e-Literate has been upgraded and is about 90% configured. I still have to figure out how to do a few things (e.g., add a navigation tab for the blog page without breaking other things), and I will continue to tweak it for the next few days, but it’s close enough to be basically usable. Please feel free to poke around and provide me feedback, whether good or bad, on how it looks and works for you.
Posted: August 31st, 2008 under Education.
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I’ve been a Wikipedia administrator for a long time and I’ve had some edits on medical wikis as well. The reason why I mention it now is that I know exactly how hard it is to manage and supervise the content of a wiki. Before, we used VandalProof, a tool which allowed us to review edits really efficiently. But now we have a supertool, Huggle:
Huggle is an application for dealing with vandalism, written in Visual Basic .NET. It was originally developed by Gurch.
Huggle is a tool for dealing with vandalism. Its nature requires that it is capable of editing pages quickly, and of making many edits in a short space of time. Such features should be used with caution. Use of Huggle by new or inexperienced users is not recommended. Use of Huggle is subject to Wikipedia policies and guidelines.
You can create a whitelist for experienced users and a blacklist for vandals. You can revert the edits and leave warning messages on user’s talk pages with only one click. It’s also possible to review several edits simultaneusly (by opening new tabs).
Here is the manual and you can download it here.
A screenshot from the Wikimedia Commons page
Posted: August 31st, 2008 under Education.
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Jan Martens at Medblog.nl featured an interesting slideshow that focuses on health 2.0. It was presented by Carlton A. Doty through a teleconference.
Posted: August 31st, 2008 under Education.
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Posted: August 31st, 2008 under Education.
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For those who were around back when I wrote my anti-homework manifesto, lemme confess: I'm assigning homework now. Two problems every day — one tough, the other tougher — choose between them, same grade value for each.
Our block schedule inspired my not-quite-180° reversal, the fact that my kids go 48 hours between classes and need some kind of interim refresher. Kids are still cool 'cause I'm not indiscriminately assigning #1 - 30 (odd, of course). Parents still haven't made their minds up about it.
Regardless: you win, homework.
Posted: August 30th, 2008 under Education.
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It feels so good when you create a tool and receive positive feedback. Exactly that happenned when Barbara Duck wrote about SciencerollSearch, our personalized metasearch engine, and she really liked it.
This is another resource that might be helpful with some quick searching capabilities. In this sample, I’m going to use diabetes as a search. A nice word of thanks goes out to Science Roll for putting this together.
What is SciencerollSearch?
Scienceroll Search is a personalized medical search engine powered by Polymeta.com. You can choose which databases to search in and which one to exclude from your list. It works with well-known medical search engines and databases and we’re totally open to add new ones or remove those you don’t really like.
Further reading:
Posted: August 30th, 2008 under Education.
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Once I shared some tips with you about where to start with web 2.0. Now here are other links that can be really helpful for those who are new with this web 2.0 thing.
We just can’t use all the useful tools and services of web 2.0, but some of them can change your everyday life and work. Many more tips:
Posted: August 30th, 2008 under Education.
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Dean Shareski posted an interview over at his Ideas and Thoughts covering my summer-long vodcasting series, dy/av. Since the guy is like Lesley Stahl with a Skype mic, I went back through the archives to prep myself. I cringed at moments I didn't expect and found some moments more durable than others.
More of my public navel gazing:
Defining The Structure
I knew I wanted the episodes to land between two and three minutes (though even that proved too long for some of y'all), to feature three words in the title, to close with my blog's plucky little tagline in voiceover, and I wanted to shoot in a 16×9 aspect ratio (think HDTV, not your old 4×3 TV tube) because the thinner rectangle lets you balance your composition in fun ways, packing useful elements into both sides of the screen.
For example:
The structure evolved in the editing room. For better or worse, I started adding a short, silent cutaway before the final line, an effort at ratcheting up the drama before the close.
Cringeworthy
Throughout the ten episodes, I felt too somber and too portentous by nine-tenths. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the seventh episode, which I shot on two different days. One day I'm more or less my ornery, ebullient self, the other I'm kind of staring and speaking at the camera like I think I'm Jesus. I only kept a consistent, accurate tone in the ninth episode, which, of course, was the last episode with any monologue.
Oh, and the cutaway in the office episode where I try to conjure Jim Halpert just didn't work.
Audience Interaction
I shot the behind-the-scenes episode three times, each reshoot modified by your inquiries into the process. Aside from that, the production time (averaging out at 14-ish hours per episode) prohibits the kind of post/comment/followup feedback blog posts enjoy. Once I shot an episode, only a monster incentive would reset the process.
My Least Favorite Episode
The behind-the-scenes episode, the visual core of which (the parallel shots of creating lessons and creating vodcasts) disintegrated halfway through. The last thirty seconds are particularly painful for me to watch as I murmur several passages which would've been better served by simple a blog post.
Favorite Flourishes
In carver's classroom management, I mention how "I always, always took discipline personally." I visually italicized the second "always," with a slo-mo shot of Carver on top of the police cruiser chopping at the air, a shot you'd already seen at regular speed.
It lasts less than a second and underlines everything I believe about the strength of video.
Oh: the eyebrow in episode seven.
Also: "graham crackers and wiki hour."
The Hardest Part About Editing Videos You've Spent Months Brainstorming, Writing, And Shooting
Forcing yourself to watch and listen to your story through the eyes and ears of someone totally unfamiliar with it, a hypothetical viewer. I found it really easy to cut too much, having grown deathly bored hearing myself say "My name is Dan and I like to teach."1
The Least Watched Episode
dy/av : 007 : the motiongraphics episode, which was also my favorite, illustrating my connection to the content I have spent my professional life teaching.
The Most Watched Episode
The most watched episode was dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer, the popularity of which surprised and, frankly, annoyed the hell outta me. I paced the ten episodes according to which ones I felt would play like gangbusters and which I felt would lull an audience appropriately. Turns out I have no idea what any of you people are into.
Watching it again, I'm really happy with how I edited the classroom conversation into the video, a conversation which includes so many aspects of teaching I'll cherish long after I stop teaching.
Nielsen Ratings
My Most Flameworthy Assertion In Dean's Interview
"Video at its best is better than writing at its best."
Essential Vodcasting Skills
Dean asked me to define the skills essential to this vodcasting gig. There is only one. It is common to good speechwriting, good storytelling, and good teaching: increase the bandwidth. More throughput. Say more, just as clearly, with less.
For video that requires two specific skills:
You can find my best throughput in the coffehouse scene from episode ten, where I split two complementary angles while at the same time layering audio from the next scene for a smooth transition.
It's my best work of ten episodes.
Posted: August 30th, 2008 under Education.
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Posted: August 30th, 2008 under Education.
Comments: none
