Cole Camplese

Just a note to say that 37 Signals will be dropping support for IE 6 across all their applications. I just find it an interesting move given the typical breakdown of browser use.

A post my wife linked me to this afternoon seemed to resonate with me on a bunch of levels ... the first being is that we can all do better ... the second is that there are times when instead of standing on the sidelines it is important to jump in -- regardless of the splash or the associated ripples. I guess if you are left asking if you resemble the counter argument, well, then you probably do. You decide, but I would suggest stepping outside yourself and thinking about it. Worth a read and some thought -- or not. Up to you. Check out the post over at the "alex the girl" blog. At any rate, I'd like to know if people have initial reactions to the thoughts expressed.

I wanted to share out some notes I've taken while at the Berkman@10 Conference. It has been an exhausting two and a half days. Probably the most intellectually stimulating event I have attended ... a real stretch opportunity for me for a ton of reasons. I wanted to attend to see how a law school looked at the issues I try and pay attention to ... I was not disappointed.

I wasn't able to capture all of it, but what I did grab I posted to two places:

• My personal blog was used to take notes during the first day. The first day was full of general sessions all in one room -- Ames Courtroom. It was unreal to listen to the people share their research, their stories, and their ideas. It was a very participatory day in that every session called upon the group to share insights. A very fresh approach. You can find all my posts on the first day here.
• I used the ETS wiki space to capture the un-conference sessions I attended on the final day. I couldn't capture notes from the lunch session or the final workshop, but they were excellent as well. Take a peek at the wiki entries for the two morning sessions here ... these were both 90 minutes sessions filled with stories from the audience.

I will be working to round out these lists during the TLT retreat tomorrow ...

10 things we should be paying attention to in TLT:

1. ANGEL is by far the most widely used technology supporting teaching and learning. A focus on managing its growth will continue to be critical.
2. 7% download podcasts, while over 61% say they would if more were available.
3. Both undergraduate (40%) and graduate students (56%) both report sharing documents to complete coursework.
4. Wireless printing is a critical direction
5. 17% report creating video for a class while 15% report creating a video for personal reasons ... this provides evidence that we are well positioned with the Digital Commons, but pushes me to continue to think about how to make the service more obvious. Only 2% report using the DC resources.
6. Storage for DC will become a challenge as students' creation of digital media continues to grow.
7. The growth of gaming on campus indicates strong need to better understand how to manage both console and PC-based games on our network
8. Blogs as note-taking tools -- only 4% of students currently use their laptops to take notes and 36% of faculty say they allow students to take notes with their laptops.
9. True hybrid course design is an opportunity to reduce the number of f2f meetings (4% reporting that as course design)

10 things we should be paying attention to in ITS:

1. ANGEL is by far the most widely used technology supporting teaching and learning. A focus on managing its growth will continue to be critical.
2. If podcasting becomes more important, decisions will need to be made related to the diffusion of iTunes U vs. podcasting from the Blogs at PSU.
3. The need to create better online tools to enable sharing of documents -- more focus should be applied towards creating and managing ongoing team edits of documents than simply exchanging files. Google Docs comes to mind as an example.
4. Online testing/quizzing is a critical piece to the resident education puzzle. With the emergence of the Testing Center we have an opportunity to shift the approach to eTesting, but managing the growth in use in the physical environment may prove difficult.
5. Sudents report that they prefer email. This is a current state that may be due in large part to familiarity. Over time we'll need to find new ways to move this towards RSS and other push-like technologies.
6. Wireless printing is a critical direction
7. Storage for PASS will become a greater challenge as students' creation of digital media continues to grow
8. Greater flexibility for roaming access for guests of the University -- non-VPN based access
9. Communicating with our audiences about our services in a cohesive fashion. Building stronger awareness across all of our connected activities continues to be a challenge

10 things we should be paying attention to at PSU:

1. Digital Identity and Identity Management will pose greater challenges going forward ... this is not just related to managing multiple online identities, but extends into awareness for better understanding of how students should represent themselves online.
2. Security of networked computers as it relates to malware
3. Better physical environments to support the use of laptops across campus (power)
4. Resident Hall flexibility to manage multiple IP devices -- game consoles and other networked devices
5. Greater flexibility for roaming access for guests of the University -- non-VPN based access
6. Faculty development as a core value across all disciplines
7. Potential support for the use of external applications for mail and calendar
8. The utilization of FaceBook for new forms of communicating with the PSU community.

This is just a test of the new Flickr Video embed code on the Blogs at Penn State.

I will be talking at the eEducation meeting tomorrow sharing some examples of where the Blogs at Penn State platform can be used. What I plan to do is show some novel uses of blogs. The links and brief descriptions below will be used to navigate the presentation

Using the Blogs at Penn State for more traditional website development

The Lyceum: The Official Blog of the Graduate Program in Philosophy at Penn State
Undergraduate Research at Penn State Brandywine and Beyond

Using the Blogs at Penn State for ePortfolio

Dr. Laura Guertin's ePortfolio
Dr. Chris Long's ePortfolio

Students Using the Blogs at Penn State

gIST Graduate research blog
Flat Tyre: Patching and inflating cycling and its technologies from the ground up

Travel Abroad Journals

Tina's Alaska Adventure 2007
Rome 2008: Penn State Communication Arts & Sciences

Using Blogs for eLearning Course Content Creation and Management

Original HTML course page
Course Topic in a Blog
Master Course Space

Blogs in the Classroom and Social Ratings

As we are seeing more faculty ask their students to blog, we are thinking more about how to effectively aggregate content from multiple sources. There are several ways to do this, but the most promising is aggregation with social ratings.

CI 597C: Disruptive Technologies
Social Ratings Site

Still trying to figure out what Twitter is? Watch the new Twitter video from the folks at Common Craft. Those of you hooked into the "TwitterStream" can leave comments here about why you have gotten engaged -- I know some of you are Twitter people, so let's hear from you!