Podcasting “so easy your grandma could do it”

Ok, with a catch phrase like that I had to check it out. Let me preface this by admitting that I have never created a podcast before. I feel a bit guilty about this (I am a geek, what can I say)? After searching high and low (ok, maybe it took 10 minutes) for the easiest and least intimidating setup I could find, I came up with Gcast (its free). I signed up for an account, imbedded their Flash audio player into a WebCT course, recorded a podcast via phone, and listened to my podcast in the course …all within 15 minutes time! You can also upload mp3 files if talking into the phone isn’t your bag. You can access your podcasts using iTunes,
Google, Newsgator, and other aggregators (aggravators?) if you don’t want to mess with the Flash Player. It is a good thing all technology isn’t this easy or I would be out of a job.

Random Access Generation

The other day, my two year old daughter was riding in the car with my mother. The little one asked to hear “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter. My mother then spent the next 10 minutes explaining that she didn’t have an iPod and could only listen to the music that the radio station played. The two-year-old so did not buy it. When I first heard this story, I laughed. Then I gave it some thought. My kids are growing up in a time of nearly unlimited access to information. I have heard this in countless presentations and read it in more than a few articles, but it took a toddler to finally beat it into my head. …wow, not to go off on a tangent, but “Bad Day” just came on my iPod (it is on shuffle and there are like 12,000 songs on it) …weird.

I guess I should come up with a point to this posting. I was fortunate enough to hear Marc Prensky speak a year or so ago. The exchange between my mom and daughter echoed his statement that digital natives are from the “Random Access Generation.” I highly recommend checking out his writings on this and more at http://www.marcprensky.com/.

$50,000 for Amsterdam?

Yep, Second Life’s version of Amsterdam has been sold for $50,000 on eBay. There are a lot of people surprised by this. Conventional wisdom begs the question, “Why would someone spend real money for an abstraction?” I answer the question with “Why not?” What is real money? Is it tangible? Sure, you can hold a dollar bill, but isn’t paper money just a symbol of gold used in the not too distant past (relatively speaking)? Actually, I can’t remember the last time I used paper money. I now shop almost exclusively with a credit/check card (which represents a check, which represents paper money, which represents gold …uh, I’m dizzy.

The concept of a dollar bill is based on the promise that the value printed on a piece of paper is worth what it says it is. In Second Life’s version of Amsterdam you can interact with people, and experience someone’s artistic creation. Which concept is more abstract?

TXDLA Conference Highlights

I’d like to reflect on the Texas Distance Learning Association’s (TXDLA) 10th annual conference for a minute. This was my 5th time going and, in my opinion, this is one of the “can’t miss” conferences held each year. This year I think it drew somewhere near a thousand educators. Here are a few observations:

  1. Moodle was everywhere. For whatever reason, I have not paid much attention to this open source LMS in the past. It has my attention now. At one session, that gave a broad overview of Moodle, someone asked, “This does everything that Blackboard does. Why would anyone pay when you can get the same features for free?” Good question. Over the next few months I hope to have some answers for you. In my spare time (cue laugh track) over the next few months, I am going to set up Moodle 1.8 and create a course. I will report back on the pains and pleasures of the experience.
  2. I attended a session on the implementation of a course, “Going Online to Teach Online Faculty About Teaching Online.” Allison Peterson from Texas Woman’s University gave an outstanding presentation on why the course failed. I took away a *lot* of good info from this session. Of equal importance, it was nice to know that I am not the only one who has been a part of a misstep or two. We need more honesty like this to advance our field. Nice job Alli.
  3. The most memorable quote occurred while standing in line for lunch. The gentleman behind me was praising a colleague on his ability to pick up technology. He said, “He is good …really good. He is going to be a Digital Native before long.” I had a flash to the Aflac commercial with Yogi Berra in the barber shop.
  4. The statement that got me thinking the most was made be the Keynote Speaker, Elliott Maise. He said that teleconferencing is on the verge of really taking off. Being more of an asynchronous learning guy, this really hasn’t been on my radar. I worked with teleconferencing at The Medical University of South Carolina a while back, and the experience did not leave a great lasting impression. The technology was expensive, clunky, and it seemed to interfere with learning more than promote it (I often had to baby sit the equipment to make sure it behaved). It should be noted that this was five years ago and the technology is vastly improved. I’ll stay tuned.
  5. People are curious about Second Life. They aren’t sure what to do with it yet, but they are interested.

Competition for Flash?

Flash is amazing. I use it to create interactive learning objects and online lectures. The only problem is that I have to use “cheater” programs like Swish http://www.swishzone.com/index.php or Camtasia http://techsmith.com/camtasia.asp to get the results that I want. Yesterday I sat down and attempted to put together a simple self-graded, multiple choice quiz in Flash. I even tried using a template, but gave up after about a half hour. I ended up using Hot Potatoes http://hotpot.uvic.ca/, a nice free software package that allows the creation of multiple choice quizzes, crossword puzzles, etc. The program is a little bit limited (and it uses Java), but you can’t beat the price.

In my search for a better option, I came across a Microsoft product to be released in Fall 07 that has the *potential* to fill a void in my course development toolbox. The official propaganda states, “Grava is the code name for a new set of tools from Microsoft’s Education Products Group that is designed to allow the education community to create and assemble materials that will increase discovery and allow learners to go at their own pace and learning style.” http://www.connect.microsoft.com/Grava. It looks like the tool is an easy-to-use learning object maker. The interface looks pretty slick. A potential drawback is that a “Grava” player must be downloaded to use the stuff you make. Neat stuff.

Is Blackboard the Galactus of Learning Management Systems?

Now for some background. For those not familiar with the “villain” in the Fantastic 4 comic book, Galactus is the most powerful being in the universe and must devour planets for energy to sustain his own life (yes, a comic book reference …you realize that you are reading an article in a journal with “geek” in the title don’t you?). According to Wikipedia, “Galactus is depicted as the primary antagonist or super-villain. Nevertheless, he is not an evil being, and harbors no ill-will to any living creature. Because Galactus brings balance between the two opposing universal forces of Death and Eternity, he considers himself to be outside of the concepts of Good and Evil.” While this being will destroy civilizations and planets, without him the universe would collapse. Stay with me here.

Am I a huge blackboard fan? Not really. In fact until we recently upgraded to CE6 I was a die hard WebCT guy, but that is another discussion all together. Do I think the company is evil? Probably not. Does Blackboard have an appetite for absorbing the competition? Absolutely (WebCT, Prometheus). The three “opposing universal forces” that bring balance in this scenario are open source/other LMSs, Blackboard, and Educators and Students.

Let’s face it; Learning Management Systems leave a lot to be desired. All of them. A year ago, it was WebCT vs. Blackboard vs. the rest of the little guys. Everyone had (and has) their own proprietary way of doing things. With the merger, we can expect increased standardization. I see this trickling down to the smaller companies and open source folks as well. Once everyone “falls in line” with this standardization so to speak, they will continue to improve upon their products and be able to respond more quickly to market demands while the bloated Blackboard conglomerate counts it’s profits (Microsoft/Apple anyone?). Let them. Educause and the US Patent and Trade Office have made it clear that Blackboard’s actions are under the microscope. I anticipate Galactus will remain in check for the foreseeable future now that the other opposing universal forces have made it aware of its limitations. Who are the big winners in this scenario? Educators and students. I’m not saying the hybrid/online education universe would cease to exist without Blackboard, but I definitely see online course delivery thriving more because of it.

Is this fair to Angel and Desire2Learn? No. Would they have done the same thing as Blackboard did if they were in the driver’s seat? Probably …but I will choose to believe they would have been a whole lot smarter about it. Blackboard must have been eating intergalactic paint chips when they came out with the assertion that they essentially created the learning management system concept and therefore have the exclusive rights to all associated functionalities. Following that logic, Al Gore should be getting a cut every time a webpage is opened (he did invent the internet you know). In fact, shouldn’t Blackboard be paying him?