Slide Master Video Tutorial - Camtasia

Week 5 Podcast...a bit late

Week 5 Podcast about Flash Animation handout

INST 5400 - Copyright

    My research on copyright issues began with a search on fair use since it is something I was not as sure of as I was other topics related to copyright.  The first sentence of the second paragraph from Fair Use Guidelines For Educational Multimedia states, “there is no simple test to determine what is fair use,” a great start to help me determine what exactly fair use is.

  Upon further research I realized that a statement that tells you that there is no easy way to determine what is illegal and what is not could be worse, as there are clear criteria you can follow to determine if you are breaking the law or not.

    There are four criteria that allow you to determine if a piece of work is fair use.  They include: (1) the purpose and character of use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes, (2) the nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

    According to Fair Use and Copyright For Teachers copyright is “a property right attached to an original work of art or literature.  It grants the author or creator exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, adapt, perform, or display the protected work. […] A copyright gives the author or owner the right of control over all forms of reproduction, including photocopies, slides, recordings on cassettes and videotapes, compact disks, and other digital formats.”

    Creative Commons licenses, according to Wikipedia, are licenses that allow the creator to decide how the end-user may use the product. .  According to CreativeCommons.org there are six main creative commons licenses that determine what individuals may do with the work. They are attribution, attribution share alike, attribution no derivatives, attribution non-commercial, attribution non-commercial share alike, attribution non-commercial no derivatives.  

    Creative commons can be broken down into four categories with combinations of these four categories comprising the six main licenses.  The first is attribution, in which the creator lets others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work and derivative works based upon it, but only if they give credit the way the creator requests. The second is share alike, in which the creator allows others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.  The third is noncommercial, in which the creator allows others to copy, distribute, display, and perform your work, and derivative works based upon it, but for noncommercial purposes only.  The fourth is no derivative works, in which the creator allows others to copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

    As a teacher I look for attribution and noncommercial works when I am searching for creative commons works because they are the easiest for me to work with and I enjoy having the option of modifying the work. 

    My personal experience with copyright issues has been varied, from using Napster in the 90’s to figuring out what the bit torrent is about to having my students research copyright before completing too many Photoshop, Flash, and web design projects.  As an avid slashdot.org follower I have read many articles and comments on copyright issues, many articles talking about someone getting in trouble for copyright infringement and comments talking about how the material should be free for anyone to acquire and/or use.  Personally I understand how an artist, whether it be a musician or a program developer, should make money from the product they create but I also find it hard to argue with those that say there are works of art that should be free to everyone to use.  I do not have any specific examples of the later right now, but I am sure the slashdot.org archives contain examples.

    In the classroom, which is my daily work and usually my nightly, I use creative commons works as well as copyrighted textbooks and workbooks.  Since I teach six different courses there are all sorts of examples I could give for everything from Accounting to Web Design, but depending on the course I use information from the current textbook I am using (Accounting) or create examples of my own that allow students to see what is possible (Web Design).  In web design I tend to use my own images but there have been times when I have searched for images with a creative commons license as well as music with the same type of licensing.

    I encourage my students to do the same thing.  They always have a hard time believing that they are not supposed to use the newest hip-hop song they bought on iTunes for presentations and having them research copyright issues is usually an eye opener for them.  I have found that music is most often the place where students will break, or come close to it, copyright laws but this is easily remedied after having them research copyright and showing them multiple websites that contain loads of music with a creative commons license.  I also hope next year to have a room full of iMacs and would love to show students how to make their own music selections with GarageBand!

Even more behind

So this semester turns out to be much more stressful than last semester. I forgot how time consuming getting FBLA students ready for District and State competition is. (IT'S EXTREMELY TIME CONSUMING)
Was it worth it? Yes, even though my grade in this course has plummeted my students did very well at districts, placing 3rd overall (after placing close to last last year) behind the biggest school in the state and another school our size that has won for who knows how many years.

At the same time I spent many many hours working on an Enhancement Grant for my classroom...trying to get iMac's in my classroom next year along with a much bigger smartboard, digital cameras and video cameras, and more. All that work might have been for nothing as even if I do receive most of the money the school district might not let me spend that much (even for items we only have to pay 25% of the cost)....uggghhhh...and I chose to work on that grant multiple days instead of completing my work for this class.

Was it the right thing to do? I don't know if I can answer that question until this coming September (after I find out about the grant and I have my final grade for this class).
Either way what's done is done. All I can do is finish the work, beg for forgiveness (and some points), and get my work done on time in the future.

Bookmarks

INST 5400 - Social Bookmarking/Flickr

Social Bookmarking

I have tried to use social bookmarking for the past 4 years.  It started in an undergraduate course I was enrolled in which called for me to create a list of bookmarks I could use in the future as a business education teacher.  That class was in the same building I worked in and I happened to be working after that course was over each day it met.  I realized after this assignment came up that it was silly for me to have a huge number of bookmarks at home and then go to work (in a computer lab) and not have access to any of those bookmarks. 

During the next couple weeks I researched bookmarking sites including sites that only a specific user could view with a password as well as sites that allowed the user to share their bookmarks with anyone.  Though I do not remember many of the sites I do remember terrible interfaces and a giant pain in my backside.  I chose one that was the least painful to use between the group and used it until I came across foxmarks shortly after its development.  Around the same time I heard about del.icio.us and spent a little time researching it, but chose foxmarks.

With this assignment I got (though I didn't have a choice in the matter) a chance to revisit delicious with many updates that have taken place since I first viewed it years ago.  Even with the updates delicious will not effect the way I browse or save websites.  Why?  Because I am perfectly content using foxmarks for my huge number of bookmarks.  However, the ease and design of sharing delicious bookmarks versus the ease of design of sharing foxmarks bookmarks makes me wonder if someday I will be using delicious just so family, friends, co-workers, and/or students can easily view my bookmarks.  At the same time, as an EDUCAUSE article [68kb PDF] states, "social bookmarking means storing data in yet another location that you have to maintain and update."  In other words it's more work.

I believe social bookmarking will effect education and my teaching and learning by making it easier to collaborate with colleagues as well as making it easier for teachers to share educational websites with students.  I am not sure if it is because I teach in a small school district or whether the same things happen in larger districts, but I have a huge number of websites bookmarked (bookmarks toolbar, student resources, quotes, and more) that could easily be shared with others if others had an understanding of social bookmarking.  At the same time, I currently am not able to log into my delicious account from school because of unresolved server issues that have not been worked out.

I do not believe social bookmarking will effect my teaching and learing life in any significant way because I have been using a social bookmarking program for the past few years.  However, as I mentioned before, I believe social bookmarking could have a significant effect in education.  I am currently setting up a school website for the business department, which I make up half of, and can imagine linking tagged bookmarks to a section of the site.  This would allow students to view certain websites for class as well as allow parents to see what we're doing and give them a chance to better understand my classroom.

As a CNET review of delicious states, "tags [...] are subject keywords such as 'travel', 'chocolate', "ferrets," or whatever other category you create."  Cleary tags can be very useful because they allow a user to view like content based on a certain tag.  However, as the EDUCAUSE article states, "by definition, social bookmarking is done by amateurs.  There is no oversight as to how resources are organized and tagged.  This can lead to inconsistent or otherwise poor use of tags."  The point is that although tags can be very useful they are only as perfect as those using them.

One thing I learned through this assignment was what the numbers on the right side of each site that I bookmarked stand for as well as what the subscription feature is for.  The number on the right side of each site is the number of other users who bookmarked the same site.  This feature would not mean much if it weren't for the fact that you can click on the number and view others users who bookmarked that same site.  Personally I think it is fun to click choose a site I have bookmarked as a RSS feed and see if others did the same. Another great feature of delicious is the subscription feature.  Subscribing to a tag allows you to view all bookmarks other users marked with the tag you subscribed to.  Upon subscribing to "design" I came across sites such as "25 Easy Steps to Create A Professional Design" and "30 Awesome Photoshop Text Effects".  While I found these wonderful websites I also came across lots of pages of junk, so the subscription feature is not all roses.  This feature goes back to the statement from the EDUCAUSE article that basically states that tags are only as good as those that create them.

Overall I am more impressed with delicious now than I imagined I would be.  As far as sharing bookmarks goes I believe delicious does beat foxmarks but as of now I plan on sticking with foxmarks as I have not had a great reason to switch to a program that makes it extremely easy to share your bookmarks with others.

A Rant About Why I Can't Get Ahead in Class...yet

It's amazing. The week I try to get my graduate work done during my small amount of free time at work I can't because the freakin login page for del.icio.us is blocked!

Why might I try extra hard to get work done at school this week?
Monday after school - Finishing assignments for last week
Tuesday after school - Helping my class (I'm a sophomore class sponsor) prepare courtwarming decorations until 6. Then doing some work in my classroom.
Wednesday after school - Helping students study for FBLA tests until Men's Rec from 7-9pm. (The ideal time to work on this weeks assignments would have been the time between school and men's rec, but I refuse to drive 30 minutes home and 30 minutes back to work on an assignment)
Thursday after school - My freshman basketball team lost another game. Thankfully only one more game left
Friday after school - I imagine since it's not Friday after school yet I'll go home this afternoon and study instead of sitting on the bench for the courtwarming game tonight.
Saturday - Thankfully it's the last basketball game for me to coach this school year. (I've had enough!) Then my fiance and I are going to St. Louis visit friends and register at a couple of places for our upcoming wedding.

INST 5400 - Week 4

I have heard the term "Web 2.0" numerous times in association with websites like Facebook, Google Maps, and Craigslist, though I never saw a clear definition of what web 2.0 is.  This assignment helped clear the definition up and gives me a much better idea of the difference between "Web 1.0" applications and "Web 2.0" applications.
Web 2.0 is defined by oreillynet.com as being comprised of seven core competencies.  They are as follows:

1. Service, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
2. Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
3. Trusting users as co-developers
4. Harnessing collective intelligence
5. Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
6. Software above the level of a single device
7. Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models.

As you can see, if a person that helped create the conference where "Web 2.0" (Wikipedia) was coined takes nineteen pages to describe what web 2.0 is it is no wonder why I, and many others, have used so many web 2.0 applications but never really knew what exactly a web 2.0 application was.  

There are multiple pros and cons of web 2.0 applications.  Obvious pros include the open architecture of web 2.0 applications.  By this I mean that sites like Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and a site like facebook has loads of extra programs available to waste, though there are useful add-ons, time.  Web 2.0 applications also encourage interactions between individuals whether it be through words, images, or audio.  A third pro that comes to mind is the ability for an individual to access data at an amazing pace.  Though sites like Wikipedia can contain false information there are also checks in place so that with a small amount of research users can verify the information, as I did with the Wikipedia link I used above, and have that huge amount of knowledge at their fingertips. 
Not everything is great with web 2.0 applications though.  As I mentioned sites like Wikipedia can be edited so that articles contain false information.  Along the same lines a recent article on CNN's website mentions the possibility and fear of many that false facebook accounts are being made and used to take money from unsuspecting users.  To push even farther, recently a teenager in Missouri killed herself because of messages she was receiving on myspace from who she though was a peer.  It turned out the person sending the messages was old enough to be her mother, who is not serving time in prison.  So safety is a big issue with web 2.0 applications.  Another issue with web 2.0 applications is that the internet plays such a huge role in file storage.  What happens if a flickr user decides to keep all of their pictures on the website and something happens to the server they are stored on or something happens to their account?  This isn't a problem if the user also stores the images on their computer, but I believe web 2.0 sites are making it so easy to store files that many users do not think about what might happen if something happens to their files.
As I am constantly on the internet and have been for the past 5 years I have used a great number of web 2.0 applications.  They include, but are not limited to: iTunes, firefox, amazon.com, craigslist, ebay, paypal, Gmail, Skype, facebook, myspace, netflix, and youtube.
Of these web 2.0 applications I have used I have implemented a few of them into my classroom and could implement more of them in the future.  One of the first things I did in my first year of teaching was install Firefox on all the computers in my computer lab.  This was followed by installing iTunes on each computer.  I allow students to take advantage of the many Firefox add-ons, including using the "web developer toolbar" in my Web Design course and love having the option for students to listen to college podcasts via iTunes.  In some of my classes we use programs like investopedia's free stock market game and when students don't have e-mail addresses set up I encourage them to create a Gmail account.  In the future I can imagine having each student create an account and set up the course as if it were a business and memos and assignments were sent and submitted via e-mail. 
I believe others are using web 2.0 applications in a similar manner as I do.  I know some use programs such as Second Life but I am not yet knowledgeable enough about the program to feel secure trying to use it in a high school classroom nor am I sure that even after I have a better understanding of it I will feel comfortable allowing teenagers to use it in my classroom.  Another manner in which other educators take advantage of web 2.0 applications is with podcasts.  Many teachers create podcasts themselves and post them on a school website and/or have students create podcasts of their own.  I think this is a great idea and I hope to do it in the future.
Web 3.0.  According to howstuffworks.com web 3.0 might do the following, "you might type a complex sentence or two in your Web 3.0 browser, and the Web will do the rest. In our example, you could type "I want to see a funny movie and then eat at a good Mexican restaurant. What are my options?" The Web 3.0 browser will analyze your response, search the Internet for all possible answers, and then organize the results for you."  While I find this a bit hard to believe right now I think it is hard for anyone to say what web 3.0 might be because web 2.0 is not fully developed.  

Already behind

Haven't had a good start to the semester so far. A combination of basketball, preparing for FBLA contest, and teaching has left me little time to focus on doing my graduate work. There have been a couple times this past week where I had a choice to work for a couple hours or get some rest, and I chose to rest. As far as grades are concerned, probably the wrong choice. As far as my sanity is concerned, the right choice.

Thankfully my basketball season ends this coming Saturday so I'll have more time to focus on graduate work and planning a wedding.

So far I've liked the work we've been doing in this course. Though I hardly ever use Powerpoint in my classroom (when doing notes I use Smart Notebook), I taught Advanced Computer Applications last year and know everything I want to about the Office Suite. I think the reason only reason I still don't have the Powerpoint presentation complete is my need to make it as perfect as I can. I spent way too much time trying to determine what color border to put around the presentation in the slide master. Why? Because I was being too picky.

I'll get it done in the next hour and figure out what's due this week and hopefully turn it in on time...and keep turning in assignments on time.

RSS

Though I have not always been clear about what the letters RSS stand for I have been a huge fan of the concept for the past few years, especially when it comes to technology websites such as slashdot.org and engadget.com. Over the past few years I have realized that one some websites I spent too much time looking through information and commercials that did not matter to me, and sometimes just annoyed me, which is where the beauty of RSS feeds come in. I have been able to go straight to articles that interest me and not bother with useless information. However, just because RSS feeds have many benefits does not mean they are perfect!
Though I have stumbled across the definition of RSS a few times in the past few years I never paid much attention to it because I did not need to. What I was doing was great for me so the definition was unimportant. However for this assignment I took the time to learn more about it and found that according to the website whatisrss.com RSS stands for "Rich Site Summary" which is "a format for delivering regularly changing web content. As an avid RSS user I understand that while RSS originally stood for rich site summary more often than not it is now referred to as "Really Simple Syndication" as softwaregarden.com stated.
No matter which acronym you prefer the point is that using a RSS feed allows you to view updated content without the need to browse through pages and pages of information.

The first time I ever used a RSS feed I do so by clicking on a small icon on the right hand side of the address bar in Firefox. I do not remember what website I was browsing, it might have been slashdot.org or possibly another technology website. What I do remember is Firefox asking me if I wanted to use a built in reader or another program. This being my first encounter with RSS I chose to use Firefox's built in reader.
While Mozilla has made huge changes to its browser in the past couple years there have also been changes to its RSS reader. It seems to be a little more streamlined now as there is no option to open the RSS feed with any other reader (though there are probably plenty of add-ons for that) and you can immediately choose a location to bookmark the feed.
For this assignment I chose to use Firefox's built in RSS reader and Apple's Mail RSS reader. I just received a MacBook from school this year and almost always have the Mail program open when the computer is on so I might as well try a seperate program that I might use in the future as opposed to installing a program that I already know I will not use. The biggest difference I noticed between the two was the ease of viewing a RSS feed in a browser, which is where the web page will open anyway, versus opening another program which will take you to a browser after choosing a feed of your liking. While each RSS feed in Mail showed when the article was published, something I could not see in the Firefox reader, if I see an article I like I can always view the date and time it was published while looking at the actual article.
Below is a screenshot of the setup I have in Firefox:

And a screenshot of the RSS feeds in Mail:

I did not face any issues in setting up the feeds. As I mentioned, I have been using RSS feeds for a while now and find them easy to set up and use. Between the two programs I find it easier to set up an RSS feed in Firefox as all you have to do is click on the RSS icon in the address bar for most pages while to enter the same address into an outside program it can take some research to find out what address to use for the feed.
While I highly recommend fellow faculty members use RSS feeds for educational sites I cannot see it happening without someone telling/showing them how RSS feeds work and how they can be useful to an educator. While I have not checked, I doubt any other teachers at my school use RSS feeds. Personally I think a big reason some teachers have problems with saving various websites, whether it be through del.icio.us, foxmarks, or any other bookmarking site/program, is they do not understand that there are options out there that allow them to get the same bookmarks at home that they have at school. Even with the huge amount of work high school teachers have to do I believe if they are given the proper tools and instruction they could very easily take advantage of RSS feeds.
Many of the technology links I showed in the first screenshot I use in class as discussion topics. I teach six different courses, from web design to accounting, and everything in between so there is always an article or two I can use in class. Examples, because the image is a little small, are lifehacker.com, engadget.com, and slashdot.org. A site like http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ can also be very helpful for an instructor looking for free audio clips and even has a RSS feed! Entrepreneurship instructors could use http://www.nfib.com/page/home, which also has multiple RSS feeds depending on what part of the site you would like to keep up with, as a great resource.

As I stated, with some guidance educators could take advantage of RSS feeds. But for what reason? The first reason is for the reasons I listed in the previous paragraph. If an instructor finds a website with great resources and has a RSS feed it can save them a lot of time looking through the RSS feeds as opposed to having to scroll through every full length article. I think it would be very beneficial for teachers to have a web page with a RSS feed to a homework type page so students could go view the RSS feed and instantly know what is coming up or if they have missed something. The same could be said for principles. I have no doubt many principals want to know what the teachers are doing and using a RSS feed could be a simple way to find this out.

In summary I hope it is easy to see that I love the idea of RSS feeds and use them as much as I can. I can imagine teachers using RSS feeds in the future to help students keep track of assignments, though this probably will not happen as soon as I would like it to.

References

What is RSS: A tutorial introduction to feeds and aggregators. (2004, July 6).
Retrieved February 3, 2009, from Software Garden: http://rss.softwaregarden.com/aboutrss.html

What Is RSS? RSS Explained. (n.d.). Retrieved February 3, 2009, from What is RSS: http://www.whatisrss.com/

This past week

I think I've got this blog thing figured out. No, not how to actually blog (I've been doing that for ~6 years) but how the blog is supposed to be used for INST 5400.

Though I turned the PowerPoint Handout in right before the deadline (and am paying for it today, after having to get up at 5am for 6:30am basketball practice...t i r e d...) I feel like I did a good job and would be successful in teaching a high school class how to use the slide master feature in Office 2007.

iGoogle & Pageflakes

Because I'm a fan of Google (until they do something stupid...which they are bound to do eventually) and have been a Gmail user since it's beta days I've known about iGoogle and set up a page a while ago. That being said, I haven't actually used it in the past year or so.

I had never heard of Pageflakes which makes sense because in the short time I looked at it I think I would prefer iGoogle, and I said how much I use it.

While I haven't talked about either in my classes, I have watched many students login to iGoogle and check the news and read about current events through it.

I have no need for iGoogle or Pageflakes because everywhere I go Firefox goes with me along with the Foxmarks add-on, and my bookmarks are set up so that I can check all my favorite news sites with a couple clicks, my favorite technology websites are all set up as RSS feeds (slashdot, engadget, lifehacker, gizmodo, etc) as I enjoy reading full pages of news but the technology sites are basically blogs and I only need to see the RSS title to determine if I want to read the story or not.
Sure I could set something similar up through iGoogle or Pageflakes, but I have no need nor want to.

Open Source

What is open source?
Personally I would sum it up with one word: awesome.
A little more in-depth definition needs to include the following:
1. Free to distribute
2. Producted developed by many (meaning anyone is free to modify it and many great apps are developed by groups, not individuals)
3. Based on code that is free for all to use.

Personal open source favorites:
Audacity (audio editing with some great plug-ins available)
Open Office (even though I own word and use it in my classroom, I love having the option to use Open Office and make sure my students know about it)
Firefox (THE BROWSER. Sooo many great plugins, great built in RSS reader, etc)
VLC (amazing multimedia player with great file converting options!)
Handbreak (great copying software for the Mac)
NVU (for an open source program it's a great web developing program!)

As far as the MIT initiative, I thought it sounded awesome when I first heard talk about it a couple years ago. I also think iTunes has helped education with the educational podcasts they have available.

Finally, I definitely would like to use open courseware with my students. While I have professional programs in my computer lab (MS Office, Adobe CS3 Suite, etc) I let my students know about other program they may use outside of class though I need to take it a step further and make a bunch of CD's loaded with open source software and give them to those that are interested.

Introduction to Andrew

Hello!

I'm Andrew Reynolds and this is my third semester as an Educational Technology graduate student. When I'm not trying to get course work turned in just before the deadline I'm doing one of the following:

1. Teaching high school business courses in Centralia, MO. I teach 6 different courses! (Accounting, Introduction to Digital Media [basics of Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, Dreamweaver], Entrepreneurship/Management, Multimedia [advanced Photoshop, Flash, HTML basics, etc], Personal Finance, and Web Page Design.
2. Coaching cross country in the fall and freshman boys basketball in the winter (yay for 6:30am practices)
3. Improving our Future Business Leaders of America chapter (9 members the year before I arrived, 20 members my first year, 64 members this year) as an adviser and preparing students for district, state, and hopefully national contest (http://contest.chsbusiness.com)
4. Driving a school bus to cross country meets and basketball games to make a few extra bucks
5. Relaxing on the couch with my fiancée (we'll be married this coming June 13) and watching Tivo'd shows like The Office, CSI, House, and many more.
6. Playing with any technology I can get my hands on.
7. Enjoying my school issued MacBook! (The battery life on this thing rocks!)
8. If I had any more time I'd be riding bicycles as I used to race them as an undergrad at Mizzou, including racing in the 2005 Collegiate Mountainbiking National Championships in Pennsylvania.


The last good book I read, and actually have about 20 more pages to go (though I'm sure many would hate the book, including my fiancée, I haven't laughed harder in a long while) is I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max.
My favorite author is John Grisham and I am proud to say I own every book he's written!

Did Steve Jobs actually say that, or did he say that people don't read old fashion books? (As in using the Kindle instead, which I'd love to try)
If I was to answer the question (Do people read any more?) based on what my students do, I would have to say people really don't read any more. But based on my habits along with my fiancée's habits people still read as often as possible.