Moodle Course Design Best Practices (PacktPub) Now Available

Moodle Course Design Best Practices (PacktPub, 2014) is now available! Designed to be an easy-to-follow guide to help you create or update your Moodle course, this book will help people who use Moodle for training and education in colleges and universities, schools for ages 5-18, corporations, professional associations, and other organizations.

With all content rigorously reviewed by four independent Moodle experts, and written to reflect the latest version of Moodle (Moodle 2.6), Moodle Course Design Best Practices seeks to present a high-quality way to develop exemplary courses for many different users and needs. 

You may download sample chapters in PDF format and also order the book as a printed book or ebook. Please share your thoughts and feedback. 

Peer-Reviewed by MERLOT: Writing Survival Guide

I am delighted to announce that E-Learning Queen's writing resources guide, Writing Survival Guide, which consists of a large set of original worksheets, templates, and flowcharts for use in writing and composition classes has been peer-reviewed by MERLOT and received a great rating!

Here is MERLOT's portal page of the Writing Survival Guide. As you can see, the site has been in MERLOT since 2008. Since that time, I've added flowcharts and have re-arranged a bit.

Here is the MERLOT review which was published in April of this year. I was delighted that the reviewers found the worksheets engaging, useful, and easy to use. It was also great to hear that they liked the graphics, which consist of cartoons that I digitized. The guide was penalized a bit for having distracting and intrusive ads, so they have been deleted. What seemed at first to be a great way to generate cash flow to support the site turned out to be simply a time-consuming and unproductive headache.

I'm all for promoting products, but I think that they should be integral to a website, and ad links, banner ads, pop-ups are often distracting (potentially even seizure-inducing!). To be effective, it's clear that there has to be some sort of win-win and immediately perceived benefit to the reader. At the very least, the ad needs to be relevant and useful. For example, it might not be a bad idea to include a link to a writing conference or workshop, if it's relevant to the audience.

But, back to the main point of this announcement.  I'm thrilled that the MERLOT has peer-reviewed the site, and even more thrilled to know that there are professors who are using it as a resource. Very exciting! Please visit the site and share :)

Mini-Lectures Using Learning Objects: Bosch's The Haywain (1516)

Animated learning objects that bring together images, audio, and interaction are a perfect place to engage students. Now that many translate to HTML5 and are designed to be responsive so that they play well on tablets and smartphones (and on all platforms) as well as laptops, etc., they're a great way to deliver mini-lectures. Click to see one that I created for the purposes of this blog. Hieronymus Bosch / Technologies of Perdition in The Haywain.

Bosch's Haywain Mini-Lecture via Learning Object

Hieronymus Bosch's The Haywain (1516) is a wonderful of example art and technology; specifically art illustrating technologies of perdition. It's profoundly apocalyptic as well as illustrative of the human condition. There is really nothing like Bosch when it comes to satisfying visual narratives.

So, I thought I'd put together a learning object as a "mini lecture." In this case I used Articulate Engage because it easily allows integration of images, text, and audio in a number of pre-prepared templates. This one is "guided image" and it features animated arrows along with interaction. It's a responsive object, but unfortunately, it's not responsive enough to be able to expand it on a touchscreen, which is rather unsatisfying.

I am also unsatisfied that there is not a "pause" or a "resume" control button on the audio player, and I ended up putting all the text in the scroll-down box because there is not a button for downloading the script as a single file, although the script is available if you have access to the Articulate Engage interface. There is no way to download the script from the object, though, and so I think it's necessary when using the object to include a separate link for the text of the script.

Thoughts on Learning Objects as Mini-Lectures
It is fun to think about how you can also repurpose your videos and incorporate them into learning objects that can be used as mini-lectures. What I like about learning objects is that you can use them within a learning management system, but you can also liberate them and host them on web space you might have (or simply use Google Drive with a setting to share with the world), and the can be "stand-alones."

At any rate, the possibilities are endless, and there are many different ways to use the new learning objects any time, any where, on all devices.

Here's one where I embedded videos shot in upstate New York (Yaddo Artist Retreat), on the topic of Sylvia Plath's journals.  Learning Object: Mini Lecture with Videos on Sylvia Plath .

Learning Object with embedded videos -- perfect for mini-lecture on all devices on Sylvia Plath

Full Text of Bosch's The Haywain Lecture

Bosch's apocalyptic imagination really shines in this piece, a large painting (4-1/2 by 6-1/2 feet) which is a triptych that creates a narrative that illustrates the human condition, after first living in the Garden of Eden, and then being cast out for sin. Far from Eden, the world is populated by Eve's children who inhabit the earth in a condition of degradation and sin. The second (center) panel, which is our focus here, features a fascinating vehicle, which is at the same time, a trap to tempt people, and also the vehicle that carts them away to hell.  The third panel illustrates the hideous condition they will experience in Hell. A finely detailed digital copy is in the public domain.

The haywain offers "hay" (temptation) and it carts people to hell

The center panel illustrates fallen world with lust, greed, and gluttony. The haywain is a technological device - a vehicle that both tempts and takes away. There is certainly an echo of the Trojan horse here, as well as the ferry across the river Styx.

Haywain is a vehicle dragged by demons

The sinners who ride the haywain and try to grasp their share of the hay are being carted to the inferno by demons (note their horrific forms; part beast, part human...)

Relishing the exposure of human nature

Bosch relishes the exposure of true behaviors and relationships, and there is a true frisson in doing so in extreme detail. Bosch's essential message has to do with the battle between good and evil, and the struggle to overcome sin. Here we see humanity's essential nature (which is to be caught up in greed, lust, sin) and to be ignorant (or oblivious to) the fact one is being carted straight to the pit.

Bosch Summary

With his extreme detail, and the baroque exaggeration of the people and beasts who populate his art, Hieronymus Bosch never fails to fascinate audiences of all ages and backgrounds. The Haywain now housed in the Prado Museum in Spain is an excellent example of a theme that is repeated in his work: we live in a world inhabited by sin, temptation, and very real demons. Whether the figures are reflect a horror of the world's temptations, or a reveling in the human condition (with its extremes and ultimate perdition), has been an intriguing topic of debate. Further, Bosch's work is deeply revelatory and shows people's hidden motives and also the often unrecognized vehicles of our own perdition.

A few final thoughts
All comments and responses to Bosch and Plath by Susan Smith Nash. They are intended to encourage creativity to illustrate what can be done in online learning, and should not be construed as rigorous critical exegesis. Copy and paste into a term paper at your own peril.

Review of Administering ArcGIS for Server

If you are using GIS applications, you need a guide to help you install and manage a solid backbone architecture that will allow you to incorporate all the newest and most integrative GIS services.   

Administering ArcGIS for Server

Administering ArcGISfor Server (Packt Publishing, 2014) by ESRI award-winning Hussein Nasser is a clear, easy-to-follow guide which takes you all the way from installation to configuring and launching GIS services.

The first part of the book is dedicated to installing ArcGIS for Server. The text guides you through what you need in terms of a Web server as well as a GIS server. It also shows you how to test the installation track, and then how to set up a production server. You can also learn how to set up a virtualized environment, which can be very helpful if you need to run a virtual machine.

Once you’ve installed ArcGIS for Server, Nasser shows you how to configure it in order to run as a classical web service. He recommends using a standard format and discusses SOAP and REST.  Because a GIS service is a web service having a geographical element, it is important to look at the two dominant services: Esri and also Open Geospacial Consortium (OGC) services.

Nasser recommends using ArcGIS for Desktop (referred to as Desktop) as the main map services authoring tool. While one could argue that this approach may make you overly dependent on ArcGIS, both on the server side and also on the authoring tool side, but at least you can assure yourself that they are compatible.

The book is very practical. Once you’ve installed ArcGIS for Server as the backbone architecture, Nasser guides you through how to consuming services from GIS software in your system, with an emphasis on today’s main needs, which usually revolve around visualization. 

In the first part of the book, you can see how to use ArcMap, QGIS, and even Google Earth from within your configuration. The book includes a few exercises and examples, which are very helpful.

You may need to put together GIS services that run from your server. If that is the case, you will need to plan carefully in order to analyze the requirements, design the databases, optimize the database indexes, and to deploy GIS services, which include enabling a geodatabase, a world basemap and authoring custom GIS services. You’ll also need to optimize the services (pool, isolate processes, and caching). Administering ArcGIS for Server will help you do so.

You’re also guided through security so that you can protect your digital assets and intellectual property. Nasser guides you through token, key, and how to connect to a secured service.

Finally, Administering ArcGIS for Server addresses backups, documentation, logs, and optimizing the flow (finding bottlenecks, etc.). The appendices are remarkably informative – one of my favorite sections deals with the rise of ArcGIS Server and also the benefits of a 64-bit architecture.

Free: Technical / Professional Writing in a Device-Driven World

While technical and professional writing goals have remained the same, the world in which such writing is being produced has not. Smartphones, tablets, social media, GIS-enabled extreme interactivity have changed the way we communicate dramatically in just the last 18 months. What is the impact on you? How must you change your approach to maintain effectiveness?

View an archived webinar, Technical Writing Triage, offered free for a limited time, and learn how to create effective documents on all devices. 

If you are interested in more in-depth instruction, you can earn AAPG continuing education units and an AAPG certificate if you sign up for the guided 8-unit online course on technical writing. 

 

Creating Quick, Responsive Web and Mobile Map Applications

It is not easy to find a GIS web app builder that takes you all the way from the basic initial steps of familiarizing yourself with HMTL, CSS, and JavaScript to fairly complicated web applications. 

Building Web and Mobile ArcGIS Server Applications with JavaScript, by Eric Pimpler and published by Packt Publishing has two main advantages: first, you can use high-quality GIS data (or at least data that is specific to your needs), and second, you can create light apps that work quickly over a number of different devices. You’re not likely to have obsolete apps using HTML 5 and JavaScript, which is what is featured here.

The book is very logically organized: you start by creating a base map, and then add layers of data to the map, and then have it all display as a web page. You’re able to add different types of data layers, which include tiled, dynamic, and feature. The section on adding data layers is very robust (as it should be), and it’s followed by adding Graphics to the Map. It’s important to keep in mind that the graphics layer sits on top of the other layers – so, some data management / housekeeping / filing protocols and customs are very helpful here. In this book, the basemaps are provided by ArcGIS Online.

For a person who does not work with GIS data or ArcGIS every day, it’s probably best to work through the examples and see how they’re being developed.  In that case, I’d look at chapter 8, “Turning Addresses into Points and Points into Addresses,” and then work through the example a couple of times. The chapter covers geocoding, which is at the heart of web mapping applications. It’s the way you turn physical addresses into latitude and longitude coordinates.  

The book clearly demonstrates how to write and test the JavaScript code in the JavaScript Sandbox, and then it gives you a chance to practice. I also like the little tips and tricks – example, use Notepad++ instead of Notepad for coding (to avoid the extraneous code problems of Word, etc.).

In addition to Geocoding, there is a very clear and easy-to-follow chapter on using Geoprocessor, which is very good for developing models.  

The appendix gives an example of using ArcGIS templates and also Dojo in order to develop user interfaces. This section alone is worth the price of the book. The instructions are very clear and the screenshots appropriate and easy to follow.

Some of the chapters contain a great deal of code and not perhaps as much detailed explanation as might be useful for people who are fairly new. It would not be a bad idea to have more callouts in the code to point to what exactly is happening.

Overall, this is a great manual – very practical and extremely timely.  

Just a last thought -- when you first read the title of the book, Building Web and Mobile ArcGIS Server Applications with JavaScript, you may immediately ask yourself two questions:  first, why ArcGIS and why not Google Earth or Google Maps integrated apps?; and second, why JavaScript?

First, ArcGIS Server is the most popular and widely-used platform for developing GIS applications for the web. It uses many different dynamic map sources, and is not tied to just one (such as Google Earth). So, if you use ArcGIS Server, you can incorporate the best possible map sources / GIS information.

Second, JavaScript works really well with modern web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari), and it works well with HTML 5. This allows maximum flexibility with mobile applications. Using JavaScript in web applications will optimize performance because the applications are dynamic and do not have to return to the server for data. As a result, they are very responsive and use-friendly, not to mention that they are also faster. 

Narrative Milestones Capture Hearts & Minds

Narrative milestones can be your secret to presentations that capture the hearts and minds of your audience for both technical and creative writing.

Have you ever listened to a presentation or a story and lost interest because it's just a jumble of information? Did you get the sense that the forest was being lost for the trees?

Or, even though the presentation was well organized and the skeleton / structure clearly visible, your mind still wandered off, utterly bored?

Chances are, the presentation was missing narrative milestones, which are critical in the telling of any kind of story, whether in creative writing, or in business presentations such as project summaries, training, sales, and investor conference calls.

What is a narrative milestone?
It is a temporal or topical "marker" within the text.

How is a milestone different than a subheading or a chapter title?
A narrative milestone is a trigger and a marker and it marks not just the passage and unfolding of information but also the sparking of emotional connection which keeps the reader engaged.

What is it good for?
It helps the reader or the listener develop categories or patterns for the creation of schema (or schemata) that will search as a framework for organizing information. It also helps the reader stay "hooked" or engaged in the text.

Where are milestones most effective in a narrative?
There should be a milestone at the beginning of the text. It does not have to be the same as a topic sentence, but should definitely communicate how/why a listener should care about what is being said. Then, there should be milestones at regular intervals within your text. If you're presenting it verbally or via video conference, include a mini-milestone every 30 to 45 seconds, and a major one every 2 minutes.  

What are the characteristics of an effective milestone?
An effective milestone is a great "hook" and combines conveys important facts while sparking an emotional connection.

Are milestones simply factual? 
No. A milestone can trigger emotions, and so are effective rhetorically in utilizing both pathos (emotions) and logos (logic/facts). Thus milestones can be effective in a persuasive, emotionally compelling document or presentation.

Narrative milestones will help you avoid that terrible sense that no one is listening to your presentation, or, worse, after reading it, they had absolutely no recall of the facts, nor did they have any sort of  emotional response.

Building in narrative milestones can help you create a very effective presentation or story, and you can convince your audience to actually remember and care about it.

(also posted this blog entry in LinkedIn).

Seven Top Cloud File Storage and File-Sharing Sites

Cloud-based file storage and transfer solutions change all the time, and it's often hard to keep up with their new features and plans. Here are seven excellent providers of cloud file storage and transfer, and each one has scalable solutions. I've made a quick list of their main attributes, but I encourage you to visit each site. Please share your own user experience, and let me know what you think.

A-Drive: http://www.adrive.com/ 

50GB of online cloud storage. Free. Can file share quite easily. Edit documents online. Remote file transfer. Easy search tool. If you wish to share a file, you may do so via a link that is created when you upload our file. 

** 50GB storage free

**Easy file-sharing via link

**Edit word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations online. Uses Zoho. 

**Search your files via search tool

**Can remotely transfer files from external websites to your ADrive account

Google Drive:   http://drive.google.com  

5 GB of free storage / very convenient for sharing access to files. It is very simple to put files into the cloud, either by uploading them, or by dragging them from your desktop. File-sharing is also very simple. However, one should be a bit cautious, since it is distressingly easy to inadvertently share with your Google+ contacts or other individuals in social networks. You must be very careful review what you’re checking and giving permission for.  

**Easy to upload using your Google account

**Can email notifications of file sharing very easily

**Free

**Mobile app

**Interfaces with Google Docs for easy editing / collaboration

Box:  http://www.box.com 

With Box.com, an individual may have a free account with 10GB storage space, and a 250MB file upload size. It’s very easy to use Box.com for file sharing, transfer, and storage. If you’re working with a team, however, it would probably not be a bad idea to upgrade to the $5/month version which allows you 100GB of storage, and a 2GB file transfer size. You can lock files, run access statistics, and also grant individual permissions.  

**Mobile apps

**Desktop sync

**Good file preview options 

**SSL encryption

**can share links / embed via email or social media

**can share / edit using online collaboration 

Hightail (formerly known as YouSendIt): http://www.hightail.com

2GB free, file size up to 250 MB. I'm not sure why YouSendIt would change their snappy name to something like Hightail. The emphasis is on speed ("hightailing it" suggests moving at a high rate of speed).  I like the idea of a "high tail" in conjunction with a "long tail" -- cloud plus persistence?  Hightail is very easy to use for file transfer. You don't have to worry about old files haunting you or bloating your storage space -- your files will automatically be eliminated after a certain amount of time. 

**Easy drag-and-drop approach

**Simple interface

**Works on multiple devices

iDrive: http://www.idrive.com

5 GB free. Good for cloud-based backup for personal and enterprise computers. Need to download apps.  Here are the unique comparative advantages of iDrive:

**Very fast (incremental and compressed backups)

**Can backup multiple devices (PCs, Macs, iPhones, and Android devices) in a single account

**Can manage remotely

**Can backup Facebook information

JustCloud: http://www.justcloud.com 

Can automatically back up documents, photos, and music stored on your computer.  JustCloud seems to focus more on business solutions, with $19.95 per month for 100GB storage space and 5 computers. There is a free solution, but unless one signs up, it's impossible to obtain information. 

Dropbox:  http://www.dropbox.com

2 GB free. Expensive to add more storage. Can be a bit nerve-wracking / integrates with social media (Google Plus, etc.) Dropbox has great brand recognition, but is probably one of the most expensive. The website pretty unfriendly, too. It’s challenging to get a side-by-side comparison of the plans. 

Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Audio Recordings

I'd like to start by confessing that I am a huge audio quality offender, but I'm trying to reform. I've recorded hundreds of podcasts and videocasts, and have cheerfully distributed them, thinking that pops, stumbles, background noise, and long pauses did not matter. After all, they were just going to be listened to via smartphone from a podcast or cloud-hosted file (SoundCloud or YouTube, for example) -- do not spontaneity and authenticity trump quality?

The short answer is, "No." Of course, over-editing and over-rehearsing can certainly diminish the user / listener experience. But, straining to hear a voice though the sound of a gale-force wind, or listening to awkward pauses, stumbles, and verbal tics will frustrate the listener to the point that they may not listen to the entire production, even if it's 30 seconds long.

Use audio recording and editing software for good results. 

Here are five tips to dramatically improve your audio recordings, whether they are stand-alones, or are combined with video or presentation slideshows.

1.  Don't use the internal microphone on your computer or smartphone. If you're using your laptop, plug in a separate microphone -- perhaps a headset with microphone.  If you're using a tablet or smartphone (for the times you're "in the wild" and want to capture an event), please use an external hand-held microphone with windscreen. Be sure to check to make sure that your software is not defaulting back to the internal microphone. Some programs such as Camtasia seem to do that often, and it seems only to happen when you've had a perfect take.

2.  Invest in a headset microphone that puts money into the microphone and not just the headset. Gaming headsets are notorious for having wonderful headsets so that you can listen to all the game's music and sound effects, but they have the equivalent of a 4-dollar condenser microphone mounted into the swivel. Check into the specifications before you buy. Be prepared to pay more than $20.

3.  Record (if possible) using a computer (or in some rare cases, a tablet) that allows you to adjust your settings and then to save as a project that you can then encode and export into different types of files (.wav, .mp3, etc.). Make sure you have enough space and speed: 2 GB of RAM and 2 GHz coprocessor). You will have more of an opportunity to control and edit your audio.

4.  Use an audio editing program that has a number of effects, which include noise reduction, amplification, declipping, and more. Learn how to remove peaks, amplify, remove silence, and level your tracks, and to avoid clipping. Here's a great tutorial: http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Audacity_Tutorials (thanks to Librivox.org).

5.  Avoid editing and re-editing, and then re-saving copies of an mp3 file. If possible go back to the original recording and make all your changes from the original recording, rather than a processed copy of a processed copy of a processed copy.

View of Audacity while recording

Some of these tips seem almost laughably simple, but (I'm not laughing now!) -- I cheerfully disregarded them, since I assumed that no one would be listening on anything more than the most lightweight sort of smartphone and earbuds.

As technology advances and quality -- not just in the recording but also in the listening -- improves, it's becoming more important to take your skills to the next level. It's not too difficult once you've mastered the five basic tips, and you'll produce a much more agreeable sound.

I'm not where I'd like to be yet, but I'm working hard on taking my skills to the next level. I've invested in better equipment, and I'm working with

Recommended Audio Recording / Editing Software

open source audio recording and editing software

Audacity Open Source Audio Recording and Editing Software

Pros:
* Free and open source
* Very flexible
* Easy to use
* Easy to edit files
* Expanded and constantly expanding set of effects (including noise reduction and amplification)

Cons:
Fairly steep learning curve: Not all the settings are easy to find, and while there is quite a bit of support material on the web and in Audacity's website, it's scattered and not completely easy to find. If  is very worthwhile to take an online course that walks you through Audacity.

Creating mp3 files:  In order to convert to mp3, you have to download a LAME encoder program. The one that is most widely available for free can be downloaded from website that contains all sorts of extraneous links designed to entice you to purchase video editors or download personal projects (here's the link I'm referring to: http://lame1.buanzo.com.ar/). It's a mine field, but if you can make your way through it, you'll have the software you need.

Achieving precise volume levels:  If you're trying to hit a specific volume level in decibels, you're out of luck with  Audacity. The task is further complicated by the fact that the wave forms and volume levels will be different on every computer. There are a few programs / plug-ins that you can use, but they're hard to find. Here's one: mp3gain: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/download.php

***

I hope that this has been helpful.

Free Image-Editing Programs: A Review

It is always useful to have viable options to Photoshop and other expensive image editing software. However, which web-based and mobile friendly image / photo editors really work? This article reviews a few popular (and largely free) image editing software.

PicMonkey

Picmonkey.com

Free version (which has numerous enhancements), which allows photo editing, creating icons, badges, and graphics. Large array of fonts and quirky seasonal graphics (Day of the Dead, etc.), touch-up tools included, also can make collages. Overlays include hair, hats, stars, fireworks, “critters,” “buggles,” “ordinary beasts.” It is very cute and easy to use.

Attributes: cloud-based, not necessary to download, very easy to use interface. Really cute library of built-in graphics and effects.

Downsides: Some of the more useful tools and attributes are not free

PortraitPro

portraitprofessional.com

Do you ever wonder what photo editing software celebrity publicists use? After seeing the examples in the PortraitProfessional.com website, I can see using the PortraitProfessional software before Photoshop. The lowest-cost version includes skin smoothing, eye enhancing, hair enhancing, face sculpting, mouth enhancing tools, along other portrait-specific tools.

There is a free 30-day trial, and three levels of features:

Studio Max: $119.95

Studio: $ 59.95

Standard: $ 39.95

Picasa

http://picasa.google.com

Picasa is ideal for use with social media, particularly since it's owned by Google and works well with Google+ sharing and tagging. It's not available for Macs. Picasa continues to expand its offerings and now includes 24 new effects. Unfortunately, Picasa is not cloud-based, but is necessary to download to an individual computer.

GIMP 2.8

http://www.gimp.org

GIMP is one of the longest-lived free image editing software. It is ideal for image authoring, image editing, photo retouching, and image composition. It's not cloud-based – you must download it. The good news is that GIMP is available for Mac OS X, as well as Windows and Linux.

Pixlr

http://www.pixlr.com 

Pixlr.com has three basic cloud-based / web-based programs, and you can use Pixlr with your mobile device:

Pixlr Editor: Allows you to create a new image, or open from file or URL, and edit with a wide array of effects (including adding text)

Pixlr Express: web-based, with many different built-in overlays and stickers to allow you to create custom greeting cards. You may use images downloaded, from your webcam, or from a URL. It works quite well with Flickr images (tried out and enjoyed it a great deal).

Pixlr-Omatic: Pixlr-Omatic allows you to add effects (reminds me of Picasa's effects), along with a wid range of overlays and borders. You can save to your computer and also to the cloud at imm.oi

Benefits: Web-based, and you can use it with your mobile device (as a download, rather than web-based)

Downsides: There are almost too many options (!) – a guide to creating effective graphics would be quite helpful.

Now that you have more options, what are you going to do with your holiday photos? This is traditionally a time when photos are uploaded and shared, and when digital cards, greetings, graphics are created not only for social networking, but also for end-of-year reports, new year brochures, catalogues, and marketing pieces. It's time to truly differentiate yourself by means of dramatic images.