Archive for year 2010
Adventures with NVivo 9
Nov 28th
Working on the qualitative analysis for my dissertation (see previous post for a general description of the topic), I jumped off into NVivo 9 today with little to no prior experience with the software. I have formal education experience with qualitative analysis, though not with the software. It’s been an adventure to say the least. I’m posting that adventure (a) to share with others perhaps looking for any hints or ideas to help them in their own adventure and (b) to expose my current approach to any colleagues with more NVivo 9 experience that may care to comment. More >
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Loading ...Where have I been? When will I be back?
Nov 26th
My blog looks quite pathetic for 2010; a whopping grand total of 7 posts… okay, now 8… for the entire year. There’s a reason for that; I realized in hindsight that the blogging I did in 2007-2008 traded off with time spent on my dissertation, to a certain extent at least. A number of things were going on that “got in the way” of the dissertation or were distractions, but the blogging was definitely part of that. So, this year, I’ve purposely avoided spending too much time attending to this blog space; any desire to write in this space was re-channeled into writing on my dissertation. I’ve had some measure of success. More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Do we learn better in immersive environments?
Nov 19th
(Cross-posted from http://blogs.sanjac.edu/virtualworlds)
The Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable (VWER) is a weekly, global meeting of professionals interested in the use of Virutal Worlds in educational environments. Currently, the VWER meets every Thursday in Second Life at 4:30pm San Jac time.
The meeting this week was an open discussion by all attendees of the question, “Do we learn better in immersive environments? – including virtual worlds, games, etc.” Participants were invited to “bring any links to articles that support or refute this idea.” A full transcript of the meeting will be available online at the VWER website via the Transcripts link on the main menu. More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Screencasting Options?
Apr 25th
A friend and colleague asked this question via Facebook; my response is shared below, and I am interested in any “off-the-top-of-you-head” suggestions you may have.
I thought in lieu of using Camtasia, with which I would need a license from a college, would I be able to export a narrated powerpoint or keynote presentation into a video file? I read that you can do this with keynote to create quicktime videos. Audio podcasts are easy with Audacity, but I’d like to be able to create this ‘video lectures’ on my own.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...HP redeemed via @hpsupport
Apr 25th
Back in late March, I posted Don’t Buy HP: A Rant. It was unfortunate that my exchange with HP required such a post; however, I was fortunate to have direct access to the HP Executive Customer Service group, at HP corporate, via their twitter account: @hpsupport.
As I mentioned in that previous post, I had certain expectations, and Jeff C. worked as best he could to meet those expectations, though unsuccessfully at first (which prompted my post). When it was all said and done however, Jeff C. was able to talk to those at HP that could make an exception to the rigid policies which dictate how licensed HP service centers respond to warranty requests. More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...What makes for effective learning & teaching?
Mar 25th
I have a very definitive view of what constitutes effective learning and teaching.
Effective learning and teaching experiences typically are:
- Active: Learners may, by design, cognitively influence the learning process.
- Collaborative: Learners are interdependent and reciprocally influence learning activities and outcomes.
- Authentic: Learners exhibit knowledge or perform a skill in a naturally occurring environment as possible.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Don’t Buy HP! A rant…
Mar 25th
I could rant for days, but I’ll leave most of it in this one post (which is likely to be longer).
About a year ago, my three daughters and I got my wife a new HP laptop for Mother’s Day. We needed another computer. I had second thoughts about buying HP based on a bad experience in 1992. But, it seemed like time to give the company another chance; it had been 18 years. Turns out… that was a mistake, and one that I will *never* make again. More >
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...#edchat
Mar 23rd
I don’t know how I have missed #edchat via Twitter since last July, but it’s an incredibly valuable resource and opportunity in my opinion. If you’re not familiar with Twitter…. In short, at any given time, there’s a variety of education topics being discussed by educators via Twitter posts; the “hash tag” #edchat is included in each post, so it makes it possible to search for and find any posts included in the larger discussion.
Shelly Terrell (@shellterrell) posted a more lengthy description of #edchat on her blog.
More information is also available at an EdChat Wiki.
The video below by Shelly also describes #edchat.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Texas Distance Learning Association, 2010
Mar 23rd
The TxDLA Conference is currently being held in Houston, Texas. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, I’ve not been able to attend this year; however, I’m hoping to track the conference online in real time and within an archive. I’m trying a couple of things to do that.
To the right is an embedded widget from Twubs.com for the conference. This allows tracking the conference hashtag #txdla in real time, but it does so a little more dynamically than the simple twitter search does: #txdla.
To archive the conference tweets, I’m looking at the TwapperKeeper.com notebook for the #txdla tweets; though it’s performance thus far has not been all that great. I’ve also used Google Reader to subscribe to the RSS feed for the #txdla Twitter Search. While Twitter search doesn’t go back past 30 days, Google Reader does capture and store those tweets in its own RSS feed which I’ve shared.
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