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.