to see if I could just drag the videos directly to my desktop by passing the program, and while you can save them, you can't see the videos). You have to go through the program to save them to your computer and be viewed properly.

So after you have installed the program, click "flipvideo" from your "my computer", then click "Flip Video for PC.exe" to open the program. It's very simple, you will see your videos and on the left you'll see a "save video" tab, here you can select what video(s) you want to move to your hard drive and then click the save button - they call it saving to your library, they will ask you to name a library, which will end up being a folder that holds your videos, which you will find in your documents as "My Flip Video Library".

After you have done this, you can then open them normally (outside of the program using just a player). They will be saved as AVIs.

They also have a "share video" section where you can upload your movies straight to Youtube, AOL or any video sharing website. Sounds good, but I haven't tried it yet. Now you can make a "movie mix" which is basically adding an effect to your video (slowed down in black and white or cartoon fish floating about etc. - no editing). It's very (very) simple, but it's cute.

They include a little plug that connects your Flip straight to your TV. Use your remote to find your 'line', 'input' or 'source' button to find it, click a few times, you'll see the first still of your video when you've got it right. Then hit play, now it wasn't clear in the instructions, but you want to hit play on your Flip (not the TV), to watch your video on your television and it looks great!

They also have an option to 'save for email' - if you do this it will save the videos into a folder "Flip videos for emailing" on your desktop that you can then send as attachments. When I did this it sped up the sound (think Mickey and Minnie) while the footage remained at normal speed (now don't worry, this doesn't happen when you save the videos to your computer as discussed above). This is probably a compression problem, but we can't fix it in their program, so I won't be using that option again - I'll stick to the 'save to library' option. It also does this for the ecard videos. There is an option to send the video as an ecard with cute little borders around them, recipients are sent a link to see the card, but again when played the sound is sped up.

In spite of that (cuz it's worth it), I have found my video camera, it's so small and light, there are no plugs or cords, it takes great videos, no tracers, no little pixel smudges and the lighting is great. I took one outside at dusk and it looks nice. This thing records twice as long as my bulky handycam and I don't have to format any disks or plug in a bunch of stuff. The picture quality of the Ultra Flip videos is really amazing, my other cameras (handycam, Creative labs, the onboard Vaio and VIJE) do not hold a candle to the Flips quality. I'll be using it for video projects. I am very happy with the Ultra Flip and will be bringing it along with me for a family visit. I recommend it! Yes, I flipped for it!

NEW UPDATE ADDITION (11/15/07): Just an update for you here, after I wrote this review I did run the flip on some other systems and it did not have the problem. I only had the problem on my custom Hypersonic PC laptop which runs windows XP. The computers that had no problems were: A Boxx desktop running Windows XP pro, and a Sony Vaio laptop running Vista, and just today I tested the flip on a Dell desktop running XP home which also had no problems. -And, a big AND here, after I ran the flip on the first two working machines (the Sony and the Boxx) a few times (using the export and email functions), suddenly it worked on the "bad" Hypersonic laptop. It seemed to have jolted it to work? I don't know why. Since that time I have had continued success on the Hypersonic. -An engineer from Pure Digital (the makers of the Flip) emailed me after reading my review and we had an extensive exchange working on trying to figure out why this happened and he was very serious about resolving the issue. Another thing that flip does is create updates, so with these two things in mind I feel confident that they have or are taking care of any problems. But again, right now I do not have any problems. -Also, someone asked if you can take stills. This camera is only a video camera, you can't snap pictures with it, however you can pull stills from your movies inside of their program.

From Amazon.com reviews

ON THE FLIP MINO:

MAC USERS BEWARE..., June 12, 2008
By
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere and I thought it was important for Mac users to be filled in on the following.... 1. The software that comes with the Flip Video Mino does NOT allow you to stitch multiple clips together to make one movie. Only Windows users can do this. 2. I was able to get the Flip Video Mino AVI videos to play in iMovie '08, but not export. When you export the video you get a blank screen with only audio. I had better luck exporting the video from Final Cut Pro. 3. In case you are interested, the codec that Flip Video Mino uses is the 3ivx codec. There are workarounds for the above issues, but it would have been nice if there was a way to combine clips into one movie right out of the box. Hopefully this will be possible in the future with a software update. Other then those concerns, its a great product so far and the video quality from the raw AVI file is really impressive. I found a site called motionbox that will let you upload the raw AVI files that the Flip Video Mino creates and once uploaded you can do some basic editing and combine multiple movies into one. Doing it this way gives you a much higher quality video then what you get on sites like YouTube.

Fact-Inference Confusion Exercise

I was leaving a grocery store today with a friend when we spotted this man with his arms in one of the bins of the large recycle station in the back of the parking lot. My friend and I watched him for awhile trying to figure out what he was doing. I saw him take out some paper products from the bin and place them in the blue cart in front of him. Why was he going through the recycle bin? Even though my mind wanted answers, I guess we'll never know the real reason for sure.

What I did figure out is that this photo would be a great exercise in fact-inference confusion. I could easily use it in the chapter on perception. There could be several possibilities for the man's behavior. Why did I think the worst? What did I know for sure as a fact and what did I just infer? What biases and stereotypes came into play leading me to make that first quick judgment? What did you think when you first saw the picture?

Allness Exercise

When I was writing a blog entry for my "reality shows to showing reality", I wrote one particular entry with a class exercise in mind. I decided to demonstrate the frequency in which we sometimes use allness terms (always, never, no one, everyone, everywhere, nowhere, etc .) So I specifically used them in the entry titled, "We Sell Amish". I then can have a matching quiz for them to take in D2L.

I love how the blogging has developed into so much more than I had originally intended.

We're going to the zoo zoo zoo, how about you you you?

I used to do an in-class activity in my Interpersonal Communication class that had students describe themselves as an animal. For some the answer came easy and for others, not. Today my friend and I decided to go to the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley. What a great idea for converting an in class activity to an online learning object.

The goal is to take pictures of various animals that can be shown. Students will first be asked to identify what traits they as assign to each animal. Once they've done this individually, they can compare their answers to their groupmates. Finally, they will be asked to pick an animal (one pictured or another of their choice) that they think best fits them (justifying their answer of course).

So we're going to the zoo zoo zoo, how about you you you?

Conference Time - CTAM

I'm at information overload. I've spent the last 3 days at a CTAM conference. CTAM stands for Communication and Theatre Across Minnesota. Friday was over 13 hours of sessions! That's alot of information. I learned alot. I came home with a plethora of ideas. However, unlike most years, I might actually get a chance to explore some of these references a little more since I'm on sabbatical. So since I learned more than I'm able to document here, I'll have to just do a couple of highlights:

1) Definitely need to get the flip camera (the batttery recharges when you're plugging it in for downloading--other brands use disposable batteries too quickly)
2) Windows movie maker now has "narrator" function which makes it easier to give oral feedback to speeches that get turned in to digital videos.
3) "When the wind blows it blows for those that..." an icebreaker that get's people moving and learning about each other
4) Thesaraus.com polarizes terms in a manner ripe for discussion (masculine and feminine)
5) Lori Halvorson Wente has stored public speaking resources on her efolio site
6) Public speaking concept/theory video clips will be released on Minnesota Online repository sometime very soon
7) MnSCU global education conference is coming up in November and CLC needs to be there. Bring an administrator
8) postsecret.blogspot.com
9) interactive listening quiz wisc-online.com
10) notes saved as word document "CTAM Notes 08" on faculty 1's site

Misc morning and mid-day mentoring

Today I came into work because I agreed to be a mentor to our new speech adjunct at the college and today was the mentor kick-offf session. I actually started my correspondence with them before school started. Typically this is the time when there are alot of questions and a new instructor can be easily overwhelmed. We talked about textbook choices, I shared my syllabus, and walked them over to tech support when their computer passwords were not working (this happened to both of them). I sat with them during duty days and introduced them to Matt, our Division chair, to Darin are media specialist/equipment organizer, to Deb the faculty secretary. I made sure they had the copy code for the speech department and informed them of the blanket purchase order in the bookstore for supplies. We walked to their office (they're not only sharing an office but even the desk) so we knew what items were there--then helped them find what they're phone number would be and when they'd get a computer. I felt bad for other new instructors who did not have a mentor before school started. As it was, I felt the speech adjuncts were rushed, and I was happy to help in whatever ways I could because afterall, we've all been there.

Since I had to come into town for the mentoring meeting scheduled for the afternoon I ended up coming into school for the whole day. This allowed me to work on some miscellaneous items in my office. First on the agenda was to try and clean out some of the misc email I had accumulated over the last year. Each year it seems there are more and more messages coming my way electronically. Some are for meetings, some are from students, some from my concurrent partner, others from colleagues, some from the textbook companies, and some are regarding school news which I always think I'll eventually have time to read but never do. Some of them need to be filed, some need a response and many can be deleted. I'm embarrased to say at the start of this school year I had over 850 email. I've slowly tried to deal with some of them, but it takes alot ot time. So this morning I picked away at the email and got it down to 430. One more morning like that and I'll be in good shape.

I also created a new quiz for my interpersonal class titled "Direct vs Indirect Blog Language" and it is tied to my blog entry for September 15, 2008 "A Day in the Life of Cycles". It's all set to go in D2L. My blogging is becoming more beneficial than I first realized--so that's fun.

So it was another day of working over 8 hours--am I really on sabbatical?

Instant Messaging with Meebo--Bringing it Together

Today I got jiggy with it. OK maybe that's not the right phrase, but I feel like I accomplished my goal of setting up and getting my meebo organized. Meebo is an instant messaging system that allows you to pull together your IM accounts into one large umbrella system. So instead of just seeing the people who are "online" through yahoo and then logging off and entering a gmail account to IM another contact, I can see all my contacts on one screen. To me that is defintely a plus. This could be a beneficial tool for online office hours.

Granted this took a little bit of time on the front end. I had one friend who uses aim (the america online version of messaging) and I had to create a aim account so that I could get her on my list there and then I could import my account there into meebo. I found AIM a bit more confusing than the other message programs.

The other confusing part is that I have to sign into my meebo account and at that site you sign into all the other networks. Because my default is to automatically be signed into yahoo when I start my computer, and because I don't have any friends that are only using the MSN network, I only have to sign on to the AIM and Google (gmail) accounts. Again, meebo pulls in all the logins into one screen, but I still have to remember passwords and login names for each account. But I'm sure once I do this a few times it will be second nature and much easier to remember.

Other pluses to meebo that I've discovered:
* I can send files to people through the IM function (at least to a yahoo account buddy).
* The receiver can stay in whatever program they are using and it interfaces well.
* It appears that video/audio chatting is a capability (I will have to get a camera and microphone soon to check it out)
* With yahoo buddy, I could still see the "typing" function which tells me that the other person is in the process of typing a message back to me. Personally, I like that feature. I don't think the same message appeared though with the person I experiemented with who was typing through AIM


Overall, I've found that I like the yahoo system best. There are alot of options (tools and toys) available there that make IM'ing more interactive and fun. I'll never forget one of my first experiences chatting with Kirsten Hofmann (Paul Hofmann's wife). We explored all sorts of features (tic tac toe, dual drawing, emoticons, games and chat backgrounds). It was a blast and I was literally in tears from laughter a few times. As an interpersonal teacher, that "immediacy" between communicators was much higher through that program then just typing back and forth as is the case with other im services.

* Note: Which IM service/network gives students the greatest sense of immediacy would make a great small group discussion for Interpersonal Communication. In Intercultural we could talk about the cultural influences and factors for what would be "most appropriate" for different cultural values.

So I guess I learned alot today on my sabbatical.

That's what manuals are for

In my other blog ("From Reality Shows to Showing Reality") I commented that I was having problems with songlists and the itouch.  But today I looked up the manual online and was able to figure it out.  I'm a visual person and I have to say one of the most helpful items was that they included pictures in their online version.  So not only was I more easily able to solve my personal problem with my itouch, I re-learned the importance of visual aids.  I'll have to remember this as I add content to my D2L classes and resources.

Blog Links

Today on sabbatical I finally found out how to get my photo album linked on my blog page.  After all the frustrations from yesterday's attempts, what I learned I was missing was one simple step.  I had successfully how to create a photo album on picassa and find the embedding URL address for copying.  I thought all I had to do was paste that somehow into the blog.  This is partly true.  What I was missing was to write a title for the link and connect it to that.  You apparently can't link it to something that is not visually there. So I typed in "Here is the link to..." then highlighted it and then clicked the link icon which looks like a chain.  That pops up the URL  box where you can paste the address/link.  Once you publish the post your link is one click away for your viewers.  There are two main benefits I've discovered for doing links in the blog.

1) You show more pictures this way

2) You allotted space through the blog site doesn't increase as fast (photos can eat up alot of memory space)

So there you are.  That's what I learned on sabbatical today!

ERGH!!! and YEAH!!!

OK today started off pretty good. I managed to get some work done, cleaned out some email, did my correspondances, checked my facebook and even created a D2L facebook survey to be used in my interpersonal communication class. I took it one step further and created an assignment that compares facebook communication with efolio communication. Cool stuff.

Then I had a great meeting with a colleaugue of mine, Lori Schroeder who also teaches communication at Metro State. She currently is also serving the Office of the Chancellor in the Academic Innovations department where she manages and promotes efolio training. It was great to touch base with her and catch up. Lori agreed to do a short podcast for my class on the value and potential of student efolios. Very cool! So we're going to do that sometime in the winter or sprign (still have to learn how to do them first).

Then as I was waiting at a local coffee joint for the rush hour to pass before heading out on the highway, I continued my blog work. I've mastered putting one photo into a blog entry but today wanted to link a photo album or powerpoint. Here's where it got frustrating. I've spent over an hour trying to do this and I just can't seem to get it. So I'm calling it quits! I know it must be possible but all I can get is the photo album created in picassa at this address:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kfrischMN/TrailDiscoveries?authkey=9e7nwr_z2FQ#


But so help me, it is not linking or uploading correctly through my other blog. So I guess this is going to have to be for another day.

However, I will end on the positive and at least be grateful for the fact that I did accomplish alot today. New survey, new assignment, new album, and an agreement for a future podcast.

Blogs are more fun with photos

I finally found my disc reader so I was able to load unto my computer all the photos I've been taking for my blogs. Of course there were over 1200 photos on this disc (not all for my blog) many of which needed to be sorted and organized. I need a sabbatical to sort through all the photos I have...wait a minute...

So today I actually took about 3 hours just to sort through some photographs and sort them into appropriate folders on my computer. Then I went into my blog "Reality shows to showing reality" and uploaded photos. I had never done this before but knew it was possible. Of course being a new blogger I wasn't familiar with all the icons so I had to go to the help function in order to figure out where to start. Once I saw the right icon, the rest was pretty easy.

Today's progress is kind of a good analagy for working with technology. I know there's stuff out there that can make my job easier, more interesting, or more fun...it's just a matter of knowing where to start--oh, and having a help button :)

Powerpoint album discovery

OK I haven't used powerpoint recently. I'm sure the last time I made a slideshow had to be before Microsoft xp so when I went to use it today there was a new function that I really enjoy. You can now import an entire album into a powerpoint slideshow automatically placing one photo per page. Maybe this function was there before and I just didn't know it, but boy do I like it!! It is so much easier to now import photos than what I remember that I might actually start using it more. I placed some photos into a new file and then through the "insert; album" function was able to create a new slideshow. The default even includes a title page for your presentation. Once the pictures are added than all I had to do was add my text and play with the fun stuff (color background, slide transitions, font options, etc.)

I was actually able to not only create a full powerpoint presentation but I already have it uploaded into my Interpersonal D2L course shell for next year. Yeah! I like that function alot. Now in my class is "Holding the Sun Series" an experiment in Perception.

Tackling Youtube

Today I tackled youtube. I have to admit that I have relatively little experience with the vastness that is youtube. I've looked at a couple of clips that were sent to me and tried to do a little searching on my own, but didn't even have an account until today (unless I created one last year and forgot I did so because I never used it). So today I attempted to find potential videos I could use in class.

As a speech instructor, I emphasize the importance of citing your sources and giving credit where credit is due. So before I go any further I need to mention that this afternoon's explorations came about because a colleague of mine, Ryan Deblock mentioned a video he thought I might be able to use in my classes. He gave me a couple of the "tags" (key words linked to the video in order to help the search process) and part of the presenter's name. And with just that little bit of information and a few clicks on the computer I was able to find the right video. So thanks Ryan!

From the youtube I was able to play the video without the need of an account with them. Cool! Even better was the fact that youtube pulls up a list of "related videos" which can revolve around similar topics. So from one key word search I was able to connect up to several "layers around a theme". A few of theme were ripe for class modules. But now what? I wanted to be able to compile these good finds but where? That's when I found the value of creating an account with youtube.

Once I created an account I had quite a few options that were readily available as "quick links" (one-click options that removes the need to copy and paste urls or the specific web address). I noticed that one option was to post it on your facebook. This was mighty tempting as I have been using my facebook account alot lately but opted not to link them there now as I thought I would have potentieally alot of video links and didn't want to bother all my facebook friends each time I saved a new video.

Next on the list of possible ways to store my youtube video finds was the quick link to "digg". Digg is another site that compiles a wide range of videos but tabulates the popularity of videos by common viewers. "Yea I dig that video." When you see the thumbnail of the videos listed at the digg.com site you also see how many people "digg it". And there's tabs at the top of the screen that let you pull up the most popular (highest digg scores). It's the who's who of cool videos I guess. The downside of digg.com is that contrary to what I wanted it to do, I don't think it is possible, even with an account (which I signed up for), to have a public space that lists only the videos you dug (can you use past tense with iterms?)

What I ended up doing was storing my video finds at the youtube site through a function called "playlist". I decided this was a good solution for where I was at right now. As I am still collecting videos and not really sure how I'm going to use them (have students view them and take a quiz on them, compare one to the other, find others like them, etc.) this seemed to serve my needs well for now. A really helpful tool under the playlist feature is that I can breakdown my playlist into categories I assign. Here's the highlights from what I worked on today:

Playlist one: Ableism
video: "In My Language"

Playlist two: Country videos (as in international countries not as in "Dropkick me Jesus through the goal posts of life" country music)
video: "Presentation about India"

Playlist three: gender
video: "Exploitation of women in ads"
video: "Girls--what not to be"
video: "The negative influences of the media on women"

Playlist four: presentation tips
video: "How NOT to use powerpoint"
video: "Killer presentation skills"

Playlist five: verbal language habits
video: "Like--you know"
video: "The impotence of proofreading"

Playlist six: world religions
video: "the tribe" (tribethefilm.com)

Toilets around the world

I started work on a project I've had in mind for a long time that I just haven't had the time before to truly explore: Toilets around the world. This project was inspired by first hand experience and the shock and confusion I've experienced when traveling out of the United States. From informal survey's I've done in my classes, I don't think most of our students at CLC have much international travel experience. The majority of toilets around the world are not like the ones we might find here. So trying to just do your business outside of your comfort zone can be challenging and in many cases--shocking! So I thought this would be a fun project to make into a multi-media project to let students actually see before they go what they might see before they go! Today I found some pictures that I have temporarily added to a folder titled "toilets" on my faculty desktop. I also have put some information together in a word document titled "resources toilets around the world" also undere faculty1's documents.

I'll share just a few of the interesting facts I discovered today:
1) There is a large non-profit organization called The World Toilet Organziation whose focus is to "improve toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide".
2) From the WTO website I also learned that 40% of the world's population does not have access to personal sanitation (2.6 billion people)
3) Also from WTO I learned that November 19 is "World Toilet Day"
4) Great resource that is a fun and informative way to "discuss the undiscussable" is Winda Benedetti's "No. 1 problem with traveling can be going no. 2" at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/158118_goaway27.html
5) Although I was initially thinking of the more primitive types of toilets I also discovered the "ultra modern Japanese commode" which can only be described as futuristic by our US standards. I saw them mentioned a few times. One site that discussed them was www.darkcreek.com/toilets According to them, these multi-functional toilets come with a contral panel that allows one to play music, light up, play sound effects like harp music or wind chimes, and includes self closing anti-slam lids, automatic deodorizers and heated seats to name just a few of the functions.

So I hope you've learned a little about toilets around the world. Make sure to check out my published website next year to see my multi-media project about them.

Blog Intro/Pre-September

I am on sabbatical for the 2008-2009 school year. This is my blog documenting what I've learned over the year. I hope that this site will serve as a resource for me as well as others. It is also meant to help be a template for my sabbatical report timeline.

Over the summer I started working on my sabbatical plan. Here is a brief summary of the activities/outcomes acheived prior to September 2008:
1) Attended D2L National Convention, July 21-24 in Memphis Tennessee. I was able to acquire a long list of online resources that I need to sort through and explore over my sabbatical. I was also able to network and meet other MNSCU d2l'ers who will be great resources for me as I try and incorporate more IT into both my online and F2F classes.
2) Started facebook account for school networking. (Had a myspace account started as well, but after research decided to put more efforts into facebook as that seems to be used more by our college demographics--both students and instructors)
3) Came in for 2 speech adjunct interviews (Monday, July 28 and Thursday, July 31)
4) Mentored 2 new speech adjunct. Met one to one and corresponded via email to answer questions on syllabus, IP textbook choices, campus information, and D2L. Introduced them to some other key people on campus and walked with them to help get them resources (computer access, figure out phone number, tech id issues, etc.)
5) Attended both duty days, first day with adjuncts and to be available for their further questions on the second day.
6) Requseted shells for Interpersonal Communication and Intercultural Communication so that I can get information added so everything is "course ready" for implementation in D2L
7) Learned how to add a gadget to a widget on homepage of D2L
8) First Day of School I started blog "Reality Shows to Showing Reality"
9) Started this blog to record my sabbatical plan progress.