Te(a)ch

Will there be a Mac version of Office 2007? Mac Office and Windows Office are completely different products developed by different teams at Microsoft. Office 2007 for Windows will not appear in a Mac format. Rather, a Mac version of Office will appear later in 2007 and will be called Office 2008. The Mac interface will be different from the Windows Office 2007 interface but the program will be able to read files created with Windows Office 2007. Microsoft has plans to release converters (spring, 2007) for those using older versions of Mac Office.

The information above was derived from Mossberg’s Mailbox, a technology column in the Wall Street Journal (early January, 2007)

The opening session of the 18th annual WCET conference got off to a bang with speaker Jimmy Wales. Information below is summarized from his opening talk.

Jimmy Wales is the founder and Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation which is most famous for its free encyclopedia project, Wikipedia. The Foundation is fast becoming famous for another project, Wikia, which is focused primarily on communities. Examples of Wikias include:

• World Wikia - travelers guide
• Campaigns Wikia - politics
• Muppet Wikia - the Muppets, what else?
• Psychology Wikia - over 19,000 pages devoted to psychology

Wikias are created under a GNU license meaning they can be copied, modified, and redistributed (for commercial or non-commerical purposes).

Wikipedia itself as the poster child of Open Source using only free software in all of its creations. As of the date of Jimmy’s presentation, Wikipedia has over 1.5 million English articles, 10 other languages that have over 100,000 articles, 48 languages with at least 10,000 articles, and 107 languages with at least 1,000 articles (Jimmy’s baseline number for an active Wikipedia language set).

Wikipedia is a non-profit organization with only 5 full-time employees whose wages and bottom line are supported primarily by donations from around the world. It is the 17th most popular website in the world (according to Alexa.com), 7th most popular in Germany, 17th in India, 24th in Thailand, and 30th in the United Arab Emirates. The English version receives 50,000 hits per million web surfers each day.

How good is Wikipedia? In December, 2005 Nature magazine ran an article comparing Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia. In a direct comparison of articles of a scientific nature by independent reviewers, the two publications compared similarly in terms of errors per article. Britannica averaged about 3 errors per article and Wikipedia about 4.

What is Wikipedia best at? Wikipedia excels at neutrality and moderation and calm, measured discussions and debates. The ability for what appears in print to be edited at any time by anyone, both pro and con on a given topic, as a tendency to bring out viewpoints that are broadly appealing to a large number of people.

What is the overall trend in openness over time [of Wikipedia]?

• era or protection (locking controversial articles for a time)
• era of semi-protection (must be logged in to edit and have account for more than 4 days)
• era of flagging (more open - being piloted now)

My thoughts on this presentation: Jimmy was an excellent speaker and provided a lot of great information on his tool. I was impressed with the vision of the company which is to provide free and accurate knowledge and information to everyone in the world. From an education perspective, I can see the use of Wikis to generate dynamic, flexible content that perhaps might replace textbooks someday (see Wikibooks). Imagine if a large group of instructors from a particular discipline got together and created a Wiki version of their knowledge in their field…providing students with access to this kind of development effort could produce amazing results.

My favorite quote from Jimmy in this presentation: “Don’t solve a problem that you don’t really have.” He provided this quote in reference to the way that most computer systems are created now. Start with a good idea then build in all the securities you can think of for all the ways people might try and steal it or manipulate it. Wikipedia starts with the assumption that people are basically good and want to share and contribute accurate ideas and information. The project shows that collaborative thinking can produce great works.

As a tool for higher education classes, Flickr’s uses really are endless but you may need some convincing. I have not done a survey, so this list of “top 10 uses” is one I made up, but it’s a catchy title, right?

First, what is Flickr? In a nutshell, Flickr is a web-based digital photo sharing, organizing and archiving tool. You may be asking why you, even in normal everday consumer mode, might need Flickr? If you use digital photos at all, then Flickr can be your life saver. You can upload and store you photos on someone else’s computer. Better yet, you can organize them into categories (yes, you can have the same picture in multiple categories). And even better yet, you can share these photos with just the people you know and love or with the entire world!

So, what about those top 10 uses for Flickr in a Higher Education Classroom? Well…here goes. Oh, and I am using the word “Classroom” in the broadest sense to mean either actually in your physical classroom or as part of the online environment that either delivers your class (full online) or supports your class (in-person class). You do have such an online space, don’t you?

Back to the list:

10) Virtual field trip - take a field trip either to a foreign country or someplace in your own backyard. Chronicle your adventures via digital photos. When you return from your trip, upload the photos to Flickr with your comments and organize them into a category. Voila! You have just created a virtual field trip of your very own.
9) Photos for your blog - If you are a blogger, Flickr allows you to publish directly to your blog from Flickr. Take the photos you want to share with your blogging community and upload them into Flickr. Enter the blog settings into Flick then Blog a photo and add whatever text you want. Visitors to your blog will view the photo and your text inside your blog.
Search for cool PPT images - Suppose you are an interior design instructor and you want to give your students a concept of how complicated colors can be and all the different shades and textures there are of, for example, the color BLUE. Conduct a search for “Blue” inside Flickr and see which of the over 1,000,000 photos you might use to convey different colors and textures associated with BLUE.
7) Organize photo collections - perhaps you have access to lots of photos related to the content of your course. Use Flickr to organize them into different categories. Remember you can put the same photo in different categories.
6) Student sharing of photo content for an assignment - Ask students to take pictures as part of one of THEIR projects and post the results to Flickr. You could even have them send you the photos and you organize them in your area then share them with the class.
5) Student portolio creation and sharing - ask students to create a photo portfolio of their work during a given semester. This would probably be most appropriate in art or design type classes but might work in others as well.
4) Virtual lab - much like the virtual field trip, the virtual lab uses photos to demonstrate the steps of a lab process. Better yet, design the lab and explain it to the students having THEM take pictures of each of their process steps.
3) Student photo search and sharing - ask your students to search for photos that represent a certain concept (for example, Love or Compassion or Truth or Gravity) and have them explain why they chose the photos they chose.
2) Student comments on photos - upload a photo to Flickr and ask your students to comment on it. You may learn something from their responses, and they may learn from each other as well.
And, the number 1 reason to use Flickr…Post all those pictures of your kid’s wedding or baby shower or birthday or whatever. Well, it’s not an educational use but it may be a practical one. Yipes!

An important word about copyright…those who post to Flickr can determine the copyright level of the photos they upload. Be sure to check the copyright info for each photo you select and make sure it can be used in the way that you hope it can. You can conduct an advanced search to select just those photos that can be used and built upon. Or, you can search in all photos.

Any other ideas about how Flickr can be used in the classroom? Notice I dropped the “Higher Education” part from the title because Flickr can be used in any classroom.

planecrash, originally uploaded by jkeller.

Reaching out to the world in record time this photo was posted on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) at 1:32 MST just a few hours after a small engine aircraft crashed into a building in Manhattan on 10/11/06. Bring the world to your students and classrooms by providing up to date images and information. Now this is what I call a current event.

…from the Winter 2006 In Brief published by the Legal Services Department of the Maricopa Community Colleges…

Question: “I would like to show a movie in my class, bt the college does not own it. Do I have to get permission?”

Response: “A film, including one that is on a commercially produced tape or DVD, may be shown in a class without obtaining prior permission of the copyright holder. This is true not only for videos owned by the college, but also for videos owned by another person, such as the instructor, a student, or even a video rental store.

The law does impose several conditions, however, before the film may be shown. First, the videotape or DVD should be one that is commercially produced. An unauthorized copy of a film may not be used.

Additionally, the film may be presented without prior permission of the copyright holder only in a face-to-face setting.

Transmission of the film via the Internet or similar means would require prior permission of the copyright holder. Such a context would not be “face-to-face” teaching activities as contemplated by copyright law.

This exception to the law allowing the film to be shown in face-to-face instruction does not permit unauthorized copies of the film to be made for distribution to students.

Moreover, the exception would not apply to performances of the film in other campus locations. Showing the film to students in a student union or similar setting, for example, would require prior permission as well.”

Additional information can be found on the Copyright Guidelines page

A BBC news story recently reported that Apple is being sued by a man from Louisiana because of the sound levels on the ipod device. According to the lawsuit, 115 db of sound can be generated by the ipod which is enough to damage hearing if exposed for more than a short time each day.

The man from Louisiana is hoping to make the suit a class-action one. Apple is probably hoping that the problem will go away and, as reported in MacWorld, June 2006 issue, has released an update to iPod (version 1.1.1 update) that allows users to set the maximum sound level for their unit. Parents can also adjust settings for their kids and lock the settings with a combination code.

From MacWorld Magazine, October 2006…
CrossOver Mac (http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/) software allows you to run Windows programs on an Intel Mac without installing Windows. According to Codeweavers “Intended for Intel Mac OS X machines, CrossOver Mac will allow Mac users to run their favorite Windows applications and games seamlessly on their Mac. Windows files can be opened directly within your file browser, or from email attachments. No rebooting, no switching to a virtual machine, and no Windows Operating System license required; CrossOver is a complete replacement for your Windows OS as far as your Windows software is concerned.”

Parallels Desktop allows you to run Windows without rebooting. (From: http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ Parallels Desktop for Mac is the first solution that gives Apple users the ability to run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their critical applications at the same time as Mac OS X on Intel-powered iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook or MacBook Pro. Unlike dual-boot solutions, in which users must completely shut down Mac OS X and endure a full OS start-up cycle to access a important application, Parallels Desktop for Mac empowers users with the ability to run important Windows programs like Outlook, Access, Internet Explorer and all other applications without having to give up the usability and functionality of their Mac OS X machine even for a few minutes.)

I guess when one starts a blog then one should have a pretty good idea of what one should blog about. My job as an instructional technologist provides me with plenty of opportunities to be exposed to a) new technologies as well as b) faculty wanting to incorporate new technologies into their classes. That’s what this blog will focus on. I’ll be writing about cool new tools as I stumble across them or different ways to apply “old” tools. [Of course, it's all relative, right? What's old to you is new to me if I have never heard of it.] I’ll also be writing about ways to use technology tools in classrooms (both online and in-person) as well as just general thoughts on teaching. Mostly I need this blog so I can remember as much as I can about the technology world I operate in (those of you under 30 can’t relate yet…but you will). Perhaps someone else can get something useful out of it as well.