SoE- Oncourse Open House Scheduled

The IC will be hosting several Oncourse Open Houses to assist faculty, staff and AIs with getting ready for the Spring 2008 semester. The Oncourse Open Houses are scheduled for the following dates:

* Jan. 4th, from 10:00am -- Noon (Fri.)

* Jan. 7th, from 1:00pm -- 3:00pm (Mon.)

* Jan. 8th, from 10:00am -- Noon (Tues.)

* Jan. 10th, from 1:00pm -- 3:00pm (Thurs.)

The Oncourse Open Houses will be hosted in the Office of Instructional Consulting in room 2002 (second floor off of the atrium). Please stop by ED2002 with any Oncourse questions, and our staff will be ready to answer your basic or most challenging Oncourse related questions.

We look forward to seeing you!

Happy New Year,
IC Staff

Workshop: New Features in PowerPoint 2007

The IC staff presented a workshop this morning on Microsoft Powerpoint 2007. The workshop provided information about the new features and differences in the new 2007 version. In particular, the workshop covered:

Overview of new interface changes

New features for layout, formatting, and presentation

Incorporating media such as graphs, images, video, and sound clips

New features for quickly creating photo albums

Security and sharing options

Compatibility issues with previous versions

If you are interested in the resources used during the workshop, please visit our website.

Also, stay tuned to our website for announcements of upcoming workshops!

New staff, new blog, same great taste :)

Willkommen!

The Office of Instructional Consulting (IC) in the School of Education has created a new blog, and merged my previous blog (Pedagogy 2.0) into this one. So at this point we at the IC would like to welcome our new readers in the SoE, and wish our existing readers well in the hopes that they have wandered over from the old blog.

I would also like to take this moment to introduce the new members of the IC staff. Please help me welcome our new GA Peter van Leusen. Peter comes to us from Germany (by way of Delaware and Kentucky), and is a first-year doctoral student in IST. My name is Mark Millard, and I will be serving as the Assistant Director of the IC. Mark and Peter will be joining Dr. Karen Hallett (IC Director), and Ji Young Chong (GA), who are continuing in their current positions. Please stop in and say hello.

Best,
Mark

iPod Nano recording tests

Our Nano recording tests were a bit surprising at first compared to our Video iPod recording tests. Our initial logic was that since the Nano is a smaller device, has a smaller battery, less disc space, etc., it probably wouldn't record for as long as the larger Video iPod...Not so! In fact, quite the opposite:



Results with XtremeMac MicroMemo:
Device: 4GB iPod Nano, fully charged battery
Recording Time: approx. 6 hours, 15 minutes (6:15)
File: The Nano seemed to break them up into 2:00:11 (1.19GB) chunks. Don't worry no audio is lost in between. This resulted in three 1.19GB .wav files, and one additional file at 236MB.


Nano vs. Video iPod for Recording; The Results are in...

The major recording difference between the Nano and the Video iPod seems to be the battery. On the Video iPod, it runs out before the device runs out of recording space on the disk. For the 4GB Nano, it was the disk space that ran out., while the battery still had nearly half of its charge remaining at the point when the disk filled up.

We attributed these differences to the different storage mechanisms that the devices use, the Video iPod uses a traditional/mechanical hard drive with moving parts and spinning cylinders, whereas the Nano uses flash technology for storage, with no moving parts. This clearly has an effect on battery life, and how much audio one can record.

For a academic recording device, I would probably choose the 4GB Nano (or even 8GB) over the Video iPod, based on its small size, it's ability to record over 6 hours of audio before downloading, and its battery life. I think the iPod Nano would probably be best for recording lectures, seminars, or interviews. Now of course depending on your requirements, the Video iPod also proved to be very useful, and if your interested in producing and/or listening to enhanced podcasts or video podcasts then that would be the way to go.

Teach with Tech Podcast: Episode 17

On Thursday I was delighted to join Chris Essex on his Teach with Tech podcast as a guest commentator. In the podcast we discuss the recent MacWorld Expo conference that Chris attended, and focus on the iPhone and AppleTV, which were announced at the keynote. We also talk about how these new technologies might be used by classroom teachers and higher ed faculty.

We also discussed some of our new favorite software packages, some of which we already use, and some that Chris discovered while attending Macworld Expo.

• Toon Boom, Mac/Windows/Linux animation and storyboard software
• Toast 8 Titanium, Mac disc-burning software
• Slick Transitions & Effects, Mac special effect plugins for iMovie
• Civilization IV, a Mac/Windows history/politics simulation game
• Sims 2, a Mac/Windows people simulation game
• SubEthaEdit, a Mac text editor with synchronous collaboration features
• Profcast, a Mac program that allows you to convert your Powerpoint and Keynote presentations into screencasts/videocasts.
  

You can watch the full Macworld Expo Keynote by Steve Jobs.

Also, you are welcome to check out other Teach with Tech podcasts at: http://www.indiana.edu/~icy/podcast/.