Ollie's Blog

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This is where you'll find the latest on OLL happenings, events, and maybe even a wee bit of gossip.  We'll also bring you information on cool gadgets and gizmos we've discovered and tips and techniques that you can use in the classroom.

 

 

 

 


All the pretty podcasts...

Hi there folks!
It's OLLie, back again with another morsel of info for all of you out there in OLLieVille.
 
It's no secret that I'm a podcast addict.  I love 'em.  For any mood you're in, chances are there's a podcast out there made for you.  And if you're somebody who thinks you have something to say that others would be interested in, its getting easier than ever to create your own podcast for the web.
 
I’ve written in the past about iTunesU (for more educational pursuits) or basic iTunes (for finding general podcasts on a wide variety of topics) and even TalkShoe (for interactive podcasts).  My latest finding that I’m obsessed about is BlogTalkRadio.
 
What is BlogTalkRadio you may ask?
 
Well, it’s a madhouse!  Think of several different online radio stations live on the air at any given time, all accessible through one site.  At first, it’s overwhelming, but you soon learn your way around their site.  Once you find your favorites, you can sign up for the RSS feed.
 
For you educators out there, there are educational shows/“channels”—or wouldn’t it be fun for your class to put together a show for a project? 
 
The sign-up is free.  There’s no software to download (unlike TalkShoe and other similar programs).  The site offers a chat feature that allows people to call into your show so that you can take questions on the air (if you choose).  If you have a website, you can provide the show’s flash player on your site or buttons that lead to your show on the BlogTalkRadio site.  There’s also a show archive along with a blog area (and other widgets) that you can use!  “Friends” can also sign up on your show page, so you can see who your regular listeners are. The only drawback that I can see is that there are ads placed in the area of the site that they place your show in—however, this is the trade-off for the service being free (they have to make money somehow).
 
Sound interesting?  Check it out!  Maybe I’ll see you online…
 
This is OLLie, signing off…
Happy Surfing!
 

Are you a LifeHacker? Getting Things Done in 2008

I don’t know about you, but I’m always trying to find new ways to save time and do things more efficiently and I ooh and ahh over cheap cool tools that will assist me--especially in this season of resolutions and all that jazz.  That said, I’m a LifeHacker junkie. 
 
LifeHacker’s website touts that they feature “tech tricks, tips and downloads for getting things done”—but it’s so much more than that.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with macs or open source software, LifeHacker’s daily selection of treats can be a source of learning about the possibilities.  The articles are arranged in nice little snippets, so you can read more (or not) if you decide, rather than scrolling through one long article after another.  Each week, they feature a LifeHacker Top Ten and also look back on articles from the same week last year.  Articles range from the useful for edtechies (Top Ten UnderHyped Webapps and Publish GoogleDocs Presentations on Your Website) to the fun and goofy (Make a Disco Ball with CDs and Make a Reindeer from a Computer Carton).
 
There are quite a few other “LifeHacker-esque” sites out there for you to peruse as well.
 
Lifehack.org focuses a bit less on the tech toys and more on Getting Things Done (GTD) articles.  The writers have kicked off the New Year with a slew of articles on personal productivity.  The articles are short, to the point, and (dare I say it) inspiring.  Lifehack.org also features a podcast recorded live with guests who really “walk their talk” in the area of GTD and innovation.  It’s well worth a visit to the site or a listen to their podcast.
 
43 Folders is still another site to find GTD type goodies.  Don’t let the tech articles fool you, there’s plenty of tips and tools to assist non-techies in organizing their lives and being more productive as well.
 
 
Happy webbing!!

Can Online Role-Play Improve Students’ Writing?

It’s OLLie again, wishing a big “Hello!” to all of you wonderful readers out there in Online Land.  Welcome again to the OLLieBlog.
 
Recently, I’ve been reintroducing myself to some old (to me) websites that encourage online role/story play along with more scholarly writing.  In the reintroduction, I've noticed how many members of both sites are students and wondered if being a part of such a site would help build a student’s ability and confidence in his or her writing.   The answer I found was a definitive “maybe.”  But first, let me introduce you to the two websites I’m referring to.
 
AncientWorlds is specifically designed as an online community for lovers of ancient history and has been around (in one form or another) for over ten years now.  I personally discovered it through a link in Archeology Today back when I was doing graduate work in Art History.  (It was love at first log-in.)  There are sections of the site dedicated to roll play as well as factual discussion of (almost) all things historical.  The site is broken down into eight “worlds”—Rome, Hellas, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Celtia, Germania, The Orient and The Americas.  Each world has its own “governing body” of volunteers, along with family units.  Upon signing up, the user selects among a long list of surnames, which places him/her into a “world” and within a family or clan.  The result is a feeling of belonging to the site on multiple levels.  To sign up is free and with the free membership, you get a home site that you can decorate (within reason).  Newbies do have a post limit (to prevent spammers), but once you’ve logged in enough times, the limit is raised.  You can find people of all ages and backgrounds in AS—the love of history is what binds them together, either to discuss or “play like” they’re in the midst of worlds long ago.  Plusses for those wanting to write better—plenty of feedback if you ask for it, writing competitions, and groups dedicated to the art and craft of writing (such as Quill and Parchment).
 
Pan Historia came into being shortly after AncientWorld’s forerunner, AncientSites, went off the web.  With the mass exodus of AncientSites users looking for a new home to write to their hearts’ content, Pan Historia became an instant success.  Pan Historia primary purpose is fictional role play (their motto is “We don’t just write the stories, we live them”) and its site is divided up into genres—action, contemporary, fantasy, history, horror, science fiction, western, reference and other—these are then broken down into “novels.”  The novels are given ratings by their creators—content can range from a “rated G” to “nc-17.”  Periodically, the members vote and the best posts/authors are awarded “Pandames” (basically virtual Oscar trophies, but these look like Panda bears).  Like AncientWorlds, the site has its own “governing body” made up primarily of volunteers.  With the free membership, one gets up to three characters with home site areas to decorate for each.  These characters can then be used in the novels on the site.  Plusses for those wanting to learn to write better—again, plenty of feedback for those asking for it, site wide competitions and awards that encourage good writing/storytelling, and online writers’ workshops.
 
Sounds intriguing, right?  But the question is, can using sites such as these help students become better writers?  As far as I’m concerned, it all falls back into the hands of the individual students.  Yes, the sites are extremely interesting and there are tons of writing opportunities to get into on either.  That said, the individual still has to take advantage of the opportunities.  With a quick scan of the threads on either PH or AW, you’ll come across numerous posts that were haphazardly put together with little concern for content, presentation, grammar or style.  However, you’ll also see those which have been written meticulously, sometimes even with color coding or graphics to depict the different characters "speaking" within the same post. 
 
Beyond simple grammar, punctuation and style, there’s another level of writing that we should look at when it comes to online role play--the interactive element.  How often in schools do we treat writing as a team effort?  Hardly at all, in my experience (unless you include peer reviews and editing).  Yet, in real life work situations, students may encounter times that call for their writing to be genuinely collaborative.  According to M. A. Syverson’s article “Role-playing Simulations Improve Writing” this is exactly what role play offers writing students.  Syverson states that successful components of role playing that relate to writing include:  the issue, the players,the context, the rules, the enactment and the outcome.  By participating in sites such as Pan Historia and AncientWorlds, writers suddenly become part of a community larger than themselves and they must coordinate with others in order to get the story told.  In many cases this includes plotting out the story beforehand, organizing the order of posts and peer reviewing/editing posts, all in the effort to make the thread as enjoyable to readers as possible.  By encouraging interaction such as this, role play sites can definitely improve the process in a student’s writing, which should then lead to a better product.
 
Again, though, I would add that it is all up to the student to get involved.
 
For teachers who are interested in investigating the idea further, I would suggest that you sign up for each of the sites mentioned and look around—get your feet wet, so to speak.  See if you think either site is right for your students.  Both sites, I think, are more geared for older students (high school and up).  I don’t know that I would make it a graded exercise, but just a “playing” project to take some of the phobia and stress away from writing and make it more fun.
 
If you’d like something with a bit more control (such as in the case of a graded assignment), why not set up your own blog or wiki with role/story play guidelines?  Both Blogger and Wikispaces offer free accounts that are very easy to set up.  In each, you (as the administrator) can choose who gets to participate in the story.  It would also be easy in either to include a rubric or guidelines of what you’re looking for in the posts (if you’re going to be grading the project).  The tradeoff is that you’ll be more limited with the amount of feedback your students can get.  With the more open sites, such as PanHistoria and AncientWorlds, members from all over the world can read and give feedback on the writing.  With a blog or wiki, it would take time to build up such an audience, so this type of feedback would be limited. 
 
For further reading about online role playing through posts and threads, Wikipedia has a couple of introductory articles, packed with info and lingo—Play by Post Role Playing Games and Online Text-based Role Playing Games.
 
Happy Webbing!!
 
P.S.—If you do decide to drop into PH or AW, look for someone named Juniper Rose (PH) or Aevalle Baoisgne (AW) in the comm panel and say hello!

For you free image hunters out there...

Hello again from OLLieville. OLLie is out playing in Second Life for the next few weeks, so I’ll be giving you the low down on the latest and the greatest things hitting the online world. My name is OLLiegh. The OLLies, just like you, are hard pressed for money. And, just like you, we love free images! So today I’d like to give you a quick run down of our favorite free image sites. All are royalty free, but always be sure to check each site for any specific guidelines they might have for image use. I always like to include a reference list of where I obtained the various materials used in a project. Happy hunting!


Interactive podcasting? And its easy! Try TalkShoe!

Hi all,

OLLie here and I wanted to quickly share an online resource that I’ve recently discovered—TalkShoe.

One of the best things about working here at the OLL is that, very often, I stumble upon resources that I get the “too cool” goosebumps about.

TalkShoe is one of those resources.  Basically TalkShoe allows you to record your podcast with a “live” audience online.  Listeners can connect through the TalkShoe website and ask questions, give suggestions, etc.  Then, TalkShoe records and posts the podcast on their website—no need to have rss coding knowledge, online storage space or bandwidth of your own, they handle it.  If you do have your own website, TalkShoe offers several widget options to embed the podcast into your site.  The best part?  Yup, you got it, its free!

As if all of that wasn’t enough, TalkShoe also has a tutorial podcast series that takes you from beginner level all the way through to advanced, and everything in between.

So why would an educator what to use TalkShoe?  Simple.  Its one more of those tools that you can use to help gain your students’ attention (the first element of Keller’s ARCS motivation model).  Also, I can certainly see how something like TalkShoe could be used in place of a written report.  Bear with me.  In this scenario, you divide your class into groups and each group is given a different topic to research.  They could put together a podcast presentation via TalkShoe with their fellow classmates as audience, asking questions.  All of it would then be recorded and the professor would then have the web address of the podcast so he/she could listen again later.  Using the widgets TalkShoe offers, the students could also embed the podcasts into their personal sites/blogs/wikis to build an online portfolio or academic resume.  Just a couple of suggestions…

From your friendly neighborhood OLLie blogger,

Stasia W. signing off


Mmmm…mLearning!

Hi all, it’s your friendly neighborhood OLLie, back again with another tidbit of information for all you great folks out in OnlineVille.
 
Here in the OLL, we’ve been looking into how to get a better understanding and usage out of mLearning and pass that on to the instructors here at the University (and anyone else who may be interested). 
 
What’s mLearning you ask?
 
Basically, mLearning stands for “mobile learning” and covers any and all means of education delivered through mobile devices.  For example, a student uses her cell phone to access practice drill questions for an upcoming test—that’s mLearning!
 
Usually, mLearning inspired instruction is designed in a way for easy access.  Design-wise, it’s clean and scaled down so that the user can easily maneuver through information seen on mobile devices’ smaller screens.  Its easy accessibility is also handy for those with slower dialup connections on their non-mobile devices. 
 
We have a portion of the OLL site dedicated for mLearning access as well.  If you go to the area of the site, you’ll see that its very basic, with only the areas listed that we think people might need to access via their cell phone, PDA, etc.
 
We’d love to hear from you!  If you have an idea for how you’d like to use mLearning or a suggestion for an addition to our mLearning access page, please post it in the OLLie Blog comments.
 
Happy surfing! 

More on getting organized for educators…make 2008 great! (for you and your students)

OLLie here—after my last entry, I began thinking about what else needed to be said.  I love LifeHacker, but I realize that pointing readers in the site’s direction didn’t help with the here and now issues of time management and project organization.  Consider this an addendum to my last post.
 
 
Educators and their students seem to go against the grain of absolutely everyone else in the U.S.  Sure, mentally, we know that the year begins on January 1st, but to those involved with education, we feel that the year begins in August or September (the beginning of the school year).  So educators have a predicament each January.  While everyone else is doing the “New Year’s Resolution” fad, we face the idea of “starting anew” smack in the middle of our year. 
 
 
According to a story on NBC affiliate WOAI, almost 30% of resolutions are dropped within the first two weeks of January.  By the end of March, only 50% of people who made resolutions on January 1st will be continuing to actively pursue them.  The numbers are stacked against us, especially those of us who feel that we’re “upsetting the apple cart” mid-way through our year.  The answer may be our mindset.  In a press release from the University of Washington researchers from their Addictive Behaviors Research Center found that sticking to goals is, in large part, viewing the goal as a process rather than a one-time shot.  Staying organized and charting progress are only two of the methods we can use to keep our eyes on our goals.
 
 
Below are a few tools I’ve gathered to assist you (and potentially your students!) to stay organized and on track for your goals.
 
 
This first group is from Sourceforge.net and are open source (meaning that they’re free!—a plus for anyone who has made financial resolutions).
 
 
GanttProject allows you to create Gantt charts and resource charts for project (or class) management. 
 
TaskCoach is a simple task manager that helps manage personal tasks as well as to do lists
Calizo offers a calendar with a zoomable timeline—can be used to manage projects or even for classroom activities that deal with chronological data.
View Your Mind assists in building mind maps to help organize projects (basically a scaled-down open source version of Inspiration).
OpenProject is basically an open source version of Microsoft Project and can open MS Project files.  Its functions include Gantt chart and Pert chart creation and management.
The Portable Sunbird is helpful for those who want to take their schedules and to-do lists with them without having to have the information online.  The program is designed to be placed on a portable hard drive or flash drive and sports a calendar feature as well as a task management/scheduling system.
 
 
If you’re looking for something to keep your schedule and task management online, here are a few more offerings…
 
Taskbin.com is free and offers a simple-to-use task management/to do list that can be shared among workgroups (could be useful in organizing group projects in classes as well).
If you prefer something cute and perky, try Hiveminder.com.  The site houses a “braindump” feature that can be useful in “getting it down on paper” prior to trying to organize and strategize your goals.  It can also be used to share goals and tasks with a workgroup.  The yellow-drenched pages and bee imagery makes even the most mundane tasks a bit more “happy.”
Toodoist has a simple interface with calendar and hierarchy functionality.  With plenty of widgets and other extras, this free task management system can keep you up to speed through email or text reminders.
Remember the Milk is another free online service that allows you to manage tasks on or offline as well as share tasks within a workgroup.  RtM allows you to organize your tasks by list or tag cloud and features extras such as maps and other widgets to help you organize your life.
Last but certainly not least is the program that this OLLie uses—Toodledo.  Toodledo allows you to organize your tasks in many ways—by date due, importance, context, etc. and allows you to share tasks within a workgroup.  It also includes a time tracking feature that helps you better estimate the actual time needed to complete each item.  The basic subscription is free, but for 14.95/year, you get extra bells and whistles such as statistics readings to determine what most of your time is spent on as well as what days of the week/month are your most productive.  There’s also a scheduler feature that can be used if you’re really at a loss.  You enter the amount of time you have to work on a task and the context and Toodledo scans through your lists and tells you what you could be working on.  Not going to be online for a while?  Toodledo’s booklet feature produces a printable personalized pdf booklet of your tasks.
There are many (MANY) more programs than this out there.  Do a bit of investigating and find the one that’s right for you.  Get excited about the tools available to you—they’re there, waiting for you to put them to use.  It doesn’t have to be the beginning of a new year or a new semester to decide to go for the goal, it just takes a little practice, a little commitment and a set of good tools—and you’re well on your way!
Happy webbing!!

OLLies in Second Life, Part 2

Hello all you great folks out there in OLLieVille.  Welcome again to the OLLieBlog.  The typist behind OLLie has been busily working in Second Life since the last posting, though I can’t say that I’ve been “on task” all of the time.  However, one of the great things about SL is that, even if you’re not strictly on task, you’re probably still learning something—whether touring virtual places, meeting people from all over the country and world, experiencing the arts in a virtual landscape, building, scripting, etc.
 
For my part, I’ve settled in a lovely community (actually a virtual nation) called Caledon.  Caledon operates under a Victorian Steampunk theme and, as such, seems to draw both educators and artisans from every background.  On any given day, somewhere in Caledon’s 40-odd sims, there will be group classes, social events, one-on-one tutoring sessions, chat discussions, lectures, design shows, etc.  Plus, Caledon features a new gateway for newcomers into Second Life, Oxbridge University.  Oxbridge uses easy to follow guides to lead new SL users through learning the basics of how to get around, changing the avatar’s appearance, moving objects and how to work with things in the inventory.  In the sim directly east of Oxbridge University is Oxbridge Village, home to NCI(New Citizens Incorporated) Caledon.  NCI offers guided classes on subjects ranging from building and scripting to organizing your inventory to starting a business in Second Life.
 
 
Other Caledon areas of interest for educators—
 
Inworld--
Caledon Welcome Center
Steampunk Resource Center
Caledon Library (Main Branch)
Caledon Research Center—Wiki Museum and Archives
 
On the web—
Caledon Wiki
Caledon Forum 
 
 
And if readers are interested, yours truly has a couple of projects in the works.  While they’re mainly for fun, the process has been quite the learning experience. 
 
CCB Robokitty Headquarters
Aevalle’s Aerie (my “home” in Wellsian)
Adocentyn Tower 

OLLies in Second Life--Part 1

Hi all,
It's OLLie, back for another post!  Happy 2009! We've been a bit on the quiet side on the OLLieblog of late. The office was closed for the holidays, but also we've been busily setting up a new presence in Second Life. The USA OLL can now be found in two locations, Cybrary Square and EduNation III.
 
The Cybrary Square location will mainly be used for outreach and information delivery within Second Life (it will act as a gateway hub for those from other universities to learn about the University of South Alabama and the Online Learning Lab).  Our EduNation III location contains our Learning Center with classrooms to use for in-world classes and workshops.  Also, through our EduNation III Learning Center, we have access to several larger venues/conference spaces as well as a sandbox area for building/scripting, covering a multitude of educational possibilities.
 
Any University of South Alabama instructor wanting to use the teaching space, please e-mail jdempsey@usouthal.edu or sweston@usouthal.edu for information and equipment setup.

Open Source Alternatives to Commercial Software

Hi again from OLLieville.  It's been a while, hasn't it?  The OLLies have been busily training on new equipment and working to put together some new materials for all of you out there. 
 
     Over in our podcast area, we have a new OLLieCast interview with USA English instructor Shaunda Sterling on her use of Moodle in the Higher Education classroom.  (The link can be found at http://usaoll.org/node/241).
 
     On September 11th, we had our latest Theory Break which featured Dr. Eva Ma Dominguez-Gomez, a visiting professor in the USA Visual Arts department.  Dr. Dominguez-Gomez presented on "Adaptive Hypermedia System for Second Language Teaching and Research at Early Ages."  The video and powerpoint will be available soon through the Theory Break area of the usaoll.org site.      We'll have our next Theory Break on November 13 with Dr. Peggy Delmas from Leadership and Teacher Education speaking about "Authur Chickering: Seven Vectors of Student Development."  For those of you on or near the USA campus, feel free to attend (details can be found at http://usaoll.org/tuesdays).  For those of you unable to attend, we will have the video and powerpoint available on the site about a week after the presentation.
 
     But now, on to our regularly scheduled blog post.  Hi again!  I am so glad to be up and running again on the OLLieBlog!  Recently, I bought a new XPS 630 (it's my new baby and I've been getting some grief from my fellow OLLies because of this fact).  I've started putting together a "wish-list" of what I'd like to do with the system and very quickly found that the cost of the software would be astronomical if I went the ordinary commercial route. 
 
     So, I started doing some digging.  As it turns out, there's a ton of open source alternatives that (I'm embarrassed to say) I didn't know about.  In the interest of sharing information, here's the list so far-- 
Adobe Acrobat

Adobe After Effects

Adobe Audition

Adobe Encore DVD

Adobe Premier Pro

Anime Studio

Autodesk 3ds max

Blackboard Learning System

Camtasia

Fraps

Illustrator

LavaSoft Ad Aware

Micromedia Flash Pro

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Visio

MindManager

Nero Recode

Norton Antivirus

Norton Personal Firewall

PageMaker and InDesign

Photoshop.

Pixar Renderman

SnagIt

More Useful OpenSource options
3-D animation software

3-D modeling

Photorealistic landscape generator

Speech recognition software

 
 
     I'll try and regularly update the list and maybe point out some of the plusses and minuses of each program.  (Audacity I already adore!  I've been using it for a few years now.)  If you have any favorite Open Source software programs, let us know!  Maybe they'll end up on a future list.  Or if you're unfamiliar with Open Source, try out a few of the programs and see what you think of them.  Most don't have all the "bells and whistles" of commercial software, but they get the job done for those of us doing educational multimedia and distance ed (sometimes fewer "bells and whistles" is a good thing).
 
Until next time, this is the OLLieBlogger, over and out...

Summer’s here and the time is right…to start planning your classroom’s motivational strategy!

Hi again (!) to all you folks out in OnlineLand!  It’s OLLie here, back from a little hiatus.
 
Here in OLLieVille at the University of South Alabama, we’re always trying to come up with new ways to motivate students to learn, whether its online or in physical classrooms.  One of the best ways we’ve come up with is to start early.  Most of you school teachers out there have just begun your summer breaks (and I know, you don’t want to even *think* about work for a while!), but now is the time to plant the seed in your minds about how you’ll motivate your students in the fall.  Chances are, you already know what you’ll teach, so keep a notebook handy with you throughout the summer and, just as a writer jots down notes of interesting thoughts that may wind up in a novel, you’ll record your ideas for inspiring students too.
 
Let’s talk about how you might organize your thoughts on motivation.  One of the simplest motivational models for education is the ARCS model, designed by John Keller.  The basic components of ARCS are Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction.  Easy enough to remember, right?
 
Attention is the first component and its basic function is to gain the student’s attention (simple enough).  You can do this by telling a joke, relating an exciting story, showing a funny graphic, whatever would interest your group of students and connect it to the topic.  The idea is to surprise and/or peak students’ curiosity. 
 
Once you’ve gotten the students’ attention, its time to move onto the second component of ARCS, relevance.  This is when you really “hook” your students into being motivated to learn the topic—you relate it to something that is important to them.  How can this topic relate to their everyday lives or things that interest them?
 
Now, you’re ready for the next component of ARCS, confidence.  Allow students to see that they have the ability to grasp the content.  This can be done by dividing the lesson up into “bite size” portions that students can more easily grasp.  Another method is to provide detailed objectives and feedback, so that students know that they are on track.  Still another option (especially for older students) is to provide choices of assignments, such as with a learning contract.  This allows students to take more ownership of their part in the lesson.
 
Finally, we come to the last component of ARCS, satisfaction.  This can be accomplished through feedback and allowing students to use their newly attained skills.  Rewards for work well done will also reinforce the desire to learn more.
 
Now that you know something of the ARCS model, as you jot down your classroom ideas over the summer, you can place an A, R, C, or S beside them, labeling them as part of the ARCS model.  When it comes time to prepare for classes, simply plug in your ideas into your lesson plans and brainstorm to fill in the gaps.  You’ll see your students’ motivation levels climb!
 
'Til next time, this is OLLie, signing off!

Testing, testing--is this thing on?

Good afternoon, USA!  (And other sundry places around the world.)  Welcome to the OLLie blog (or Ollie's blog once we get the octopus in place--don't ask, there are still some hard feelings on that one).

 

Be sure to check back often for all the latest and greatest on OLL happenings and events, cool gadgets and gizmos that we've discovered and also tips and techniques that you (yes, even YOU) can use in your classroom.

 

Thank you for your time and patience as we build our new site.  In the meantime, take a moment and enjoy the Drupal song video.