Terence Armentano - eResume & ePortfolio » blog

Google goes 3D with Google Lively

Terence Armentano — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:24:00 +0000

Google Lively is Google’s move into the 3d world. One thing that is neat about google lively is that after you download the installer, it runs in the browser and allows people to place their virtual rooms on their blog or websites. Therefore, I could put a link to my virtual world on TerenceOnline and you could meet me in the 3d realm of my blog. That’s kind of neat. Another neat feature about the system is the kind of animation the characters can do, specifically fighting moves. It’s kind of funny to watch a bunch of avatars throw each other around in a virtual space, though I’m not sure there is much educational value in it. If you are interested in 3d worlds, go ahead and check it out. This is Beta so they are working out the bugs. How do you think it compares to other virtual environments such as Second Life and Small Worlds? What educational advantages do these environments provide for students? Let us know what you think.

Info from the website:

Create an avatar and chat with your friends in rooms you design

Requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox
By using Lively you agree to these Terms

Create your own virtual space

Chat and interact with your friends in rooms you design

Express yourself

Customize your avatar and stream personal photos and video

Add your room to your site

Invite your friends to chat and help decorate

[an island in google lively]

Using ScribeFire to fire up TerenceOnline!

Terence Armentano — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:56:00 +0000

I just installed the firefox extension ScribeFire, which will allow me to write TerenceOnline blog posts directly from my Firefox web browser. This should make blogging more efficient and effective for me. It has a “blog this page” feature built into the browser that allows me to quickly and seamlessly make a blog entry about a web-page I am visiting. The Firefox web-browser is the killer app to get the most out of the internet and ScribeFire is just another tool in the FireFox arsenal to make it that much sweeter. If you are a blogger and want increase your production, give ScribeFire a try. This is my first post using the tool so hopefully it works well.

ScribeFire - Fire Up Your Blogging!

Bowling Green State University goes Web 2.0

Terence Armentano — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:33:00 +0000

As any reader of my blog knows, I have written about the important role I believe web 2.0 will play in academia. (See Web 2.0 and Higher Ed, Blogging in academia, Blogging Academia, and the Stanford Blog Directory,and University 2.0)

Not being one to just sit idly by and talk about the important role web 2.0 will play in academia, I decided to put words into actions and design a weblog and podcast system for Bowling Green State University. I built the system on the technological framework of WordressMU with many personal customizations. The system is in perpetual Beta so we can test new features, collect feedback, and continue to refine it. There are so many creative ways to use this system (See our About page for some examples). Below are several real life examples of ways the BGSU community is already stretching the creative boundaries of the system:

One English instructor at BGSU, Amanda McGuire Rzicznek, is using the system to podcast her lectures and blog her writing tips, news, and announcements (see her English 111 blog & English 112 blog). She is also having each of her students create their own weblogs on the system, which they use for reflective writing, collaboration, and feedback (see one of her students blogs here).

My office, IDEAL, is using our IDEAL @BGSU weblog as a web 2.0 portal to communicate our services to the university and to display our distance learning Resources, Announcements, Newsletters, Podcast, and Photo Gallery. The nice thing about our weblog page is that it is very dynamic and enables email subscription, RSS feeds, Podcast Feeds, and lots of other things the tech junkies of the world love). Plus anyone with admin rights can update the site without having to know any HTML. One of our instructional designers, Michael Kudela, is a huge flickr fan so we can even manage our photo gallery from his personal Flickr account. Now that is cool!

Did I mention that I built this system using all open source tools? Yeah. That’s pretty cool too.

Sports and Recreation is a huge part of the BGSU culture. If you ever go to an intramural flag football game at BGSU, you would think you were at the superbowl. Well, the sports and rec people at the university saw the potential of a community blog for their users and contacted me to help them get it set up. It required a little more programming and customizing, but in the end they will have a community of sports rec bloggers. I can see the bragging rights go up even more with this outlet. Their community weblog will be launching soon so I look forward to seeing how that community uses the web 2.0 environment. Check out the Rec Sports Wire to see what they are doing.

The MBA department is using their weblog to give current students the opportunity to share the ins and outs of their daily life so if you’ve ever wanted to know what’s it like to be a graduate student, you’ll want to check it out at - BGSU MBA

The benefits of blogs and podcasts are far reaching and are transforming the way people interact and learn from each other. BGSU faculty, staff, and students can all reap benefits from blogging and podcasting.

Thanks to Connie Molnar and Dr. Bruce Edwards, my bosses at IDEAL, for allowing me to dream, innovate, and design this system for BGSU. They are both great leaders and visionaries at BGSU.

Huge list of learning resources - Happy 2008

Terence Armentano — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:26:00 +0000

Happy 2008! I’m back from break and ready to begin a new year of exploring the horizons of technologically enhanced education, critical thinking, global impact, resource gathering, and blogging to share it all with you. To get started, here is a great list of Learning Resources you can sift through to add to your collection. Yes, the information is abundant, and seemingly endless, but those that do something with it, apply it to life, and make things better is what really counts. Plus, it is a wiki so you can add to it if you are so inclined. Institutions of higher education should be excited about an information based economy and the revolution of knowledge that is going on in the world. However, they should also be concerned if core faculty are not readily embracing it and in fact fighting the rapid exchange of information.

Blogs in Plain English

Terence Armentano — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:33:00 +0000

Anyone looking for a good video to explain to others why blogging is so powerful. Check this one out by the folks at the Common Craft Show.

The 2007 Edublog Awards

Terence Armentano — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:05:00 +0000

Looking for more good blog resources? Check out the nominees for the 2007 Edublog Awards. Categories include:

1. Best individual blog

2. Best group blog

3. Best new blog

4. Best resource sharing blog

5. Most influential blog post

6. Best teacher blog

7. Best librarian / library blog

8. Best educational tech support blog

9. Best elearning / corporate education blog

10. Best educational use of audio

11. Best educational use of video / visual

12. Best educational wiki

13. Best educational use of a social networking service

14. Best educational use of a virtual world

Blogging, academia, and the Stanford blog directory

Terence Armentano — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:41:00 +0000

When I stated in May 2007 in a post about Blogging and Academia that “I believe blogging is going to play a much greater role in the future of academics and educational institutions,” I didn’t know exactly how soon some big name universities would be addressing the issue. Last week, Stanford University launched the Stanford Blog Directory, as a solution to capture and index the collective blogging wisdom coming out of the university community (faculty, staff, alumni, etc.). Harvard has also made some waves in the academic blogosphere by enabling anyone with a harvard.edu email address to start a blog, which is then maintained and indexed on their system. I can’t say too much right now, but I am involved in efforts at my own university to develop and facilitate an effective and innovative approach to enable and index academic blogging AND podcasting (more on that later).

One complaint about the open nature of web 2.0 is that any fool can say what they want, however, on the same token any intelligent person can say what they want as well. For this reason, premier learning institutions around the world should play a leading role in facilitating and indexing blogs for their community. Every educational institution should seriously consider creating a blog directory for faculty, staff, and alumni, so that the world can really see what kind of ideas come out of various learning communities around the world. What do others think about this issue?

The young blog their way to a publishing revolution

Terence Armentano — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:32:00 +0000

Blogs have made publishing to a world-wide audience as easy as Blogger.com’s 1-2-3 steps to starting blog. Expression and communication online are growing rapidly. According to Technorati, 1 new blog is created every second. People love the idea of publishing, sharing, and consuming information rapidly. It feels like light years to wait for the morning paper to get the news. A world in which everyone has a voice is becoming more and more of a reality. Universities around the world should take notice of their upcoming students and how they interact with information and communicate online. They will be attending your school soon, so you must ask yourself the question, “How are we adapting to the needs of our students and the world in which we live where information moves at the speed of light?” At my university, the IDEAL office (Online Education Team), of which I am a part of, are constantly researching new technologies, testing new modes of communication, building and implementing web 2.0 environments, and assisting faculty in applying these new technologies to enhance instructional strategies. The following article describes the personal publishing revolution and why a third of all young people have launched a blog online. Read Article

Web 2.0 and Your Own Learning and Development

Terence Armentano — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 03:42:00 +0000

Here is a good informational video by my friend, Stephen Downes, about how Web 2.0 supports interaction, usability and relevance in online learning. After watching the video, go to the discussion board for discussion. Discuss Web 2.0 and Your Own Learning and Development

Google acquires feedburner

Terence Armentano — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:05:00 +0000

Feedburner is an excellent resource for bloggers and now google owns them too. You know all of those little subscription icons on the right hand side of the screen. Feedburner creates those and makes it easy for people to subscribe. “Chicago-based FeedBurner is a leading provider of feed distribution and management tools. A web feed is a way for online publishers to syndicate their content and deliver it straight to readers. Each day, FeedBurner delivers feeds to millions of users around the world and offers unique and useful tools for publishers to analyze, optimize, and monetize their content. Further, FeedBurner offers a feed advertising platform for advertisers to reach engaged feed readers through targeted in-feed ads and innovative techniques like RSS feed-driven ads. Read entire article