For those of you who teach or work in public space [a.k.a. cubicles], here’s a new tool that you can use to drown out the loud talkers, external speaker users, and speakerphone junkies who just don’t get sharing space to work.  It’s called Noise.

Our office is all public and it can get pretty loud.  We have one particular software developer who wears “Tower Control” noise-cancelling ear plugs shaped like headphones.  There are many benefits to working in public spaces.  You can collaborate, connect, generate ideas and more.  However, when you really need to put your nose to the grindstone and get things done, it’s often hard to concentrate with lots of external noise.

Enter Blackhole Media’s easy to use tool aptly called “Noise”.  It’s a Mac OS X only application that simply plays a seamless loop of white noise into your speakers/headphones.  The only option is volume.  It’s a very simple application that does what it’s purported to do.  And it’s free.  If you are in an office and need some sort of sound barrier other than streaming ESPN or your favorite music, Noise is for you.  And you won’t need to relinquish your red stapler.

Download Noise |  More information on “Pink Noise”

There arose a challenge with faculty to be able to share with students more fluid content in their teaching through an online delivery mechanism. Through Blackboard, students collaborate in the discussion boards, faculty teach, but delivering an interactive rich media experience still has a large learning curve.

A few months ago, we had a faculty come in that is teaching a education course. He had a system set up on the face to face side, lectures whiteboard material, and powerpoint presentations to demonstrate to the students. To bring this into an online context, we first listened to what the course is about, learning outcomes, as well as his teaching style. We then experimented and came up with a system to record both the video of the instructor as well as provide them a tool they could draw/write/demonstrate which could be recorded as well. After succeeding in proof of concept, we put it into action.

The Set Up

Set up is pretty simple. We have a standard 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 1 GB RAM and 350 GB HD. For this application we use seven items:

1. Quicktime Pro for the Mac.
2. Snapz Pro
3. M-Audio Microphone connected via USB (the built-in mic will work adequately)
4. Elluminate Live
5. Final Cut (Pro or Express)
6. Adobe Photoshop (CS3 or Express)
7. iTunes

The Process

Set Up Quicktime for Video

We set up the M-Audio mic to connect to Quicktime Pro with the following preferences:

We then test the audio levels to make sure we have appropriate sound.
Choose “File -> New Movie Recording”, and create a sample test movie. Troubleshoot until you have good audio and video. You will also want to make sure you have good lighting on the subject. We have some lights in the studio we use, but augment it with a simple Ikea lamp.

Set Up Elluminate Live

Through Blackboard, we create an Elluminate Live session, add 1 hour on to the beginning and ending of the session for bleed over, and start the Elluminate session. Faculty can then load in pre-made slides or prepare slides from within the application.

Set Up Snapz Pro

Snaps can be configured to record any part or all of your desktop. We tested this extensively, and found that we could give Snapz a specific area on the desktop where we would put the Elluminate application. Knowing we would be importing into Final Cut Pro (FCP) and editing for Web, we used 800×600 for file size.

Record Session

Once both Quicktime and Snapz have tested and are working, simply bring the faculty into the chair, line them up, give them some brief instructions on the tools (they probably should have prior), and let them teach. The goal is to take the technology out of the way and allow them to sit, talk, draw, browse, click “next slide”, and communicate the learning objectives for the session. Once the session is over, stop the Quicktime recording. It should automatically appear on your desktop as “Movie.mov”. Then stop the Snapz capture. When before it processes, it asks for some preferences. Make sure you have audio checked. If you are using the standard built-in Mac mic, make sure the “Include Audio Track” is checked. If you used an external device, make sure “Include Microphone Track” is selected. This makes sure you have two copies of the audio in case one fails or the quality level is off. It also helps in post production lining up the timelines. Snapz will create a file on the desktop with a default name of “FirefoxScreenSnapz001.mov” or “SafariScreenSnapz001.mov”. If it is “InternetExplorerScreenSnapz001.mov”, we would like you to stop reading this blog and head to Microsoft’s Vista Site for “inspiration”.

Finishing Up

Upon saving and organizing both video files, you will now be ready for post-production. The beauty is that the faculty only had to show up to your studio, sit down, and teach. The rest is up to you. I will document the post-production process next week as well as show you a finished product. Feel free to post comments or contact me if you have questions. We’re feeling like we have a great workflow to accommodate these requests. But more importantly, we’re getting feedback from students that this type of teaching is enhancing their learning.

As we integrate Podcast Producer into our media publishing infrastructure it becomes obvious that manually setting up each course for iTunesU publishing could be onerous as our implementation grows.

So, taking a cue from George Cook (from Apple), I modified his pcastgroup script to work for iTunesU.

Note: This article and script are somewhat technical and assumes familiarity with the Podcast Producer infrastructure and technologies.

What it does:

• Creates an OD group for the course, using the course ID (ie. EDU360) for the name.
• Associates the course ID to an iTunesU tab ID (ie. 1234567890.01234567890).
• Adds a podcast admin group to the course group just created (or any group you specify).
• Sets up services for this group (calendar, mailingList, wiki, blog, webCalendar, webMailingListArchive).
• Generates a new workflow from a template.
• Generates the new template files for the workflow (template.plist, info.plist, InfoPlist.strings, multipart.txt.erb).
• Copy the finished workflow package to /Library/PodcastProducer/Workflows.

What it does not do:

• Any sort of verification of the info you throw at it, apart from checking to see if the group exists.
• Update an existing group with the changes listed above.
• Setup the group in a way that makes it available in the Directory app (I am working on this one).
• Create the iTunesU course (you will have to do that ahead of time in order to get the tab ID).
• Add users, grant access, or any user management tasks.
• Work out of the box. *Setup is required. See comments in the script*
• Generate a workflow that does anything but publish to the specified iTunesU course (no blog, etc.).
  

What I would like it to do in the future:

• Work with the Directory app so that the groups can be managed remotely by OD bound workstations. This does not work yet due to my difficulties in getting a plist into an attribute entry in OD. If anyone has some experience with dscl -createpl, I would welcome a little assistance.
• Be scheduled to go through existing AD/LDAP groups in a given OU and create groups and workflows for them and add the AD/LDAP group to the membership so that users in the AD/LDAP group can automatically publish to iTunesU.
• Integrate with Blackboard (or other LMS) so that the existing cross-reference list generated by the building-block we use can also be used to automatically generate the workflow. If this works, the item above would be unneeded. For us this would entail queries to an MS SQL database to get the course and tab IDs, so I am not sure how practical it would be. Might be easier in Ruby than shell.
• Generate a workflow that can publish to other outlets like group blog, wordpress, etc., as an option.

Well, here it is. Let me know what you think, and how it works for you.

pcastcourse.zip

—–

Daniel Shackelford can be contacted by emailing daniel [dot] shackelford [at] arbor [dot] edu

1. External mic input (for wireless mic input in order to lecture capture wirelessly)
2. Ease of use for multiple users
3. Budget
4. Scale:  We wanted the cameras to not be out of date in a year.  Understanding how technology goes at least… 
5. Integration:  We have new iMacs with Final Cut Express, Final Cut Pro, and iMovie ‘08.  They need to be able to connect easily with the computers and be able to edit and export. 

Based on budget and workflow considerations, we narrowed our search to hard drive cameras and Mini-DV. Here is what we found.

Hard Drive Cameras

Our initial thinking was to go Hard Drive and High Definition for future-proofing the workflow. We looked at several hard drive cameras ranging from $1000-$2000. The prosumer level.

Profile #1: Sony DCR-SR220 60GB Hybrid HDD

Sony has great equipment, but it’s pretty closed format-wise. There is no external mic in, which prohibits any type of wireless mic for lecture capture. Most Sony HDD have a boot on top that you can buy a foot to put an external mic, but not without hassle and cost.  And Sony is really vague about the external mic input.  Even after contacting Sony directly, they couldn’t tell me if I could connect an external microphone to their cameras.  That and Sony’s proprietary software and file formats, and we were scared away.

Profile #2: JVC GZ-HD7 Everio

JVC was the camera we almost went with for Hard Drive Format. It is the most flexible, and does have a mic input. It’s expensive, but didn’t have a really great quality level on picture and sound. Coupled with it recording in MPG-2 and cost, it left us feeling like there was no bang for the buck.  We almost pulled the trigger, but did some research on the format JVC records in.  It would be a hassle to convert file formats for editing in FCP and iMovie.  Hard core techies could convert it easily, but our desire is to have novice and beginners be able to capture their courses in a self-service model.  Too many moving parts made this option out of the question.

Hard Drive Camera Analysis

Pros

• Connect via firewire to the Mac and download video quickly and easily.
• No tapes to find, label, and use/resuse
• Quicker workflow

Cons

• Video can pixelate, especially with fast-moving images
• Video does not record in MOV. This makes the workflow change to need to convert the video files into a format which can be edited in either iMovie or Final Cut Pro. We tried using some video directly from a camera with negative results. A brand new mac with FCP and iMovie ’08 kept giving errors and shutting down once we loaded in the video files. This was a red flag for us on file formats and importing in video. We’ve also read of others having trouble getting video in for editing.
• Cameras do not have a Mic input. This is a huge issue. We researched this thoroughly. Even contacted several manufacturers. But found that to go hard drive camera and external mic input would push us into the professional grade price point.
• Price. We couldn’t justify spending that much money on what really is still an emerging format.

Mini-DV Cameras

Mini-DV has been around for a long time. It’s pretty much the consumer standard. It also runs some prosumer and pro-end cameras. We were wanting to think past Mini-DV to the future, but kept finding reasons to investigate Mini-DV as a possibility.We looked at many higher-end Mini-DV camcorders. However, we found that most didn’t have an external mic-in. One camera surprised us. It wasn’t in a catalog. It wasn’t a high-end camera. It was in Best Buy, in the cheap camera section. The Cannon ZR-800.This compact camera had our non-negotiable: Mic in. It didn’t have a headphone jack to monitor audio, but we got around that with our wireless mic system. It’s small, inexpensive, and just plain works. The only draw back to this particular unit is the tape eject area is on the botton of the camera. This makes it an extra step when on a tripod to remove the tripod connector before ejecting tape. But overall a great buy around $200.

Mini-DV Breakdown:

Pros

• Cheap. Mini-DV cameras are inexpensive. With multiple users checking out assets, cost is an issue for fixing and maintaining equipment. Bottom line: If the cameras were cheap enough and someone accidentally broke them, it wouldn’t be that big of an issue.
• Easy Access. You can buy a Mini-DV camera anywhere and get service on them as well. No need to send it to the manufacturer. And adding units wouldn’t be difficult either. And accessories like batteries, etc can be bought at the nearest Best Buy.
• Mic Input. Many mid-level Mini-DV cameras have a mic input. This was a non-negotiable for us.

Cons

• Tape. Arggghh. An hour long lecture takes one hour to input. It’s tedious.
• Tape. You have to be intentional about labeling and managing tapes going in and out.

Final Analysis

We decided that tape was going to be the more reliable and simpler. It would take additional time, however, it would also alleviate frustration for end-users. It fit below our budget, gave us piece of mind that we weren’t loaning out a major piece of equipment to inexperienced users, and provided a workflow that made sense to allow us to do what we needed to. Confirmation of this was from a rep at Sony who actually steered me away from Hard Drive cameras to Mini-DV. He found the same issues we were discovering regarding Hard Drive formats still not ready for prime time.

BEWARE

Be Careful Who You Buy From

Shopping for the best deal is good. But we found from experience that the cheapest is not necessarily the best. Once we walked down the JVC hard drive camera road, I went to the Web to find the best price. There are many online stores that were selling this camera for $500. It is true. And false. What they’re selling is the European model. Not US. It’s PAL. And it doesn’t come with any battery, cords, or warranty. Those are all extra. It’s a bait and switch scheme you want to stay away from. I’d recommend only buying from companies who can provide service, support, and warranties. Even if it costs a bit more.

External Mic Clarification

If you’re looking for a similar system and you’re looking online, make sure you talk to someone to confirm they have an external mic input. Many sites will say they do, but they don’t. Or some will say that they don’t know. Even manufacturers. Call and confirm. And make sure you clarify that you’re not looking for an A/V input. You’re looking for a mic input. Some vendors that may not be well versed will sell you a camera that will arrive with only A/V in. Don’t be disappointed. Get the clarification. A little extra work will help you in the long run.

We’re pleased to welcome Allan Carrington as a guest contributor to our community. Allan is a learning designer from the University of Adelaide in Australia. He is one of the foremost authorities on the integration of technology in teaching. Please welcome Allan Carrington.

Introduction

I have two masters degrees, one in interactive multimedia and the other in education, majoring in online delivery. This has involved many, many hours of study, yet to this day, until I stumbled onto the Just in Time Teaching (JiTT) methodology, I never really had an apologetic for using educational technology to empower both the teacher and the learner as well as improve learning outcomes face-to-face. The potential of JiTT was personally liberating, as I work in a research-intensive university, which delivers primarily face-to-face. I finally felt there was a better way and with the emergence of powerful collaborative tools commonly called Web 2.0, I believe JiTT has exciting possibilities.

Play Podcast

A New Movement

Today’s educational technologies allow an educator to more readily develop quality digital teaching and learning materials. By also integrating regular formative e-assessment into these learning objects, using a new generation of assessment technologies, lecturers can obtain a better understanding of the needs and knowledge students bring to the classroom, and can ‘just in time’ adjust their lecture plans accordingly.As a result of this methodology:

1. Academic staff will be able to:
   • maximise the effectiveness of classroom sessions by targeting specific student needs
   • organise student learning outside the classroom by providing specific feedback and asynchronous learning activities in response to students’ answers to the diagnostic assessments
   • improve student retention and progression through more effective engagement with the course concepts and content
2. Students will be able to:
   • start thinking about the content before class begins and be able to interact effectively in class
   • develop and practice their skills and learning through regular interaction with diagnostic tests
   • have some control over their learning and feel a sense of ownership since academics will respond to common problems that affect their learning

Technological Issues & Developments

There are two crucial technological issues for the facilitator adopting what I’ve called a JiTT 2.0 approach: a capacity to readily and flexibly generate teaching and learning material, and an ability to conduct reliable and readily interpretable online assessments. We discuss both these issues in this podcast episode and offer some suggested software programs and ideas for implementation.

Conclusion

I believe the Just in Time Teaching framework appears to have transformative potential in respect of face-to-face delivery in higher education, providing for a more effective use of the web for distribution of broadcast content, and a more collaborative and interactive approach to face-to-face activity, better informed by an understanding of students’ readiness to tackle the topic under discussion. Technological advances make implementation of JiTT more viable than when the approach was first developed almost a decade ago, and should provide a clearer platform for the much needed scholarly evaluation of the effectiveness of the framework in respect of improving learning outcomes.

References

Carrington, A. & Green, I. (2007). Just in time teaching revisited: Using e-assessment and rapid e-learning to empower face to face teaching. In ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/carrington-poster.pdf A full colour PDF of the ASCILITE 2007 conference poster can be found at http://ajax.acue.adelaide.edu.au/~allan/posterJiTT_ascilite07.pdf

Carrington A., Faculty of Law Professional Development Seminar on JiTT http://ajax.acue.adelaide.edu.au/~allan/lawjitt/

Carrington A. Using JiTT Powered by Articulate to enable Targeted Interactive Lecturing. A learning module with no sound used for face-to-face presentations http://www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/online/learningmodules/jitt/player.html

Novak, G. M., Patterson, E. T., Gavrin, A. & Enger, R. C. (1998). Just-in-Time Teaching: Active Learner Pedagogy with WWW. In J. Gil-Mendieta & M. H. Hanza (Eds), Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education (CATE ‘98). Cancun, Mexico. IASTED/ACTA Press: Anaheim, Calgary, Zurich.

Novak, Gregor M., Patterson, Evelyn T, Gavrin, Andrew D. & Christian, Wolfgang (1999). Just-In-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.Waye V., Introduction to Australian Law. An interactive learning module created using Articulate software and showcasing the JiTT methodology http://www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/online/learningmodules/lawilm/player.html

In the process of developing recording strategies for classrooms and individual faculty we considered a broad range of technologies, including hardware, software, and enterprise level systems. Because of both funding and workload constraints we chose to adopt a simpler approach to recording, with the understanding that more scalable options would be needed at some point.

Our goal was to provide faculty with a device that required the least amount of technical know-how, and the least amount post-production work load. During the research phase we discovered (to our dismay) that the majority of digital recorders were designed for a Windows-centric world, in that most recorders produced only .wav files. The .wav format isn’t actually a bad format. However, it would add a file conversion step in post-production and we viewed this step as an obstacle for most faculty.

Fortunately, we came across the H2 digital recorder from Zoom. Not only is the H2 reasonably priced (under $200), it can record directly in .mp3 format which eliminates 1 post-production step. The more I work with the H2, the more impressed I am with the value it represents.
The H2 contains 4 microphones, of which 2 are oriented toward the front of the unit, and 2 oriented toward the rear of the unit. The mics can be configured 3 ways at the push of a button:

1. Using the front mics only: Narrow, unidirectional (90° polar pattern)
2. Using the rear mics only: Wide Unidirectional (120° polar pattern
3. Using both front & rear mics (faux 360° polar pattern)

Having used various devices to record classroom lectures and interactions, it has always been a challenge to capture both the instructor’s lecture and student questions and comments with equal fidelity. The 360 degree setting on the H2 allows us to capture the instructor behind the teaching console and the students in front of the teaching console. We have been delighted with the recording quality in both large and small classrooms.

The H2 comes with a 512 Mb SD card (recommend using a 1Gb card), a 3 legged tripod “foot” that is easily attached/detached, a wind screen cover, ear buds, an adapter to turn the H2 into a hand-help mic, an AC adapter, USB cable, and a stereo X-Y cable.

The only non-intuitive thing I have discovered about the H2 is the requirement to press the record button twice to begin recording. This is actually something of a “pro” feature in that the first press of the record button activates the mics, and lets you set recording levels before you begin recording. The second push of the record button starts the recording. We had to give faculty a clear “heads-up” about the double-button-push requirement. Unfortunately, some still forget to push the button the second time which results in no recording being made. Thankfully, that only happened twice (2 different individuals), and the word got out quickly. Now both our students and faculty are able to successfully record classes and study groups with no problem. The resulting .mp3 files are easily uploaded by faculty/staff to their iTunes U course site.

Bottom line: The Zoom H2 is an outstanding value, and a delight to use.

Tunes or No Tunes?

We have Blackboard as our LMS and needed to create a way for rich media to feed into each course while being authenticated. We looked at Quicktime Streaming Server, Flash, even an enterprise type Youtube. None had a workflow that would really accommodate something that needed to scale as big as we wanted it to. Our university had been using iTunes U since its infancy with limited success. If a faculty needed a video clip in a Blackboard course, someone from IT would have to convert it and upload it using some scripts we had augmented from friends at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. In the four years we had used iTunes U, there were about 800 podcasts created. None of which were integrated with Blackboard. We needed to bring this all together. iTunes U has been a serviceable tool, but nothing earth shattering. There are many other tools that work with Blackboard. We just needed to find the right fit.

The Rumor Mill

Apple had not provided much support for iTunes U, which was a problem for us. As the buildup for WWDC ‘07 began to grow, we were hearing reports from Apple that there were going to be some significant upgrades in iTunes U and podcasting in the form of a podcasting tool that Apple was going to release to integrate with iTunes U. They unveiled Podcast Producer in conjunction with Leopard Server. The iPhone got tons of press, but the true gem of the conference was Leopard Server. Coming back from WWDC, we knew this was going to be one of two options for podcast capture and lecture capture.

Building Blocks

We worked with some other institutions and plodded through the iTunes U discussion boards to find some building blocks for Blackboard. The Baker building block and the Vanderbuilt building block. We tried implementing the Baker block first with some issues. I contacted Cindy Franco from Vandy for help in implementing their building block. She was great to work with, responsive, and helpful. Our network admin got the help he needed and we got the building block connected to our iTunes U site successfully. With the building block working, the next step was to cast vision to faculty on what iTunes U was and how it can work. Their experience with podcasting was by using the built in Blackboard podcasting tool. This bogged down our servers with tons of large files. Especially when a course was copied.

Final Verdict

iTunes U allowed us to serve up content in the cloud in an authenticated environment, with tools students are familiar with. Has it been successful? Kind of. I’ll review iTunes U in another post. Are we glad we decided to use iTunes U? Yes. But I’m not jumping for joy yet. However, Leopard Server and Podcast Producer could put me over the edge. The jury is still out.

Listen to the latest Educational Technology Podcast which features the teaching technology called LAMS. LAMS stands for Learning Activity Management System.   Allan Carrington, Learning Designer from University of Adelaide in Australia, introduces a cutting-edge concept for taking Blackboard or online learning to the next level. The basic principle is from moving online learning from simply content to activity. Let’s lay aside content and start with activity to allow the teacher to sequence a series of activities of which one is content-driven and one is activity driven. For example, instead of starting out with content or lecture, the LAMS model would ask a question or provide a place for students to wrestle with a concept or question before the content is delivered. It is a concept that is being embraced many places and making its way to the west. To find out more, listen to the podcast with Allan Carrington and Randy Meredith, Director of Academic Technology at Spring Arbor University.

Learn more about LAMS:

• LAMS International
• LAMS Community
• LAMS Foundation
• Allan Carrington’s Web site

Blackboard

We currently are running the latest version of Blackboard (7.3). Every course in our university, whether it be on main campus, a regional site, or online, gets a Blackboard course shell. We needed to find a way to deliver rich media through Blackboard. This aids in adoption by faculty who are already familiar with Blackboard. It also aids in adoption by students for the same reason.

iTunes U

After researching other alternatives to rich media delivery, we settled on iTunes U. This will be the first profile on our discovery and decision to use this platform. Having these two non-negotiables, we needed to figure out a way to make iTunes U work with Blackboard, and create a workflow with equipment that would make sense and be easy on budget. We think we’ve found it. And the next few weeks we’re going to show you.

• Faculty to Student: A few members of the Psychology department decided that they would begin using social bookmarking. They attended a faculty workshop that helped them get a grasp on what social bookmarking is. After deciding on how to use it, they put together sites for themselves as well as the department. The value was to be able to push students to a comprehensive listing of bookmarks for all of their courses. They tagged the sites with course numbers to enable students to drill down to the links that would pertain to their particular area. This was the beginning of connecting faculty to student.
• Faculty to Faculty: This application allows faculty within the department to not only add tags to the departmental account with their names as tags, but also their own personal social bookmarking account. This allows faculty to connect with other faculty to leverage external and internal resources more efficiently. Faculty working on their terminal degrees also use this application to keep track of all of their research as well as to connect with their instructors. This proves to be an extremely valuable asset.
• Case Study: Learning Center: An academic learning center took the social bookmarking concept and applied it in the context of empowering students with resources. They set up an account, added links and tagged them for various applications in their field. They are currently in the process of getting the site in front of students and using it as an conduit to learning resources for students.

Social bookmarking has become something that really helps connect people and, for our purposes, empowers faculty, staff, and students, toward better teaching and learning. There was some great conversation that came up with what tool to use for social bookmarking. Google has just come out with one. There is a social bookmarking tool within Blackboard. However, I believe faculty are leaning more towards delicious. Having their bookmarks “outside” has advantages and disadvantages. However, we’re seeing that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.What applications of social bookmarking are you using? Feel free to post your applications of social bookmarking below. Let’s share our ideas together.