Interview with Emily Claude, Oklahoma Arts Institute: Innovative Programs in Education Series

With new capabilities for collaboration and posting performance, it is more important than ever to develop programs that inspire learners of all ages and from all background to develop their creativity and to share that journey. One great example is the Oklahoma Arts Institute at  Quartz Mountain, which offers two innovative programs for arts. Welcome to an interview with Emily Claude, Vice President & Director of Programs, Oklahoma Arts Institute. 

1.       What is your name and your relationship to education / programs?

My name is Emily Claudé, and I am the Vice President & Director of Programs for the Oklahoma Arts Institute.  I help make many of the artistic and programmatic decisions and am responsible, along with our Director of Program Operations, for the planning, organization, execution, and evaluation of our two programs. 

Emily Claudé, Oklahoma Arts Institute Quartz Mountain

2.       What is Quartz Mountain?

Quartz Mountain Arts & Conference Center is located in southwest Oklahoma, 17 miles north of Altus.  Although our administrative office is in Oklahoma City, our programs have taken place at Quartz Mountain since 1978, so we consider it our home-away-from-home.  Quartz Mountain is a beautiful resort utilized by people all over the state for conferences, family reunions, retreats, weddings, and weekend getaways year-round.  But, given its outdoor amphitheater, state-of-the-art darkroom, studio pavilions, and 700-seat Performing Arts Center, it’s the ideal location for the Oklahoma Arts Institute.  Quartz Mountain is a state-owned facility of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. 

3.       Please describe some of the projects / programs that occur during the summer.

We recruit nationally renowned artists to teach Oklahoma high school students during the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute (OSAI), a two-week, intensive arts academy held in June.  Students are selected through a competitive statewide audition process.  Over 1,000 students auditioned this year for 270 spots in one of nine disciplines: acting, ballet, modern dance, choral music, orchestra, creative writing, drawing/painting, film/video, and photography.  

OSAI - Creative Writing

There are two things that set our program apart from any other program in the country.  First, we have nine disciplines all studying at the same place at the same time.  Although each student is dedicated to one specific discipline, they gain exposure to a wide variety of art forms through performances, elective classes, and interdisciplinary collaborations.  Second, we provide full scholarships worth over $2,500 to every student accepted to our program.  This ensures that we are reaching the most artistically talented students in the state, regardless of their financial situation.

OSAI - Drawing and Painting

4.       Please describe some of the fall / winter programs for adults.

Each year, educators, professional artists, and amateur artists gather for four-day weekend workshops in the arts.  The purpose of the Oklahoma Fall Arts Institute (OFAI) is to provide continuing education to adults, teachers, and community artists who seek new techniques and self-renewal.  Our program is unique in that all public school teachers attend on full scholarship.  Over 300 educators attend each year and go back to their classrooms across Oklahoma to teach over 50,000 students.

OFAI - Printmaking

5.       Are any of the performances made available via YouTube? Which ones?

Due to music copyright laws, many of our performances can’t be posted on the internet.  However, we have CDs and DVDs available of all of our performances.  If anyone is interested, they can contact me!  We do have many videos posted on YouTube, and these are a few of my favorites from last summer:

·         The OSAI 2013 “video yearbook:” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5taNFl1zpA
·         Faculty presentation by OSAI 2013 Chorus Conductor, André Thomas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc2CMCNakcg
·         Ballroom dancing at OSAI 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k03W1hTHYWo&index=3&list=PLZ9xI1T9h_0U63i5lhu5D_P1weEGHArLr
·         “Art is,” a film by OSAI 2013 Film & Video Students: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ65YUauIo&index=24&list=PLZ9xI1T9h_0U63i5lhu5D_P1weEGHArLr

6.       How would you like to see the program grow?

Given the number of students applying for our program each year, I would love to have space to expand classroom and housing facilities at Quartz Mountain to be able to accommodate more students.  Also, since there are so many art forms we don’t have represented at our programs, it would be great to have more space so we can consider adding more disciplines. 

OFAI

7.       Please describe a few very innovative performances and also creative products that were a result of participation in Quartz Mountain.

·         Having nine diverse artistic disciplines at OSAI at the same time is one of the features of our program of which we are most proud.  So we encourage faculty to take advantage of that fact and collaborate with other disciplines in order to give students an opportunity to learn about other art forms.  This is a video documenting the modern dance & photography collaboration from OSAI 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl9ISMRCbIM.

OSAI - Ballet

·         One of my favorite workshops at OFAI 2013 was Poetry & Performance.  We typically offer a poetry workshop every fall; however, this was quite different.  Taught by Anna West and Amanda Torres from “Louder Than a Bomb,” the nationally-acclaimed Chicago teen poetry slam festival, this workshop offered participants an opportunity to not only read and write poems, but to learn how to perform them.  

OFAI - Poetry and Performance

Participants were able to explore performance poetry in a creative and safe environment.  Additionally, educators in the class learned how to adapt these processes to their own school settings.  It was inspiring not only to the participants who had a chance to learn from Anna and Amanda, but those of us who got to hear their poems were inspired as well!  

Finalist in Next Generation Indie Book Awards - Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets

Texture Press's Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin with illustrations by Don Riggs, is a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for 2014. The finalists will be officially announced in late May, but the editors and authors received notification in early May.

Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets

The Next Generation Indie Book Awards is the largest Not-for-Profit book awards program for indie authors and independent publishers. It's presented by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O'Shea Literary Agency.

Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets offers fourteen classroom- and workshop-tested writing prompts that will appeal to both beginning and experienced poets. The book lends itself to academic courses as well as poetry workshops in less formal settings, such as adult-ed, community-based, and “coffee-shop” classes. Individuals will find the book to be a helpful companion to their independent practice of poetry. In addition to the prompts, scores of poems are included to demonstrate possible responses and interpretations of them.

The book may be purchased online, and discounts for workshops are available by contacting Texture Press.

Interview with Don Sevcik, MathCelebrity - Innovators in E-Learning Series

One of the biggest challenges in online math education is being able to show the students how to go through the process of working problems and equations. One solution has been developed by an automated math tutoring website, MathCelebrity. Welcome to an interview with Don Sevcik, president of MathCelebrity.

www.mathcelebrity.com

1.  What is your name and your relationship to elearning? 
My name is Don Sevcik and I am President of MathCelebrity.

2.   What is MathCelebrity?  How does it work?
MathCelebrity is a free automated online math tutoring website.  You enter a math problem or search term, press the button, and every single line of work appears in less than one second which shows you how to solve the problem.

Click image to enlarge.

3.  Who is the site targeted for? Age groups? Types of math?
We cover Kindergarten through College.  We have 27 subjects and over 430 calculators.  We have been around for 7 years so the website has a vast array of curriculum coverage.  We build more features each week.

Click image to enlarge. 

4.  What do you think is the best way to teach applied math that asks people to solve real-life problems?
I'm big on empirical evidence and heuristics.  Real life math problems need real life explanations as well as problems that have been solved in the past which utilize a similar solution.

Click image to enlarge. 

5.  How do you help people get over a fear of math? 
I try to lay out a detailed, easy to follow, step by step solution on the website.  With personal tutoring, I try to leverage real world examples that make sense.

Click image to enlarge. 

6.  What are your plans for the future?  How would you best take math games / tutoring into the "wild"? 
My future plans are to continue build more lessons, as well as expanding on science.  We also have a programming blog.  Many of our fans have expressed interest in programming, and I think STEM fields are a great thing to learn early.  That is what our fans respond to, so that is what I will continue to offer.

Click image to enlarge. 

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

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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.

Post-Postmodernism: What's Next?

I don’t think we’ll ever completely separate ourselves from postmodernist notions. After all, some postmodernist ideas have been percolating around in discourses of consciousness and meaning-making processes at least since Dante’s 13^th-century Letter to Cangrande della Scalla in which the author (presumably Dante) discusses the fact that his work is polysemous. He expounds upon that notion and discusses four types of meanings which result in multiple strategies for interpreting texts.

Further, if postmodernist expanded the notion of “text” to include signs, natural phenomena, and more, well, we’ve had that in our consciousness ever since early Babylonian astrologers. In terms of creating patterns and developing codes / numerical strategies for text interpretations, we’ve certainly had that since Jewish gematria, and then also Kabbalistic practices.

This is not the place to develop a genealogy of postmodernist thoughts. I would love to do so, but I don’t want to deviate from the central idea, which is to say that for the last 10 or 20 years, theorists of all sorts have been attempting to declare postmodernism has declared officially “over” – and have proposed a wide array of alternative theories, many of which have to do with culture, technology, gender, and ethics.

There are aspects of postmodernist thought that I find very useful and I would not want to give them up. For example, I don’t want to give up some of the more interesting notions of reality and reality construction.

Perhaps it’s not productive to say that the world is completely an illusion, but it’s fun to think so. I also like the social constructivist ideas, especially when connected with power. For example, I have to say that I agree when Foucault and Baudrillard suggests prisons exist not only to enforce behavioral norms, but also to delude us into thinking that there is a “free” world and that “freedom” is an absolute, when in reality, there are all kinds of constraints to our freedom, beginning with language itself, and ending in behaviors, beliefs, and values that may be, in essence, coercive.

I think it is interesting that many of the new ideas of post-postmodernism have much to do with new technologies and the impact on identity (digital communities), selfhood (genetic engineering), privacy (Internet, surveillance, UAVs), communication (communications technologies), understanding the world (computing, Big Data), and more.

In fact, once one uses technology as the primum mobile of consciousness and global epistemological constructs, it’s easy to see how a next logical step would be a preferential shift to technocratic social organization, from individual communication to bodies politic. The implications could pretty scary. Technocracies are notoriously dehumanizing, especially when combined with command economies or oligopoly-tending capitalistic economies.

Here are a few recent ideas:

Pseudo-modernism / digimodernism: Digital technology can dismantle persistent postmodern issues such as “existential uncertainty” and “artistic anti-essentialism.” Kirby argues that the post-postmodern generation reverts to modernism, at least in the sense that there is a renewed belief in agency and in individual ability to influence others (by means of technology).  See Kirby (2009) Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure our Culture.

Automodernism:  Robert Samuels argues that new technology allow a new level of neutrality to emerge. At the same time, postmodernist identity “flux” is supplanted by new, hardened identity politics.

Complexism:  Philip Galanter has created a fusion of technology and the arts; it has been suggested that he echoes and updates the Russian and Italian Futurists (who were certainly pro-technology, with the idea that technology helps establish a coherent New World Order. Some of the enthusiasm died in WWI and in the early Soviet Union.

Hypermodernism:  Hypermodernism, coined in the 1990s, is a chaotic, high-intensity, fast-paced world of rapid and always evolving identity and social relationships. The hypermodern is not characterized by indeterminacy (as would the postmodernist world), but in quick moments of stasis, followed by discrete, lenticular “pods” of culture / socioeconomic / socio-political ontology.

Altermodernism: Nicolas Bourriaud embraces alterity and takes it further, suggesting that the creolization of our cultures in the global context will create a universal aesthetic. Multiculturism is worn out. The next stage is the “creole” (which will probably change, given the colonialist overtones implicit in the word itself.)

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References

Alighieri, Dante. Letter to Can Grande della Scala. Accessed November 13, 2013 http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/cangrande.english.html

Awet (2013). Other Post-Postmodernisms: A Glossary. Heterodoxia. April 2013. Accessed Nov 15, 2013. http://www.hyperboreans.com/heterodoxia/?p=896#more-896

Kirby, A.  (2009) Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure our Culture. London, NY: Continuum Publishers.

Interview with Lindsey Hill, Evanced Solutions: Innovators in E-Learning Series

Game-based learning continues to be one of the most engaging methods of learning for childing (as for adults), and fun, engaging learning apps can be very effective as well. Welcome to an interview with Lindsey Hill, Lead for Reading Engagement Innovation at Evanced Solutions and Evanced Games.

1.    What is your name and your relation to elearning?
 
Hello, Susan. My name is Lindsey Hill. I’m the lead for Reading Engagement Innovation at Evanced Solutions, LLC and Evanced Games. My 14 years of teaching experience has provided me with a unique perspective on previous and current trends in improving reading proficiency.

We’re empowering children to be creative thinkers and problem solvers through today’s e-gaming technology. This enables me to shine a light on the real issues around children and reading and other learning deficiencies. Even though I’ve left the classroom, I visit classes regularly to help kids take ownership of their intellectual growth. I have noticed that when kids identify and embrace their particular interests, they can break through reading proficiency barriers and experience real success. I spend time with parents, teachers, librarians, and students in and out of elementary classrooms to demonstrate this.

In the modern classroom, digital games are a powerful platform for motivating student learning. That’s partly because we know that games tied directly to students’ interests drive frequency of use. Also, if a game offers achievable challenges, kids will have success. This, too, drives frequency.

If this seems a little vague, let me give you an example. I met a third-grader who told me he didn’t like to read, but he loved playing zombie-related video games. His interest in zombies led us to a discussion of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps mystery series. I followed up my classroom visit with an email to his teacher about his interest in mysteries.  Not long after, she told me he had been reading the series and writing his own zombie comics that he shared with the class.




2.    Tell me more about Evanced Games.

Evanced Games is a division of Evanced Solutions, LLC. We’re a technology company that empowers children to pursue learning outside of the classroom and develop closer relationships with the people around them. Our dedicated team of educators believes that gaining and sharing knowledge through children’s keenest interests is the best path for learning success. We introduce kids to the world of technology, while helping them to uncover their interests further, with special consideration to their individual learning styles.

We have partnered with Demco, our parent company, and have gotten great inspiration from our sister company, Edupress, to create digital versions of its award-winning educational content. We offer edu-gaming apps for children in grades K-6 that encourage learning beyond the classroom walls. Our three mobile apps—Froggy Phonics, Tic-Tac Bananas, and That’s Baloney—offer a fun way for children to practice a variety of Common Core skills, from phonics and algebra to cause-and-effect and simple problem-solving.

3.    What is your area of expertise?

As a former elementary teacher and my school’s two-time Teacher of the Year honoree, I’m able to bring my first-hand experience and perspective to Evanced. Each new school year gave me an opportunity to foster relationships with my students. Making personal connections with my students valdidated who they were outside the classroom, as well as inside. Through a daily Community Circle, my students had the choice to share their fears about a sick pet or last night’s winning touchdown, for example. This process proved their two worlds could coexist, showing school was a safe place to use their imaginations and discover who they were.
Leaving the classroom was one of my toughest decisions, but I knew I was joining a team to impact even more kids with Evanced. I think my role as a parent of two young boys also brings another interesting perspective to the table. My real passion—my favorite thing in the world—is to help kids to experience a love of learning that goes beyond the classroom walls. They do this through self-discovery and creativity.

4.    How did you go about designing an elearning game? How, in your experience, does game-based learning offer special advantages to teachers?
     
The Evanced Games team is made up of designers, teachers, artists, and developers. We work closely with kids as our experts. They help us create games that they will want to play without being told to. We invite them and their families into our design studio to play prototype games and give us their thoughts. We make changes to characters, sounds, story lines, and other elements based on what we hear from them.

Game-based learning helps resolve some of today’s educational issues. Classroom practices are changing all the time. With the initiation of the Common Core State Standards in 46 of our 50 states, the classroom atmosphere will, no doubt, change slightly. But, the impact of those changes will be minimal. Classroom teachers will focus more heavily on the conceptual understanding of skills as opposed to procedural proficiencies alone.

Teachers will feel confident in their approaches, when they see results from their students. The students’ interest in the activity will soar, because it is related to what they tell us they specifically want.

5.    Is there such a thing as a *bad* elearning game?  What are some things to avoid?

Any game that is designed for children—including e-learning games—should be fun. Plain and simple. If kids don’t think a game is naturally fun, they won’t play it.

“Bad” games tend to miss the mark on the story behind the game. The story line needs to be compelling to kids. They need to be interested. They need to care. “Bad” games provide unachievable challenges, and they offer very little autonomy, or choices, for the players.

Only after a game is considered enjoyable to play by children, should it be made to include the content that parents and teachers want. In other words, if you first start with the educational elements you want players to practice and become proficient in, and make fun an afterthought, you will have a significant failure on your hands.

6.    What is the relationship between motivation and game-based learning?

Kids are motivated to play games of all types because they provide them with choices, achievable challenges, and they allow for social interactions with their friends and family. For older kids, they may even have some social interaction with other online gamers in other parts of the world, if they’re playing something like Clash of Clans or Minecraft, which are both very popular.

When playing a well-designed game, kids feel that there is a purpose to it—whether it’s meeting all of your froggy friends in Froggy Phonics or beating your little brother at tic tac toe in Tic Tac Bananas.

7.    Who are your favorite authors who are writing on game-based elearning?

In order to understand a variety of perspectives on learning proficiencies, I’m currently enjoying How Children Succeed by Paul Tough and Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck.
I’m also reading The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens by Stephen Apkon. He discusses the concept of “screenagers” and the challenges of raising a very different generation of kids.
Each of these authors, however, explores building confidence in our children by using what kids know and how they use that knowledge. I also enjoy discovering different “mommy” and “daddy” bloggers, as well as teacher and librarian writers. They provide current, first-hand experiences with this next generation of kids that is our future.

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