Question: Tracking CBTs

A reader asked a question that I’m not really sure how to answer. My experience has mostly been in higher ed, so I’ve always needed to do grading or more tracking than what this reader needs:

I am the sole person involved with e-Learning in my branch, and I am mostly limited to using freeware.   At present we are developing self-paced CBTS using PowerPoint, a PowerPoint-to-Flash converter, and HTML.  My client wants two things that I am stuck on:

1) good server software for posting CBTs and then having basic tracking of student usage.  The ideal vendor solution might be the Adobe Connect training module.  Things like Moodle are overkill, as we don’t need grading, blogging, wikis, etc., however fashionable they may be.  We just want to post the modules and have some level of reporting.

2) a means to track % completion of course topics on the course menu (I think Skill Soft uses empty-, half- and full- moons to show completion).  We have created a home-grown HTML template with a course menu in the left navigation bar (the Flash files play in the main window), but the best we can do is change the HTML link color once it is clicked.  While this is better than nothing, it is a far cry from the “real” tracking of CBT course players.

What would you suggest for administering and tracking CBTs for this reader? Is there an open source solution that isn’t a full LMS but does what’s needed here? Has anyone done anything like this before?

I’m really not sure what’s available for this, so I’m hoping someone out there in the blogosphere will. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

Technorati Tags: CBT, LMS, tracking

Quick and Dirty Comment Analysis

Michele Martin asked how I did the comment analysis to see which posts have generated the most conversation. This is task 18 in the comment challenge. I actually manually typed the numbers into OpenOffice Calc (after scanning the list of posts in my WordPress dashboard for posts with a decent amount of comments). However, there is a faster way to get a “quick and dirty” analysis of your comments and conversations.

AideRSS is a tool that lets you filter a feed for the “best” posts. It ranks your posts by how much conversation they have generated, based on comments, del.icio.us links, tweets, Diggs, and Google trackbacks. Enter your URL and let it do the analysis. View the “Top 20″ to see what they consider to be the best conversations.

For blogs that have been going a while, this isn’t ideal as an overall picture. It doesn’t go back far enough in your history. My Top 20 goes back to last July, but I think that’s because I actually played with this tool previously. Michele’s Top 20 only goes back to February 26. When I checked hers today, it let me know that they had never analyzed her blog before. I guess the first time it only goes back 90 days. It would let you know about recent activity though, and for a newer blog it wouldn’t matter.

AideRSS is actually designed to let you filter sites with lots of post to just get the “cream of the crop,” but I think it would work for the challenge. I’m sure some blog hosts have a good way to do this already, but I don’t think WordPress has anything built in to see stats on comments.

If you know of another way to get a quick and dirty analysis like this (without installing Google Analytics or something similar), let me know. I’d love to hear about it!

Technorati Tags: comment08, comment+challenge, analysis, rss, AideRSS, conversation

Commenting Self-Audit

Like many others, I’m participating in the 31-Day Comment Challenge. The first task is a commenting self-audit.

How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?

Looking at my tracked comments & conversations, I’ve tracked 147 comments since I started using co.mments last August. That works out to about 4 comment conversations per week, or a little more than 1 every other day. That number doesn’t include conversations where I comment more than once though, so it’s probably a little higher than that.

Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?

Obviously, yes, I track my comments. There’s no way I’d comment as much as I do if I wasn’t tracking them. Before I knew there were such tools, I really didn’t comment much because I never remembered to go back to the sites and see the responses. With tracking and an RSS feed, I can keep track of it all much more easily.

Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?

I do tend to comment on a lot of the same blogs over time. That commenting helps build and maintain relationships with other bloggers, so I do see value in that. I don’t have a set goal about commenting on new blogs, but I do try to check out new blogs, especially when they link to me. If someone links to me, I try to go at least thank them for the link, even if I don’t leave a substantive comment.

The second part of this task is looking at the suggestions in Gina Trapani’s guide to comments. I’ve broken all of those at one point or another, but I think I actually do pretty well usually. I can certainly work on being more succinct in both my comments and posts though. For example, this comment I left on our team blog for work was absurdly long. Normally I’d move something that long into a post instead of a comment, but we have a set posting schedule and topics for that blog.

As a whole, I think I’m about average for my commenting. I comment pretty regularly. I gravitate towards certain blogs where I comment more regularly, but I try to branch out. I consider myself a decent online citizen, and I think I’ve been able to disagree with people without being too disagreeable. I can do more to reach out to new blogs and to really make sure I’m adding value to the conversation when I do. I’ve been trying to do more to interact with other commenters and not just the blog author, but I’m sure I can do better in that area too.

More than anything else, what I’m hoping to get out of this challenge is just becoming more aware of my commenting. Much of it just happens out of habit for me, so I hope that a bit of self-examination will help me be more deliberate and thoughtful of what I’m doing.

Technorati Tags: comment08, conversation, blogging, comments

My Workflow with Synergy

This is a follow-up to my post on the features of Synergy. My last post covered how Synergy works. This post focuses on how I work with Synergy, both when I’m in live online events and during my daily work.

Liveblogging & Team Meetings

When I liveblogged the TCC 2008 conference, I always had the Elluminate presentation up on my primary screen (my desktop computer) and my blog on my laptop. I didn’t use a mic for anything other than our team’s presentation, and it’s easier to listen with speakers for hours a day than a headset.

It’s much easier to use two monitors like this than to alt+tab back and forth on one computer. Synergy lets me easily switch focus back to the Elluminate screen to join the backchannel chat or answer a poll; you just move your mouse over to the other screen and type away. There’s no way I could have done this as smoothly if I’d had to move my hands from my laptop keyboard to my full-size keyboard.

Here’s a rough idea of how this worked.

The online course development team has a weekly meeting in Connect. I actually use the reverse setup for our meetings; I keep the live meeting on the laptop and my notes and to-do list on my desktop. We often do screensharing in our meetings, so I need Connect on the computer where all my work files are stored and I have all my software. It’s also easier to use my headset and mic with my laptop than to dig around behind the tower to plug it in. (Yes, I am that lazy. Why do you think I’m using this software in the first place?)

Daily Workflow

In general, what I keep up on each computer during my regular workday is that work programs stay on my laptop and personal applications are on the desktop. When I first started telecommuting at a previous job, I was really strict about that; I only used my laptop for work and barely even checked Gmail on it. Over time, the lines have blurred a lot, so the workflow is much more fluid. What I do where depends on the context and what else I’m doing.

On my work laptop, I use these programs that I don’t have installed on my personal desktop:

• Outlook
• Dreamweaver
• Photoshop
• Captivate

That means that on days that I’m doing a lot of web work or creating Captivate activities, I work primarily on my laptop and don’t switch over too much. However, when I’m waiting for something to happen on my laptop (like synchronizing files with the server through Dreamweaver), I’ll pop over to my desktop computer for a few minutes to read something in Google Reader.

My desktop has a better monitor (see the picture here), so increasingly I use that if I’m doing any online work that doesn’t require the software on my laptop. I find that my eyes feel less fatigued this way than if I use the laptop all day.

• Collaborating with SMEs in Google Docs
• Setting up courses in Blackboard
• Editing our team wiki or the wikis for a course
• Google Calendar
• My to do list (I use Toodledo.)
• Pidgin for instant messaging (On Pidgin, it’s mostly personal contacts. More people from work are on Skype. I use Skype almost exclusively on my laptop—see the note about being too lazy to plug in the headphones on my tower above.)

I also use Gmail and Google Reader primarily on my desktop rather than on the laptop. I have different versions of Internet Explorer on my computers, so I use both for testing purposes. Right now I only have Firefox 3 on my personal computer, again for testing.

Transitions

Reading RSS feeds is my “transition” activity; when I finish one task and am mentally switching gears to do something else, I spend a few minutes reading. I find I especially need that transition time if I’m deep into a project on my laptop. I’m not sure how much of that is just getting my eyes to look in a different direction and how much is the change in mental work, but it does help to take those little pauses during the day. I usually go for something light during that time; think Cute Overload or maybe Slashdot. I advise against trying to read a post on, say, Half an Hour as a mental break.

Questions? Suggestions?

Hopefully, I’ve clarified how this can work, rather than muddying the waters. Please let me know if any of this doesn’t make sense; I’d be happy to try to clarify this further. Also, just because this is what works for me doesn’t mean it would work for anyone else.

If you try Synergy or already use it, I’d love to hear your tips on how to be more efficient with the tool. Just writing up the process has made me rethink how I’m doing things. I might try doing some things differently in the future. It’s a little haphazard right now, and I wonder if a different workflow would be smoother.

Technorati Tags: synergy, workflow, liveblog, Stephen+Downes, productivity

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One Keyboard and Mouse, Two Computers

In response to my post about liveblogging an online conference, Stephen Downes asked about my workflow using Synergy. In this post, I explain some of the technical information about how Synergy works and the few minor issues I’ve had; in my next post, I’ll explain my workflow with Synergy.

Synergy is an open source program that works like sort of like a virtual KVM switch, except both computers use their own monitors. I guess that makes it KM instead (no video). It’s for people who keep two computers on their desk but want to share a keyboard and mouse between them. This is different from a dual-monitor setup, where you essentially just have a lot of screen space for one computer. I actually run both my laptop and desktop simultaneously, using both throughout the day.

Synergy Features

I don’t like using my laptop keyboard and touchpad for working all day, so this really started as a way to use my full-size keyboard and regular mouse without having to plug anything in. Synergy works through your network connection, so there’s no hardware—it all just goes through the router in my home network.

Once it’s set up, it’s really easy to use. To switch focus from one computer to the other, just move your mouse off the side of the screen. I keep my laptop to the right of my desktop monitor (see the picture above), so moving the mouse off the right edge of the screen moves it over to the laptop. The keyboard controls whichever computer has focus with the mouse. You can also share the clipboard between computers; I use this all the time to copy a URL or bit of text from one computer to the other.

I don’t use this feature, but Synergy is cross platform. You could have a Windows machine next to an Ubuntu one and you could seamlessly share the keyboard and mouse between the two, according to the documentation.

Minor Glitches & Drawbacks

It did feel a little weird using Synergy at first; you have to get used to moving the mouse and it moving to the other computer. Sometimes I still slip up and move the mouse too far, then wonder why my typing isn’t showing up on the screen where I’m looking.

I haven’t had good luck using Synergy over a wireless connection, so I always plug my laptop in when I’m at my desk. The wireless just seems to be a little less stable of a connection, and I really notice even a second lag when I’m moving between screens often. I especially had problems when I was also using a wireless mouse, but that mouse drove me crazy all the time anyway.

The shared clipboard doesn’t always work for me, and I haven’t figured out why. I think maybe certain programs don’t like to share copied content. For instance, I often have trouble copying from Outlook, although sometimes if I paste the content in Notepad first I can get it to transfer to the other computer.

I recommend starting Synergy on the primary screen (which acts as the server)—in my case, my desktop— before starting it on the secondary screen(s)—the laptop in my setup. Sometimes it flips out a bit otherwise, although it usually can recover.

Certain sites and actions will temporarily disable Synergy. For example, while Gmail is loading, I’m stuck on that screen. Other websites sometimes have the same effect, so I probably wouldn’t use this if I was on a slow connection.

These issues are all very minor though; overall this has been a great program. If you use two computers, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Try it Yourself

If you want to try it yourself, you can just download it and follow the directions. If the documentation there isn’t enough, try these links for more info:

• Engadget has a how-to article on Synergy for Windows, Mac, or Unix-like systems.
• Lifehacker has an article called How to turn your dual-monitor PC into a dual mac-PC system that is relevant even if you aren’t using multiple operating systems.

Technorati Tags: opensource, synergy, productivity

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TCC08: Social Bookmarking to Support Professional Practice

Using a Social Bookmark Site to Assist in Diffusion of Online Information to Support Professional Practices

Presented by Heather Carter-Templeton, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee

Working to improve information literacy skills in nurses

Professor #1

• Does online research
• Gets email subscriptions
• Can’t find the information she wants when she needs it–it’s at home when she needs it at work, etc.

Professor #2

• Uses social bookmarking so can find what he needs

Tagging with social bookmarking can help peers & colleagues find information more easily

Social Bookmarking Sites

• CiteULike: academic papers & links, does citations
• Connotea: citation manager
• Del.icio.us: most popular, emphasis is on community
• Digg: community-based news, user ranking
• Furl: keeps a cache, offers full-text searching. Tagging is secondary.
• Reddit: news article bookmarking like Digg
• Simpy: can track others’ bookmarks by creating topics
• Spurl: Bookmarking & search engine, like Furl

Pros of Social Bookmarking:

• New communities
• Gain insight
• Easy access
• Organized based on your needs
• Can view how others have organized their thoughts
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Have to maintain and update the site throughout a project–clean out the dead links
• No oversight for tagging

Their list for the project: http://del.icio.us/listenuphealth

Sources were collected by SMEs and nursing librarians

Documented their search strategies in a Google Spreadsheet This would be useful for teaching students information literacy

Tagging System

• Had to change sometimes after the list grew that they needed to adjust
• Tried to make it useful for the nurses
• used lots of compound tags
• Tagging structure: subject, keywords, type of media
• Bundled tags

Nurses really like the central repository–they can find the information they need quickly. It’s too new to have data on how they use it though.

This is an interesting concept–I guess I’m not sure that I see as much use for resources only collected by experts without the users contributing on their own. Certainly there’s a place for having a starting point created for students, like I my list for Building Online Collaborative Environments. But I’d want students to use that themselves. Certainly for a professional practice, the act of saving and annotating on your own is valuable too.

Read the other liveblogged posts from this conference.

Technorati Tags: tcc08, tcc2008, social+bookmarking, research, community

TCC08: Instructional Uses of Google Apps

Collaborative Web 2.0 Tools Changing the Face of Higher Education: Instructional Uses of Google Apps

Laura C. Brewer, Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, AZ, USA
Zeynep Kilic, ASU, Tempe, AZ, USA
Samuel DiGangi, ASU, Tempe, AZ, USA
Angel Jannasch-Pennell, ASU, Tempe, AZ

Missed the first part of the session due to a phone call

Web 2.0 in Education

People are producers rather than just consumers of content

Students in the Web 2.0 World

• Net Generation
• Digital Natives
• TV, Internet, video games over magazines, books, newspapers

Net Gen Students

• Don’t make blanket assumptions–there is diversity
• They are not always as tech savvy as we might think
• Ubiquitous technology for entertainment and communication, not necessarily for learning

Faculty in Web 2.0 World

• Rapid changes in technology –> changing expectations of teaching roles
• Shift to learner-centered paradigm
• Shift in balance of power
• Do faculty see educational value in technologies?

Google Apps

• Free for standard edition
• Education version has some premier features too

Google Docs & Spreadsheets: Pros

• No geographical or time constraints
• Any number of collaborators
• Can be published or private
• Import from other file types
• Export in multiple formats
• Automatic backup
• Extensive revision history
• Single sign-on is easier for students

Google Docs & Spreadsheets: Cons

• Output layout is hard to control. Html code is not clean
• Bibliographies, citations require extensive reformatting
• No support for offline editing with later merging of these versions
• Menus and tools not consistent across applications
• Institutional concerns
• Privacy

Ed Tech people are excited, but are faculty really using these tools?

Faculty Surveys

60% never use Google Docs; 20% use at least once a week

Those that do use it, use it more for research than for instructional or personal use.

Many faculty who use other Web 2.0 apps don’t use Google Docs, but it’s growing

Found it most valuable for research (70% valuable, 17& somewhat)

How instructors use it (all low percentages)

• Creating own materials: 10%
• Students use for required assignment: 7%
• Students use for optional assignment: 4%

Many more faculty say it’s valuable than actually use the tools

They don’t have enough data yet to develop pedagogy/best practices for using the tools for instructional purposes. Want to do additional research.

Question came up in chat about Section 11 of Google’s TOS. This answer talks about content ownership.

Google says: “The first thing to understand is that this language doesn’t give Google ownership rights to your data. You, and you alone, own your content.”

Examples of Use

• Some students use Google Docs in combination with other tools to collaborate for group projects
• Course development (like how we use it)

Read the other liveblogged posts from this conference.

Technorati Tags: GoogleApps, GoogleDocs, education, online+learning, faculty

Diigo User Communities

I just realized that Diigo lets me see everyone who has bookmarked my site and what they saved. They call this the “User Community” around a site; there’s also communities around tags. Here’s Site Community for my blog; you can enter your own URL there to see your user community. If you’re more interested in the people than the pages and tags, the People Search By Site is a better tool.

I like being able to see this information to learn about what my readers like from my blog. Obviously the information’s a bit limited because only 12 people have bookmarked my site, but it’s still fun to look at what they saved and how they tagged it. A site with more bookmarks, like Vicki Davis’ site community, has much richer information.

In del.icio.us, it’s much harder to find this information, and much of it simply isn’t available. I periodically check how many people have bookmarked my site on del.icio.us, but that only picks up people who have saved the main page. If I want to see who has bookmarked a particular post, I have to enter that URL separately. (Unless I’m missing something–if there’s an easier way, somebody please fill me in.)

I know that some bloggers put their own posts in del.icio.us to help them track who else is saving those posts. I do agree that what gets bookmarked is one measure of our posts’ value to others. I’ve never done that bookmarking though because it seemed like too much work. Diigo doesn’t require any prep work on my part though, which makes it much more likely that I’m going to actually use the information.

Here endeth today’s commercial for Diigo. Seriously, I know I sound like I’m doing marketing for them, but I promise I’m not on their payroll. I just was really excited by this discovery today and wanted to share.

Technorati Tags: Diigo, delicious, socialbookmarking, Vicki+Davis, community

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Post Daily Bookmarks with Diigo

I’ve mentioned Diigo a number of times in the past (including earlier today). Kristin Hokanson asked me how I create my Daily Bookmarks posts. I’ve been meaning to actually play with Slideshare, so this gave me an excuse to do so. Here’s my quick directions on how to do a daily links post like mine.

Hope this helps explain it!

Technorati Tags: Diigo, socialbookmarking, Kristin+Hokanson, Slideshare

Diigo or Delicious for Beginners?

Image citation
DEMOfall 07 Day One - Diigo
from b_d_solis’s photostream.

A number of educators have been trying out Diigo’s new features (Vicki Davis and Brenda Muench, for example). There’s a lengthy discussion on a number of topics. One question came up earlier in the discussion that I want to explore a little deeper: if you’re introducing social bookmarking to complete beginniners, would Diigo or Delicious be a better choice?In the conversation, Liz Davis asked:

I’m wondering if Diigo is too much for the newbie. Delicious is so simple and obviously useful. I’m afraid Diigo would scare some people away. I’m still inclined to start with delicious and save Diigo for my more advanced users (of which I have very few).

I’m kind of torn on this myself. I had a good chat with my mom a few weeks ago about social bookmarking. She’s a substitute teacher, and could immediately see the benefit of having a list of links that she could access from any school. She could have her emergency backup activities for teachers who don’t leave lesson plans for the sub and easily get them from anywhere. She also totally “got” tagging and why it was useful (I explained it as multiple keywords instead of putting something in a single folder and having to remember where you put it).

Beyond having a list and tagging her bookmarks, I doubt she’d use any other features, at least not initially. Which service do you think has the lower barrier to entry, especially for someone who isn’t super-technical?

This is just a quick list with ideas from the discussion and my own thoughts.

Pros for Delicious:

• It’s basic, and there aren’t so many other features that she won’t use to ignore.
• Because it’s more basic, it might be less intimidating.
• There’s plenty of existing training and tutorials out there, including a Common Craft video.
• You could start with delicious and then move to Diigo later if you want more power.

Pros for Diigo

• It’s prettier than delicious, and “pretty is a feature.” In some respects, I feel like the more attractive interface might actually be less intimidating, even with many more features.
• You can ignore all the other features available. As Maggie Tsai has explained, it’s OK to be anti-social on Diigo.
• Easy to email links–a nice feature using a familiar old technology for beginners.
• You wouldn’t have to migrate to another system if you want to do more over time. I think migrating and learning “one more new tool” is a barrier for a lot of people.
• There’s forums and discussion areas for support from other users.

So what do you think? What’s the easiest tool for my mom and other beginners to start with? Why?

Technorati Tags: socialbookmarking, tag, Diigo, Delicious, Vicki+Davis, Brenda+Muench, Liz+Davis, Maggie+Tsai

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