Trying iPadio

First try using iPadio from my iPod Touch. I'm going to play with it some more and see what I can do with it.

A blog post on using correct APA and MLA citation style on your blog

See Bailey, J. (2011, January 18). Using MLA and APA citations on your blog. [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/01/18/using-mla-and-apa-citations-on-your-blog/

In reviewing "how to do an APA citation for a blog posting", I found a lot of disagreement among various sites. The APA Blog uses [Blog post]. Here's the example:

Freakonomics. (2010, October 29). E-ZPass is a life-saver (literally) [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/29/e-zpass-is-a-life-saver-literally/

However example 7.76 of the 6th edition of APA's Publication Manual uses [Web log message]

In any case Bailey in his blog post on Plagiarism Today has some suggestions about how to incorporate properly-formatted citations in blogs.

Get over and look at how Cris Crissman has set up her open course:
ECI521 Teaching Literature for Young Adults
http://bookhenge2011.wikispaces.com/. She's using all kinds of Web2.0 tools. Did the image for my "Personal Class Trading Card" work? No!
http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/eci5212011. I'll have to go try that again...

Support SmartHistory.org

"SmartHistory Kickstarter is a campaign to create 100 new art history videos. See the blog post by Philipp Schmidt, Director and co-founder of the Peer 2 Peer University and then watch the SmartHistory video. A small contribution to this project would be a great Valentine's Day gift." This is from an College Open Textbooks Community posting. We're using SmartHistory for the art history course offered by University of the People so I'd like to through my support over that way as well.

Also, from College Open Textbooks Community: Take a look at this information about the World Library of Science - a joint effort of UNESCO and Nature Publishing Group to provide thousands of learning modules in the life sciences and physical sciences under "attribution-sharealike" licenses. http://www.col.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=107. Wow!

We're supposed to play with our blog

One of the DS106 assignments is "play with your blog." (It's supposed to be Wordpress, but I'm still not ready to go there...) I'm thinking about trying to set up Amazon Affiliate links! Someone else mentioned making one's blog mobile-friendly. Oh dear! Good point! I found this link... http://blog.wapreview.com/8861/... and voila! Using the Blogger in Draft dashboard lets you enable a mobile template. It removes add-on Blogger gadgets, etc. - but the posts are there. Apparently it doesn't work with every browser, but it's a quick fix.

DS 106 Digital Storytelling Week 2

I still haven't thought of a 30 second story. Did you all see that "My Name is Earl" episode(3.5) where Earl is in prison in a creative writing class and can't think of a story to write while all of his friends can? Talk about writer's block! (Annoying commercials - but the episode is here: http://www.tbs.com/video/index.jsp?oid=207121) This week's assignment is fool around with one's blog and add some things - and listen to Gardner Campbell talk at http://testing.andyrush.net/gardner-campbell/. He reminisces about getting started with personal computers and finally gets the power of the Internet and interconnectedness when he starts blogging in 2004. I remember going to the computer lab on campus and using Bitnet and whatever and getting involved in discussions - and people you didn't even know would answer you! (It also means that your digital footprint is out there...) Related: Last night I went to an online session that the UMUC MDE (Masters in Distance Education and E-Learning) program did on e-relationships developed among women involved in the program - and some of us commented that Facebook helped us stay in touch with each other. I'm also following some of the MDErs on Twitter. The tools help!

Behind already in DS 106

Remember the good intentions to keep up with Jim Groom's DS 106 course? Well, I'm behind already. On the other hand...picking and choosing... maybe I'm not that far behind. One of the first "to-do's" seems to be setting up one's own domain and webhost setup and I'm not going to tackle that. Some faculty may want to 'take control of their digital space' but to me it's a lot like asking me to build my own schoolhouse. I don't really feel the need for THAT much control. ;) I'm going over to do the Gardner Campbell readings (and listenings) http://ds106.us/2011/01/12/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure/ - and think about writing out a 30 second story.

Gardner's presentation (link above) - I'm put off by what comes off to me as sneering at teachers who ask "how long does this take" to learn to use something like cPanel and "what's in it for me?" and may even want to know "what's it in for the students?" It's self-evident to the pioneers, but not all are pioneers. What's a respectful way to encourage reluctant faculty to take up new challenges?

(On a positive note for the past week: I did get all the material up for the grad course I'm teaching this term. Yippee!)

Open access textbooks

I got to attend an Elluminate session on the Stitz-Zeager Open Access Precalculus Project on January 13. Dr. Stitz and Dr. Zeager worked on this open textbook project for no other reason than they wanted to have a better textbook that was also less expensive than those available from textbook publishers. They both got a sabbatical from their separate institutions to work on the project. Apparently their institutions did NOT ask for any rights to the material and it's available under a Creative Commons license. Right now their site is bare-bones http://www.stitz-zeager.com/Free_College_Algebra_Book_Download.html It's under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. They've used the book themselves with WebAssign (an online homework and grading system) with good results. As yet there is no teachers solution manual and no quiz bank. The authors say they were not concerned at all about royalties. They said that they are getting paid enough on their job and were not concerned about making any additional money. What about tenure and promotion? Neither of them were counting on the textbook as a major part of their portfolio for tenure and promotion. Very nifty!

Note: David Nelson sent the direct link to the archive: http://bit.ly/g9IRYh and if that doesn't work, the session can be reached at:
http://cccconfer.org/MyConfer/OpenArchives.aspx?ShowType=Webinars where you can search for it by title or date

Digital storytelling

I signed up to participate in DS106 Digital Storytelling http://ds106.us - Very nice email from Jim Groom this evening with some housekeeping information about the course. I'm sure I'm going to be somewhat outside my comfort zone - and I'm sure I'll be meeting up with some interesting, creative people. Sounds like the place to be!

New Year - Quora, Wikipedia

I've been dipping into Quora - and I'm not sure about it... Some of the questions seem to be set-ups for advertising. Browsing Quora may become more interesting however - There might be questions that you wouldn't think to ask - and there might be interesting answers.

Wikipedia in the Classroom - Educause held a webinar today presented by Wikimedia and their initiative to support faculty in setting up classroom projects writing Wikipedia articles. It's Wikipedia day today. (10th anniversary of Wikipedia) The Truth According to Wikipedia in on one of our PBS channels today.

Yet another Wikipedia event here in Tampa scheduled for January 6: "The creative business minds behind Wikipedia and eMedicine will headline the USF Health Dean’s Lecture Series “The Medical Internet Revolution” on Thursday evening, Jan. 6, at the USF Alumni Center, USF Alumni Drive (off Fowler Ave and Leroy Collins Blvd) in Tampa." Press release