Terence Armentano - eResume & ePortfolio

If you have a web cam hooked up to your computer, Gabmail is a simple way to send a video recording via a link in your email, online course, blog, etc. This idea has cool implications for elearning.

• First, it’s simple. No need to understand video compression and optimizing. Just go to the site, make a recording, and send it via email.
• Second, Gabmail hosts the video so you don’t have to worry about storage and file size.
• Third, it doesn’t require a cumbersome username and password to use.
• Fourth, it’s free.

I do have reservations about this product because of the movie trailer of a Sundance Film that follows each video. I do not think the trailor is appropriate for professional audiences. If they lose the trailer or move to something more professional, I would consider using this tool in my own online classroom in the following ways:

1. Student Introductions - Each student could email the instructor and their peers a video introduction
2. Minimize the effects of cheating by having students send you a video email after completing a test online indicating what they thought about specific questions.
3. This could be an excellent tool for teaching a foreign language or a speech class.
4. Students could use the tool to give oral presentations.

What are some other ways instructors could use this tool?

As soon as I blogged about web 2.0 and higher education (see previous post) I found a website that allows a person to save, sort, and share the schools they are interested in with others at http://college.enotes.com/ The site enables college bound students to:

• Save and sort schools that interest them.
• Find good college matches based on their profile.
• Find other people interested in their schools of interest.

Here again, we see a site that is enhanced by the community contributions. I ran a search on my school, Bowling Green State University to see what comes up. See the results here http://college.enotes.com/american-colleges/bowling-green-state-university/

Each search enables students to quickly compare schools by the following categories:
1. Introduction (overview of school)
2. Student Life
3. Programs of Study
4. Admissions
5. Financial Aid
6. International Students
7. Computers
8. Graduates
9. Contact
10. Reviews

There has been a lot of talk about Web 2.0 over the last year. I stated in a previous blog post that the University of Arizona is going to be offering courses in conjunction with IBM about web 2.0 and the integration therein with the business world. If you are still fuzzy on what web 2.0 sites look like, then you should check out this ongoing list of web 2.0 sites located at http://www.go2web20.net/

One key characteristic about these sites is that their success depends on the size and involvement of their user community. Web 2.0 sites harness the collective intelligence of their users. The more users contributing content to the site, the better the site. People sharing information with other people is the cornerstone. It is the ultimate word of mouth marketing system. Ebay has been doing this for a long time with their feedback feature in which, buyers leave comments about sellers thus bolstering the sellers integrity. Amazon does this with book reviews. Travel websites do this with customer experience reviews. It might not be too long before higher education web 2.0 sites pop up and use this format for students to leave feedback to each other about organizations, courses, majors, instructors, colleges, etc. Student satisfaction will be easily communicated and the universities that will benefit will be the ones that listen to the students and care deeply about their needs. Sooner or later, everything inside the walls of academia will be transparent for the world to see. Hopefully, the world will get to see something beautiful from your university.

MIT Research Scientist, Dr. Nathan Eagle, goes to Kenya to research and study the future of mobile technology (i.e. cell phones). Why Africa you might ask? According the the MIT website, “Africa is well-suited as a testbed for the development of a mobile phone programming curriculum. Given their massive adoption and widespread use, as well as the recent technological advances in their computational power, mobile phones are ideal substitutes for the personal computer throughout the continent.” Here are some more statistics about Africa and mobile technology from the MIT site:

• Worldwide, there are more than 2.4 billion cellphone users, with more than 1,000 new customers added every minute.
• 59 percent of these 2.4 billion people live in developing countries, making cellphones the first telecommunications technology in history to have more users there than in the developed world.
• Mobile phone shipments grew 19 percent to 810 million units in 2005 and are expected to rise by 15 percent to 930 million units in 2006
• Cellphone usage in Africa is growing almost twice as fast as any other region and jumped from 63 million users two years ago to 152 million today.

This is very interesting research for those of us that are interested in working to enable Africa with greater access to university education via online technologies. Dr. Bruce Edwards, Associate Dean of Distance Learning at BGSU, has traveled extensively to East Africa and is dedicated to bringing more education to the developing regions. I may also be traveling to Tanzania in the next year or so to explore the logistics of setting up a distance learning center on behalf of BGSU.

It looks like IBM and the University of Arizona are teaming up to offer courses that teach strategies for implementing web 2.0 in the business world. Web 2.0 is basically a read/write version of the Internet which takes advantage of social networks and enables both the site designers and the users to contribute content. For example, this blog is a web 2.0 concept in which, I write content, and my readers are able to contribute content back via the comments feature. This blog also takes advantage of the social network concept in which I am displaying feeds and links from other folks with similar interests. Check out the official article here http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/20459.wss

I’m sure many of you are hearing about the famous “Second Life” virtual world and the integration with education. Well, if you are interested in exploring this topic further, here are a couple of resources for you:

• http://simteach.com/…
• http://www2.kumc.edu/…

In response to The Learning Circuits Big Question, “Should All Learning Professionals Be Blogging?” I will respond in a manner I feel is consistent with elearning; Simple, Concise, and Pointed.

• I think anyone that is motivated to share ideas should do so.
• I think that sharing ideas is powerful and blogs certainly make the process more efficient.
• With power comes personal responsibility. Who would watch the content for errors, falsifications, etc.
• I think systems connecting, disseminating, and ranking blogs similar to the way Digg ranks tech news stories would be one way to place checks and balances in the blogosphere.
• I would personally like to see professors from all over the world blog in their area of expertise and then use a system like Digg to rank the blogs.
• I would recommend to learning professionals that blog to keep it simple and relevant. Don’t turn your blog into an academic journal.

I found the following modular flash lesson titled “How Changing Technology will Change Learning” a good example of courseware, content, and delivery. The missing link to higher levels of learning, of course, is the collaborative piece enabling communication between learners and presenter to discuss and critique various aspects of the lesson.

1. It is a pretty good design for courseware using flash (navigation, audio, text, and images)
   (NOTE: I think the design could be enhanced if there was an audio controller to tell the learner how long the audio will be as well as enable the learner to control the play functions)
2. The clarity and expressive tone of his voice made it more motivating to keep listening.
3. This coureware demonstrates the effectiveness of chunking information into 2-3 minute segments
4. The content of this module is relevant to my field of online education and was quite interesting.

The Gong project is a free open source tool enabling real-time and asyncronous audio discussion. It combines the power of online discussion with the elements of sound. Profound oral contributions to the class environment will no longer fade with the passing of time but can now be recorded and archived on the board for future recall. Use of this tool by educators, like most online tools, are primarily limited by our own creativity. It is easy to see the benefits of this tool across many disciplines, especially language courses. If you are an educator, talk with your tech person about implementing the system at your school. Once it is implemented it is quite easy to use as long as you have a microphone and speakers of course.

From The Gong site:

Gong is a free system for voice communication on the Web. It allows groups of people such as students and teachers to participate in discussion groups using their computers, using both synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous chat. It is commonly used by schools and universities for providing a ‘voice board’ for teaching purposes.

For more about the Gong Project, check out the website: http://gong.ust.hk/

This weeks elearning spotlight is on Google Gadgets. Now anyone can implement 1 of 1200 Google’s gadgets into a personal web page or learning environment to add dynamic content. Here are some ways you could use Google gadgets in your online course.

• Syndicate the latest relevant RSS feeds directly into your classroom.
• Syndicate podcasts
• Attach google videos
• Keep track of your classroom MySpace
• Use the quicklinks gadget to ajax office tools similar to Word and Excel

Use your imagination and take advantage of Google Gadgets today in your online course.
Check out this blog on 10 essential Google Gadgets.