James Moore

IDD's Interactive Whiteboard

2009-06-09T13:13:00.000-05:00

If you are looking for new ways to film instructional videos and presentations for your online and blended classes then you would so well to watch this short video from Rick Salisbury (IDD).

Rick now has an interactive whiteboard in IDD's greenscreen room. The tool is a great way to record demonstrations and tutorials.

Using Blackboard in a Management Course

2009-06-08T20:16:00.002-05:00

Patrick J. Murphy has created an excellent video in which he explains how he uses our Blackboard Learning Management system to move learning beyond the classroom. The video is about eight minutes in length. Well worth watching. You can also download the video from DePaul's iTunes U site.

DePaul Goes Social Media

2009-05-20T13:40:00.001-05:00

Justin Gillmar sent me a link to the "This is DePaul" student video contest. as Justin says...

"Laugh at the ones you love. Quietly scoff at the ones you don't. Then let your voting do the talking. Your votes will be used to determine the Audience Choice Award (aka'The Academy Might Have Overlooked It, But the People Couldn't Get Enough Of It' Award). Still reading this? What are you waiting for, go check out the videos! Voting ends May 25th."

The complete list of videos can be found here.

Jason Freid / 37Signals Discussion

2009-05-20T10:07:00.003-05:00

As part of his Entrepreneurship Strategy class, Patrick J. Murphy, Assistant Professor of Management at DePaul, invites you to join his students for a discussion with Jason Fried, president and founder of 37Signals, a private Chicago-based company that launched in 1999.

Thursday, May 21, 10:00 am
DPC Room 8005
No registration required.

37signals has 12 employees, thousands of business clients, millions of users of their products, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as a minority stakeholder. Jason and his company have been featured widely in the business press and major media outlets. He is a Web 2.0 pioneer and frequent keynote speaker at industry meetings and conferences.

Jason will share his personal views on entrepreneurship and management and take questions from the audience.

DePaul Teaching Commons on Facebook

2009-05-04T11:32:00.003-05:00

DePaul Teaching Commons is happy to announce their brand new page on Facebook. The fan page collates information on the latest teaching and learning resources and events. You can check out the site here

LMS Show and Tell

2009-04-23T12:20:00.000-05:00

Today has been a highly-productive day, in which we have looked at the new features of Blackboard (9) and Desire2Learn. Tomorrow we get to look at Moodle and Angel.

Blackboard 9

2009-04-09T10:13:00.003-05:00

The University of Southern California has posted a fantastic video that outlines the new features of Blackboard 9 (they are upgrading from 7 to 9). Thanks to Jason Rhode for sharing this. Quick takeaways:

Grade Center loads faster (allegedly)
Grade Center records history of changed grades
Peer Assessment
Dropbox is dead
Groups are improved (random enrollment, create multiple groups at one time)
Blogs and journal tools

Learning Management Systems

2009-04-08T17:15:00.001-05:00

My colleagues here at DePaul circulated this rather interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education. This comes as we are looking at the future of Blackboard, and alternatives to Blackboard.

On April 17^th we will hold a “Kick The Tires” event in which there will be the opportunity to look at the major learning management systems.

A week later there will be a two-day event in which vendors from Desire2Learn, Blackboard, Angel and Moodle will demonstrate the features and functionality of their systems – focusing on Learning Management, Content Management and ePorfolio solutions.

If you work at DePaul please sign up for these great events!

Marketing Symposium

2009-04-07T10:55:00.002-05:00

I will be moderating a panel (It’s Not a Fad Anymore - Social Media) at the Marketing Symposium on Saturday, April 25th.

The symposium runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Cost is very reasonable and this will be an opportunity to interact with folks from Google, Chicago 2016, Wrigley, Motorola, Grainger, Edelman, Nielsen, Tribune Interactive, Prophet, Threadless, Molex, Pink Line, Zocalo Group, Think Tank Advisors, Midas International, Flying Dog Ales, Pabst Blue Ribbon, DePaul University, and more.

More detailed information is available on the Kellstadt Marketing Website. I highly recommend you to be there.

2009-04-03T14:23:00.001-05:00

I have just posted my video from March’s Technology Tuesday. I looked at three reasonably priced digital camcorders (the Flip Mino, Vado HD and Kodak Zi6) to see which would be the most suitable for filming classroom lectures and presentations.

If you only intend to record less than one hour of content, then the Flip Mino is my suggestion. However, if you need to record in excess of three hours, your best option is the Vado HD (and a couple of spare batteries).

The videos and handouts can be found on my Technology Tuesday page and on iTunes U.

Blackboard 8 Grade Center

2009-03-19T14:06:00.003-05:00

Jeanne Kim from IDD has pointed out two excellent resources for those a little frustrated with extra credit on Blackboard 8's Grade Center. They are:

Polyhedral Sysadmin

and

http://www.luc.edu/its/pdfs/bb_Extra_Credit.pdf

2009-03-05T12:10:00.003-06:00

For those of you interested in Open Source and in Chicago.... Flourish 2009

"Flourish is an annual conference dedicatedto bringing together experts and enthusiastsin Free, Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS). Attendees of Flourish have an opportunity tosee how using, creating and supporting FLOSS can enhance their careers, businesses and academic aspirations."

Topics: Key open-source topics such as Google Android, Kubuntu, the Linux kernel, open mapping, user interfaces, music collaboration, and energy-efficient supercomputing. Speakers like Ruby On Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson, open-source law expert Daliah Saper, and kernel hacker Christoph Lameter, Jeff Sheltren from the OSU Open Source Lab, and (from Italy) Massimo Banzi discussing open-source and embedded hardware. In-depth workshops on Erlang, Drupal, OpenSolaris, and Processing.

When April 3 - 4, 2009 9am - 5pm Where UIC Student Center East 750 South Halsted Registration http://www.flourishconf.com/register

Office 2007: Now what?

2009-01-09T16:25:00.002-06:00

If you find yourself a little confused by the Office 2007 upgrade, there are a couple of ways to orient yourself to the new look and features:

Microsoft Office has a comprehensive series of online tutorials. They can be found here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/
ITD is provides staff/faculty training sessions. You can sign up for a class here.
DePaul’s library has over 100 online books that cover Excel 2007. These online books can be read through your web browser – just visit the library’s website and click on Books 24x7. (You will need your Campus Connect username and password to access the site)

An Instrument to Assess Online Facilitation

2008-12-18T12:13:00.001-06:00

Things are (relatively) quieter in the office. I am using the time to go through e-mails and organize some projects. Every so often I come across something I meant to do…. Here is one.

Humboldt State University has an instrument to assess online facilitation. The tool can be used for self- or peer-assessment.

More Blackboard Resources

2008-12-16T13:35:00.002-06:00

ITD's Jim Janossy is creating an online repository of Blackboard support documents. The site can be found here:

http://www.blackboardhelp.org

Blackboard 8 Upgrade

2008-12-15T17:31:00.002-06:00

A week ago DePaul upgraded our Blackboard Learning Management System to version 8. Much hard work in the background resulted in a largely uneventful migration – thanks go out to ITD and IS here.

Jeanne Kim of IDD has assembled a list of resources for staff and faculty who are interested in digging into the capabilities of the new system:

Internal

DePaul ITD (Instructional Technology Development) - A comprehensive series of FAQs and worksheets to download.

External

ASU Blackboard Listserv Archive
NIU's Teaching With Blackboard
Kentucky Community and Technical College System Interactive Tutorials
- Discussion Board
- Grade Center
Brigham Young University Video Tutorials
University of Illinois at Chicago Video Tutorials
Southwestern College Support Documents
Hudson Valley Community College Tutorials
Hamilton College Tutorials
San Houston State University Tutorials
Pepperdine University Video Tutorials

Have Joined Classroom 2.0

2008-11-21T10:51:00.002-06:00

I have joined Classroom 2.0. At the moment my profile there is somewhat undeveloped. I hope to post something of significance over the weekend.

Ryan Johnson at Livescribe is starting to spamming my blog (and others)

2008-11-20T17:40:00.003-06:00

On Tuesday Ryan Johnson posted a comment on my blog:

I’ve read your blog post of the Pulse smartpen and wanted to share some new commercial and demo videos that we just uploaded to the Livescribe YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/nevermissaword From now until 12/31/08, you can get 5% off a Pulse smartpen at www.livescribe.com by using SCRIBE5A50 at checkout. Thanks, and enjoy the videos!

Fair enough – a little bit of promotion for a device (the Livescibe Pulse) I actually liked and have suggested to others. I decided not to delete the comment (and instead posted a reply).

Two days later he posts the exact same comment on another post on this blog. That was not a good decision. This demonstrates a cookie-cutter approach to Internet marketing. There are ways that smart companies can embrace social media and user-generated-content. This is not one of them.

I checked to see if Ryan actually works for Livescribe. His LinkedIn and TED profiles indicate that he does. I hope whatever search tool he is using to monitor blog posts alerts him to this message:

Ryan,

Social media is a conversation. Your current approach to Internet marketing misses the mark. It goes so far as to do your company a disservice. It insults current customers. You are demonstrating that you are not really reading blogs. You are not engaging in conversation.

You have just motivated me to research the number of blogs you have said the exact same thing on. So far Google tells me there are five, but I am sure the number will grow. Please stop and try something different. There are some great books and courses out there that explain how to embrace social media. Follow good advice and become part of the conversation.

Your company has a great product. Please don’t alienate your customers

American Youth & Social Media

2008-11-20T10:11:00.001-06:00

An excellent piece of research on how American (U.S.) youth use social media has just been published. The research should be used to inform the development of online learning courses and programs. I highly recommend reading the study (or at least the two-page summary).

Lively Shutting Down

2008-11-20T10:06:00.000-06:00

Lively is shutting down. Google is pulling the plug in December. More can be found on the Google Blog and the Lively website…

SEO Book Chapter - Now on Amazon

2008-11-20T09:50:00.002-06:00

I contributed a chapter to the IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) Handbook on Search Engine Optimization. The book is available to order via Amazon or the publisher (Racom Books). The chapter follows a similar structure to the SEO Seminar I present.

SEO is a moving target. However, most of what I wrote still stands. A planned approach to relevance, utility, quality and web standards is more than half the battle.

Technology Tuesdays: Upcoming Session

2008-11-19T09:23:00.002-06:00

Podcasting with the Sansa Clip / Netbooks

Date: November 25th
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Location: DPC 7406

Podcasting with the Sansa Clip: Learn how to record your class with the Sansa Clip MP3 player/recorder, edit with Audacity and upload to iTunes U or our streaming media server. Your students can then download your audio lectures and listen on their computer, MP3 player, smartphone, etc. Also: NetBooks. NetBooks are a new subcategory of laptops. Cheap, light and small – you will start to see them spring up in your classes. Discover how your students and other faculty are using these affordable devices. RSVP at: http://condor.depaul.edu/~jmoore/presentations/tech_tuesdays.php

Livescribe Pulse Smartpen Update

2008-11-17T13:49:00.002-06:00

I am generally impressed with the Livescribe Pulse pen (which I introduced to faculty during August’s Technology Tuesday session). I pretty much carry this with me everywhere. It is great for taking notes and the concept of pencasting is extremely innovation. Livescribe just announced that they are releasing the Mac Desktop Public Beta sometime in the next seven days. The Mac desktop offers two new features that I am particularly interested in:

Export notes as PDF
Export recordings as AAC

Windows users should have the option to purchase Handwriting to Text Transcription shortly. The cost should be about $29.95. The software is offered from VisionObjects.

Blackboard 8 Upgrade

2008-11-17T13:27:00.001-06:00

DePaul’s Learning Management System (Blackboard) will be upgraded to version 8 on the weekend of November 29/30. The new version of Blackboard has significant improvements. The notable features are:

Wimba integration. Each Blackboard course has a corresponding Wimba room.
Improved discussion board
Enhanced Gradebook
New quiz and assessment methods
SafeAssign integration (plagiarism prevention tool – similar to Turn-it-In)

ITD is providing training for all these new features. I highly recommend that you sign up.

At Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning

2008-11-06T06:53:00.002-06:00

I am at the 14th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning today. I will be presenting on Vodcasting in the Classroom. My presentation, video and handouts can be found here.