The disintegration of a language

One of the things that has really been getting to me with technology is how it is impacting the youth of today's grammar (not that I am the best, there will be a lot of errors in the document most likely). The use of chatrooms, and text messaging has really been lowering the standards of most peoples use of grammar.  

When text messaging first started we had to use the phone pad on our cell phones to communicate so I could understand the use numbers and abbreviations to communicate, but technology has come along way since then. We now have full qwerty keyboards on our cell phones so there should be no excuse to take so many shortcuts anymore and grammar should be getting better. Of course, its not.  

I think as educators we need to address this issue anyway we can. The best approach I can think of is trying to incorporate the use of instant messaging, social networks, blogs, etc... in classroom settings and require proper grammar when they are being used in the academic setting. My hope would be that when students use them in their personal life, they carry over the "good" habits they have been using in school.

There is another article written on this same subject that is pretty interesting. I really liked his title, and agreed with a lot of what the author said. WTF's up with IM Gramar

A WYSIWYG for educators

As an instructional designer and faculty trainer I am always trying out new technology to help faculty create online courses more effectively. The latest one that I have come across is Softchalk. Softchalk is a wysiwyg editor of sorts that lets faculty create lessons plans in html pages without having to know html.

This product also assists faculty in created 508 compliant material for the courses and integrates very will with most learning management systems, such as blackboard.  What I like most about Softchalk is that it is very easy to use and train faculty to use. It has all the basic text editing capabilities and even adds in some of the most common multimedia tools, such as video and audio. 

One of the things I think that sets it apart from other editors though is its built in activity tools to create flash based activities that are 508 compliant. There are activities such as a slideshow, drag and drop, matching and timelines. Another powerful feature is the styles that it comes with. These styles allow faculty to turn there Softchalk document into a full featured learning objects to deliver to students.

My department just had their first softchalk training session with 11 faculty, and the response was very positive. It seems like this is a tool that will be put to some good use.

Cloud Computing, the way of the future?

I think a pretty good definition of Cloud computing comes from Wikiepedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing).

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet.Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them.

The above image is a diagram of cloud computing and some examples of sites the use this style of computing.

What is the most interesting part of this style of computing is that it takes a majority of what traditionally runs on a persons computer and places it on the internet. We no longer have to run the applications locally, we can use more robust servers to do the work for us and that frees up our machines from having to do so much. This can greatly reduce the cost of computers for people and eliminate a lot of the requirements people might have to have on there machine to run certain software.

There is a lot of potential in this. For example, there is a new service on the horizon called OnLive (http://www.onlive.com/). They offer an on demand video game service that allows you to play state of the art games on high end machines. They host all of the machines and equipment. All you need is a small console or computer to connect the their service and they stream the game to you. As games demand more computing power they upgrade their servers, you upgrade nothing. Its a very interesting concept. It eliminates the need for you to go to the store to buy games, or even have a physical medium to store the game.

Another example is the direction that all the cable, satellite and other television services are going with their dvr and on-demand technology.  Dvr's originally allowed a viewer to escape the confines of normal tv programming by allowing the user to  record tv shows anytime they wanted and access them later, all on a hard drive, all easy to use. On-demand takes this a step further. The on demand allows a user to just navigate to the program they want through and on screen menu and play it, with out having to record it. Networks on demand content is also growing such as CBS, NBC and Fox. A lot of movies can even be viewed on demand as well. Again, this eliminates the need for the user to download, or save content of their machine, or even have a physical medium to store the video on.

These are just a few examples of how cloud computing is affecting products such as gaming and television. The potential for educational use is even greater. Imagine a school being able to host the the software or content that there students need and then providing them with a low cost client terminal for them to access it. It could get more computers and technology into low income homes and improve education across the board.  Again that is just one small example. I think the possibilities are endless!  Here is the link to another blog by Thomas Bittman that talks about cloud computing in K-12 education (http://blogs.gartner.com/thomas_bittman/2008/11/26/cloud-computing-and-k-12-education/). His main points are low-cost and free technology, content growth and collaboration. It is an interesting read.

Web 2.NO - Why doesn't Blackboard Have a WIKI

So the latest version of Blackboard is out. Version 9. The company is showcasing all of its new web 2.0 features. AJAX controls that allow you to drag and drop the item to customize your views, greater web accessibility, blogs and journals. There are several other features but I just wanted to name a few. 

However, when I think of Web 2.0 and online collaboration I think of WIKI's. Blackboard still has not included these!  In my current position of employment which uses blackboard quite a lot and consults with faculty, the most common question I get is "does blackboard have a wiki?"  I figure if I get the question, they must get the same question.  Their answer is "No, we do not have a WIKI, but we have blogs and journals."

Okay, so blogs and journals, that sounds promising. Not really, they are almost the same exact thing in blackboard. The exceptions are that journals have a nice notepad background image and are private by default. Only the user that creates the blogs or journals can edit them so any wiki functionality is cut out. 

In all my internet searching I can not find an answer to the question, "where's the WIKI." Hopefully one day they will buy another LMS company like they just did with Angel, and get the secret technology apparently needed to add WIKI functionality.

Silverlight vs. Flash for delivering on demand video across multiple platforms

As an multimedia developer for higher education on of the most prevalent issues I have is how to deliver video on the web to both Mac and PC users. The focus of this post is to discuss Silverlight and Flash. 

Silverlight and Flash are both very similar in the end user experience. In most cases a user could not distinguish the difference between the to.  Many Silverlight users also argue that the mac user experience is the same as a pc user experience and in several cases that is true. However, Silverlight has its limitations on the mac side. Silverlight version 1 will work on PowerPC macs running 10.4.8 or higher. This creates a small problem for developers of higher education because Silverlight on is not accessible according to the 508 guidelines. Silverlight 2 is accessible, however it only runs on Intel based macs running 10.4.8 or higher. 

Here is a screen shot of the requirements from the Silverlight install page.

So using Silverlight could cut off a huge number of mac users. Flash in my opinion is still the better choice for delivering on demand video cross platform across the web, especially for education.  

Cal Poly Pomona recently had a rep from Micrsoft and one from Adobe debate the products. Here is a link to the recording - http://video.csupomona.edu/streaming/events/FutureOfComputing.html.

Links to other comparisons

http://silverlight.net/forums/t/3015.aspx

http://geekglue.blogspot.com/2007/04/silverlight-vs-flash.html

http://www.philterdesign.com/blog/2008/09/silverlight_vs_flash_not_reall.html