I am finding my .Mac account has some serious features that are keeping me happy with the syncing going on with my iPhone. I use a MacBook Pro for work ... it has my bookmarks, calendars, and contacts dialed in on it. I keep all my media on an iMac in my home office ... I haven't tried syncing between two machines, but the .Mac sync features allows me to easily keep my laptop and desktop in step with one another. I sync the iPhone and my iPod on the iMac, so having a way to easily move the right calendar, contacts, and bookmarks via .Mac is proving very effective.
June 2007 Archives
So I took a picture with the iPhone's built in camera ... nice enough. I can then use that picture as my wallpaper, assign it to contacts, or instantly email it to anyone or post it directly to Flickr. What surprised me was how when I then docked my iPhone it opened iPhoto and asked to import the picture. Worked like a charm. I like good surprises ... it was always a pain to get pictures off my Treo and into my Mac quickly and easily. Now it seems this device is designed to really play nicely across Mac OSX.
It was actually really easy to use the Blogs at PSU toolset from the iPhone. Typing is proving to be a little easier than I imagined as well! I am noticing that every time you leave the browser and return, you need to authenticate via webaccess -- I guess that is a good thing for a lot of reasons, but what a pain.
I used the Safari browser to go to cal.psu.edu and my calendar looks great ... I double tap the screen and I can see all the detail I need. I am worried that the lack of true calendar integration will be hard on me ... using the web view is an option, but it feels way too slow and way too many clicks. I am going to work at the export to iCal and sync with the iPhone deal next. Getting data in and out of Oracle quickly and into iCal is my overall goal.
Typing is a little slow, but not too bad. I was able to just log into webaccess and make this post via the iPhone ... Nothing short of amazing!
I received an email from a colleague today asking about the accessibility -- or perceived lack thereof -- of the iPhone. Sparked some thinking and thought I'd share it here:
I thought I ask the following question I posted on the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) Accessibility list:Can anyone point me to any discussion on the accessibility of the Apple iPhone? Inevitably, the iPhone might make it into teaching and learning activities, and I cannot imagine how it could be used by vision-impaired individuals, for example.
I may be a bit harsh on Apple, but it seems to me that Apple is not interested in making some of its latest technology available to people with disabilities.
Is iPhone (in)accessibility being discussed anywhere? I think, we should discuss it.
Interesting and important stuff. We need to understand how this thing will play in our environments. Many users have distinct disabilities that a device like this may ignore. Still many more questions than answers.
I visited Apple back in March and got a tour of the iPhone. One of the big questions I had revolved around VPN. I was told the iPhone did have a native VPN and managed the hand off between wifi, cell, and protected wifi very well. This morning I saw on a Mac rumors site information that the iPhone does indeed have the OSX native version of VPN. Have we ever tested OSX's VPN software? We will need to do that and look at what the settings should be.
I am using the tag "psuiphone" at del.icio.us to tag resources. You can see all resources tagged psuiphone here:
We've been tasked with evaluating Apple's new iPhone. To help get a sense of how we should handle reports, I've set up this simple form. The one requirement we were given was to not report via email ... that means to me we should be taking advantage of one or more of our publishing platforms. In my mind we have three very good options:
- Wiki: The wiki would give us a protected, fully editable space for sharing insight. It is more free form than a blog, but does allow for solid collaboration. If you think we should be sharing and editing each other's thoughts a wiki would be an outstanding option.
- Multi-USer Blog Site: This would give us a single site that all of us could blog about the iPhone at. An example of a space like this would be the ANGEL Community Hub. We could do this in the open or behind PSU authentication. This would give us the ability to post quick thoughts that would be organized via a taxonomy (categories) all in one place.
- PSU Blogs: We could each setup an individual PSU Blog and report in our personal webspace. I would then recommend we aggregate the content together to make it easily readable and discoverable.
Further proof (?) that the Web 2.0 stuff we a re constantly discussing has organizational merit. I am thinking it might be worthwhile for ITS to get to know more about how IBM is using all the stuff highlighted in this post, Social Networking at IBM. We are approaching a place where we provide tools like this, but it appears as though IBM has spent some serious time focusing on how to engage their own people in open and transparent conversations. Would be interesting to dig deeper with them.
Crazy week, but all sorts of good things going on. I was out of town on Monday, so the 17 official meetings I had were crammed into some tight spaces. I gave up my standing "Friday is to think and work day" so I could fit in a Digital Commons planning meeting. I've tried to capture the highlights here but am posting this a week late ... things just didn't work out last week.
Tuesday, 6/6/2007
Meeting with Kyle Peck and Jackie Edmondson
The three of us met to follow up on the Chalk and Wire ePortfolio meeting we attended a couple of weeks ago. Good discussion that lead to Jackie and Kyle to say they would run a small pilot in the Fall to see how Chalk and Wire performed. I also urged them to talk more with their colleagues who have adopted TaskStream.
Discussion Related to CE Awareness
Allan Gyorke and I met with Kitt Camplese from Outreach to discuss ways we can help bring CE faculty up to speed with the things currently happening within ETS. We decided that we would start planning a series of ETS Briefings that can be delivered in a face to face mode or via Adobe Connect. We plan to make these all standard presentations -- following the "7 Things you Should Know" outline. They will also contain lots of contextual, "this is how it works in the classroom" examples and videos. We are planning to revisit with Kitt in the next few weeks.
Wednesday, 6/7/2007
Meeting with David DiBiase & Keith Bailey
I try very hard to keep regular meetings with directors of College eLearning groups. I enjoy these meetings very much primarily because prior to arriving at ETS I was one of them in the College of IST for close to 7 years. This one proved very interesting as it was the first time Keith, David, and I got together as a group. We have been fighting with how we engage our groups in more meaningful activity. The goal of the meeting was really to discuss open educational resources and how ETS could help with the visioning on that ... it was also to talk about content management tools to help support that.
It turned more into a brain storming session related to the integration of Web 2.0 technologies and philosophies into course design. I mentioned that I have been designing a course "in the open" that I plan to teach in the College of Education in the Spring ... this sparked a lot of discussion related to David's plans to redesign a course that he has been teaching for 10 years ... we came up with a plan to bring a group of learning designers together to help reshape this course using a learning design community approach. SOmetime in early September we plan to get people from ETS, Dutton, A&A, IST, and WC together to think big and see where it goes. We'll likely track the design in the open at the emerging learning design community hub. Should be interesting and could be very important work going forward.
Jim Leous
Jim and I got together to plan our Web 2007 presentation. It didn't take us long to go from being on topic to going off the rails. It is always enjoyable to work with Jim, so this was a pleasure. You can take a look at what we pulled off by jumping over to another blog post.
Thursday, 6/7/2007
Larry Ragan and World Campus Relationship
Larry and I have been talking a lot lately about how we create meaningful contributions to each other's organization. One of the outcomes will be a scheduled visit to the Outreach building to talk about the things ETS is up to and see where we can create opportunities to engage. Looks like I will be heading out with Allan sometime in August to get things rolling. Lots of great opportunities for the things we are thinking about to influence the work happening at the World Campus.
ePortfolio Committee Meeting
Looks like I am now part of this group ... good discussion and it is good that I am more than partially engaged in this space. I have started to talk to several people on campus as to the emerging needs for ePortfolios and I have gained quite a bit of insight into the varying levels of ePortfolio needs. This meeting was good as it was really a status check and a time to talk openly about where we are headed this year. More to come on this as it unfolds.
Friday 6/8/2007
Administrative/Infrastructure Penn State Online Sub-Committee
I had to join this meeting by phone, but was still able to take part. The discussion focused on the final recommendations to be taken to old main for several key pieces to the Penn State Online plan. Looks like the final draft will be sent on to the committee for review.
Digital Commons Planning and Implementation Meeting
The Digital Commons project's goal is to place digital media studios at every location of Penn State. This is a huge undertaking and this meeting brought all the key players together to create a briefing package that will be shared with all interested campuses next week. The immediate goal is to select 5 campuses to take part in the pilot implementation this Summer. The briefing package will help us determine what campuses are ready to immediately work with us. The website is starting to take shape. This project will occupy a majority of our time this Summer.
I just blogged this over at my other blog but thought I'd cross post. Looks like ETS Talk is one of the featured podcasts in the new iTunes U Directory. Very cool! I wonder if anyone will call the hot line?
I know better than to complain about being busy. I watch my colleagues struggle with the same issue I do -- time. As in, I don't seem to have enough of it. Between family, meetings, more meetings, presentations, meetings, and the occasional opportunity to actually accomplish some work (yard, desk time, or whatever) getting focused time seems to be more and more difficult these days. I can't tell if I am getting any better at juggling it all or if I am just delusional ... really no need for anyone to answer that one.
The one thing I have been doing a lot of lately (and more and more in the coming days and weeks) is giving talks, presentations, or leading discussions around topics I am interested in. That, to be honest, is one of the highlights of my work. I've said it before that I am lucky enough that my hobby is closely tied to my job, so I get to spend a great deal of time working/playing in the space I enjoy. What is even cooler is the opportunity to actually engage other smart people in conversations that are tied to the work we are doing at ETS.
Tomorrow I get to present at the PSU Web Conference with Jim Leous. Anytime you get to do a talk with Jim you do it. His depth of knowledge and approach makes any co-presenter look good. If it is anything like our "Sonny and Cher" routine from last year it should be a blast. Tuesday I get to hit the road and visit Google in Pittsburgh with our CIO, Kevin Morooney. I have been spending way too much of my time lately working to understand all of Google's offerings in the web space to be ready for this. Return on Thursday to present at an interesting conference here at PSU -- Technology In Business Schools Roundtable Annual Meeting. It is hosted by my former boss and friend, Dean James Thomas -- again, should be fun. A couple of days later I am one of the keynote speakers at the Third Annual One-to-One Computing Conference, hosted by Kyle Peck. Dr. Peck is a pioneer and leader in the field of instructional systems and has been a very good friend to ETS over the last 2 years -- anything Kyle wants we try to deliver.
So there it is ... nothing too crazy, but a week that I have been pointing to as being a bit over the top for me. Would I trade any of it? Not in a second. All I wish I could do is print a ticket for more time with the family -- maybe Summer will kick in sometime in July!
