Work and Stuff: Comments

Comment on "MacSpeech Dictate for Speech-to-text Video Captioning"

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:47:22 -0500

When I was at NMC this year, Morgan Reed from the Univerity of British Columbia did a demo at the 5 Minutes of Fame on transcribing digital recordings. If you go to http://www.nmc.org/2009-summer-conference/videos and select the NMC Five Minutes of Fame video from the list you can skip to about 46:20 to see his demo using MacSpeech. He is using headphones and a mic to repeat what he hears.

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG

Comment on "MacSpeech Dictate for Speech-to-text Video Captioning"

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:49:48 -0500

Pat, this is neat. Do you have information on organizations that are using it and how they are using it?

- MATTHEW N MEYER

Comment on "MacSpeech Dictate for Speech-to-text Video Captioning"

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:07:09 -0500

I love this idea, Pat. I can imagine setting up a global profile that stores my voice training script and it can be auto applied to anything I produce. I'll record and send you the script you sent me so we can try this thing out. Great idea!

- Cole W. Camplese

Comment on "MacSpeech Dictate for Speech-to-text Video Captioning"

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:46:23 -0500

Yes, that would be cool. I'm thinking if the speech-to-text engine could be put on a server and you could send recordings to a folder in your personal space, which could perhaps trigger the speech-to-text engine to analyze the recording and provide you with a text file much like YouTube does with videos. To take part in the service you would have to submit a recording of the training script so the engine could analyze your voice and create a profile for your userid. That would be pretty slick.

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG

Comment on "MacSpeech Dictate for Speech-to-text Video Captioning"

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:16:20 -0500

Wow! Great stuff Pat. Blog and twitter entries saved as text from speaking into an iPhone can't be far off...

- DAVID R STONG

Comment on "NMC 2009 Keynote "Creating Passionate Learners" by Kathy Sierra"

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:45:52 -0500

Hey Pat,

This is a great capture of this keynote. What a great message at so many levels. While it certainly applies to the things we try to do here, I couldn't help but think how her message applies to industry in general, especially companies like GM. I will definitely google this speaker this week to learn more about her. Thanks for this write-up.

- MATTHEW N MEYER

Comment on "NMC 2009 Keynote "Creating Passionate Learners" by Kathy Sierra"

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:04:23 -0500

Hi Pat,

Thanks for the post. A good review of Kathy Sierra's talk. Kathy is someone we continue to look at as a potential speaker.

The before and after example she used is a terrific illustration of failure after entry. From an educational perspective I think it means that we need to connect with our students on a higher level if we are to truly provide them with a valuable learning experience. (I'm thinking along the lines of Mazlow's "Hierarchy of Needs" which posits that real meaning comes after our basic needs are met. It is there we can reach students on multiple levels.

Thanks for sharing,
Jeff

- Jeff Swain

Comment on "Gene Therapy: A Dramatization, starring President James Garfield"

Wed, 06 May 2009 20:35:23 -0500

Well I made a few changes to the animation. First I added ol' Prez Garfield peeking around the corner in the beginning. Then I needed to add a part where the gene travels to the nucleus of the cell and join with the DNA inside the cell. I still have a couple little things to tweak, but this is what it'll look like more or less. As bizarre as it is, it teaches the concepts of the gene therapy process without going into unnecessary technical detail.

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG

Comment on "Gene Therapy: A Dramatization, starring President James Garfield"

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:00:39 -0500

I was doing an image search for a person's profile when Garfield's photo came up in the search. Since it's in the public domain, I thought what the heck, I'll use it as is. The bizarre idea of using an ex-president's photo just sort of influenced the look of the whole animation.

Incidentally, it's widely thought that President Garfield probably would have lived despite his bullet wound had the doctors not probed the wound with their dirty fingers. Sterilization was a rather new idea at that time. He died of blood poisoning due to bacterial infection.

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG

Comment on "Gene Therapy: A Dramatization, starring President James Garfield"

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:30:30 -0500

This sure makes science seem easy to me! Just wondering exactly what was the James Garfield tie-in. You said his profile colored the feel of the whole thing? What do you mean?

- MATTHEW N MEYER

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:17:08 -0500

20 hours is really not all that much in the grand scheme of things. That's pretty impressive to me. From an ID perspective, I would like to follow up on how this is delivered to students and their feedback on it. Who do I contact about that?

- MATTHEW N MEYER

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:03:07 -0500

Thanks, Matt. This probably took a lot longer than it should have, partially due to not really having the story down before starting. I knew roughly what I wanted to show, but ended up changing it to make the story a little more congruent. I did it over a span of a couple of weeks, but that's not working on it constantly just a few hours here and there when I could. Maybe 20? I don't know. Figuring an hour or so per scene perhaps. Not very quick when it comes to illustration. This will live on the Bi Sci 002 Angel website more than likely, although he did show it in class last week.

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:54:59 -0500

Pat,

I really like how this turned out. On the surface, it's an interesting story and executed well in the comic-book theme. I have a few questions on this:
How will this be delivered to the students? Is this something they view on their own time and then discuss in class?

Also- how many total development hours do you think you spent on this, start to finish?

- MATTHEW N MEYER

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:58:57 -0500

I love that this is so open and available! I'd really like to feature this on the ETS Site or the TLT Site. Is there a way to simply grab the embed and reuse it? I really do like this on so many levels and would love to have a lot of other people see it!

- Cole W. Camplese

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:39:34 -0500

Thanks, Mark. No cartoon animals were actually harmed in the making of this flash module.

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:52:30 -0500

Bravo, Pat! I laughed, I cried, I nearly lost my lunch when I realized the kitty didn't make it across the street and became crow-chow. This has all the makings of a true classic, and I - for one - don't think I'll ever be able to use table salt again without first considering its destructive (or comic) powers.

- Mark DeLuca

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:15:26 -0500

Thanks, Cole. I draw the pictures and let viewers draw their own conclusions. I'd say the crows are in jeopardy too, though. Should have put a few black feathers in front of the street sweeper as well.

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG

Comment on "CSI: Keeping the Streets Clean"

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:50:29 -0500

Not sure if my last comment got through. If yes, disregard this one ... the comic idea is brilliant and is executed so well. Amazing strytelling from start to finish. Just one question, the crows late in the story, are they cleaning up the cat?

Great stuff!

- Cole W. Camplese

Comment on "Using Adobe Acrobat to Create Student Portfolios"

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:32:12 -0500

Great writeup. I wasn't able to make the session, but your notes will help (plus the link to the recording).

- ELIZABETH J PYATT

Comment on "Using Adobe Acrobat to Create Student Portfolios"

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:50:48 -0500

The archived presentation can be viewed here:

https://admin.na3.acrobat.com/_a748449443/p44732496/

- PATRICK JOSEPH BESONG