Learning how to learn

Category: Technology

  • Clickers and its Alternatives

    Clickers and its Alternatives

    I am writing a Technology Tool Kit course for middle school and high school math teachers. Before I started writing, I interviewed some math k-6-12 experts and a high school math teacher to get some ideas about what this course should cover. In my conversation with the highs math teacher, she mentioned her school used Clickers last year and people loved it. However, the batteries died and nobody has replaced them. Therefore, the teachers haven’t been able to use these Clickers since the beginning of this year. This is a shame.

    I decided to put introduction to both Clickers and its online alternatives to my course. I found it is very good learning method by writing a course – you would think that you know “something”. But you may find yourself not knowing much when you really dig into the topic.

    So here is what I found: You have two choices – buying traditional Classroom Response Systems (Clickers), or use their alternatives.

    For traditional Clickers, there are a number of major vendors on the market. Almost all of them require a single one-time initial purchase, then registration fee for each semester – please correct me if I am wrong. Some of them actually support the connection to cellphones, tablet, and laptops. One piece of Clicker costs from $20 – $70 dollars, depends on the brand and type you get. You will also have to pay extra for an additional receiver, if your class size exceeds the limitation. Clickers can get lost, broken, or run out of batteries like the high school math teacher said. – I probably am biased, but I don’t like this option.

    I explored a few alternative online tools that can achieve the similar functions of Clickers, and I like them.

    First of all, for me, Poll Everywhere is the one that requires the minimum of students’ investment. It requires thePoll Everywhere presenter to have a screen and a projector to project the questions, and then students only need to have to have a cellphone – it doesn’t have to be a Smartphone and it doesn’t have to have web-browsers installed on it.

     

     

     

     

     

    Some other online tools, such as Socrative, Mentimeter, SoapBox, InfuseLearning,  also claim themselves to be able to work with cellphones, laptops and tablets – but these cellphones have to be Smartphones, and will have to have Internet connection and web-browsers on them.

     

    More or less, these online alternative tools support questions types of multiple-choice, short answer(open ended), true/false, rating, ranking. Most of them also support PowerPoint presentation embedding. You will have keep the limitation of voters in mind:

    • For a Poll Everywhere free account, it is 40 people per poll question; You can choose to pay to upgrade your account in order to overcome this limitation. 
    • For Socrative, it is 50 people per poll question;
    • Mentimeter claims to have no limitation on the number of voters per question. However, it currently only has multiple-choice question type for free account. 

     

     

     

     

  • itunesU learning log (1)

    Just registered on iTunes U.

    Things learned:

    1. you need to let your supervisor know that you are doing this because you are representing your university
    2. it takes up to 5 business days to get your registration information reviewed and proved/rejected.

  • My summer 2012 resolution

    It is the summer, May 2. I feel refreshed and want to do something every morning when I woke up in the past two days. I think it is the time for me to start my IT blog resolution. I started this blog long time ago when I was still at graduate school as a doctoral student. My advisor of my Ph.D, Thomas C. Reeves, encouraged me to start my first post on my Instructional Technology learning. It was in 2006. Since then, I have had 27 published posts in the past 5 years, 5 posts per year! I think writing is a good way to keep one thinking and learning. Since I am now a full time working single mom, it seems harder to keep academia writing. I guess I will keep blogging then.

    Ok, so here is my summer 2012 Blogging resolution:

    • Find out current trend in Instructional Technology and Instructional Design
    • Learn and test some new instructional technologies
    • Write blog posts about my learning process

    Target: at least three posts every week in average.

    I guess my first topic would be about itunes U. Heard about now everyone can create itunes U. So I am going to try it.

     

     

  • Convert a Captivate course to Html5

    I know it is not something new, but just see this:

    How To Create An iPad App Using Adobe Captivate

    According to the video in this post, Adobe has been experimenting with a Captivate to Html5 converter. Now you can publish your Captivate project into a swf file then use the converter to convert it into a html file, which can be viewed basically on any mobile devices. Therefore this feature allows you to create apps not only for iPad, but also for Android, Windows, etc. (for popular phone OS, see here.)

    However, it is worthy to note that currently, only the following actions are supported:

    o Go to the previous slide
    o Go to the next slide
    o Go to the slide last visited
    o Jump to slide
    o Open URL only
    o Show
    o Hide

    So it may not be a good idea to to start convert your Captivate course into HTML5 just yet.

     

  • Trying out Glogster

    Someone at ITFORUM asked recommendations for e-poster and ppl recommended Glogster. Will try it out to see how it works.

  • How to host a virtual classroom in Moodle?

    Yesterday afternoon, I just suddenly thought that I should figure out a way to host a virtual conference room on my Moodle server (http://moodle.varvoo.com). So I started to search on moodle.org for downloadable modules and plugins. First I tried the keywords of “virtual conference” but I got nothing. Then I tried “rooms”, here is the list I got:
    After going through all these options, looks only the “CAE Virtual Classroom” one is what I want. So I went to download it and then install it in my Moodle. Guess what? When I went to the configuration page, I found it is in Spanish. I don’t know anything about Spanish. Tried using Windows live translation service and the Google Chrome Browser translation. Both didn’t work. So I gave up this one.
    Then I went back to search with the keywords of “room”. This time I am luckier:
    This is the first page of my searching results:
    and this is the second page:

    Basically, the results on the second page are all about online reservation of face-to-face meeting. I tried the module on the bottom of the first page, which is face-to-face. Unfortunately, it is also about online booking.
    Then I tried WiZiQ Live Class and Moodle-Google Apps. The first one is actually kind of a trial version, which allows you to initiate about two meetings or so, and then you need to pay for it. The second one of the Google Apps is very interesting, and can be very useful in terms of checking Gmail, using Google Documents from the user’s Moodle page. However, like most of other users on the comment page of this module, I didn’t figure out how to run it correctly on my Moodle page. So I gave up on this one too.
    Until now, I have spent my whole afternoon on this.
    Then I googled “virtual classroom moodle” and found people said the openmeetings is good. Here comes how I spent all my whole night stayed up until 1 am and crawling all different websites and documentations trying to figure out how to make it work:
    I first downloaded the Openmeetings module from the search result page of moodle.org. Then I installed it as I did for all other modules. The Openmeetings module did appear on my administration options of my Moodle. However, I kept getting error message of like this:
    ”
    wsdl error: HTTP ERROR: cURL ERROR: 7: couldn’t connect to host
    url: http://moodle.varvoo.com:5080/openmeetings/services/UserService?wsdl
    content_type:
    http_code: 0
    header_size: 0
    request_size: 0
    filetime: -1
    ssl_verify_result: 0
    redirect_count: 0
    total_time: 0
    namelookup_time: 0.001382
    connect_time: 0
    pretransfer_time: 0
    size_upload: 0
    size_download: 0
    speed_download: 0
    speed_upload: 0
    download_content_length: -1
    upload_content_length: -1
    starttransfer_time: 0
    redirect_time: 0
    Error

    wsdl error: HTTP ERROR: cURL ERROR: 7: couldn’t connect to host
    url: http://moodle.varvoo.com:5080/openmeetings/services/UserService?wsdl
    content_type:
    http_code: 0
    header_size: 0
    request_size: 0
    filetime: -1
    ssl_verify_result: 0
    redirect_count: 0
    total_time: 0
    namelookup_time: 3.9E-5
    connect_time: 0
    pretransfer_time: 0
    size_upload: 0
    size_download: 0
    speed_download: 0
    speed_upload: 0
    download_content_length: -1
    upload_content_length: -1
    starttransfer_time: 0
    redirect_time: 0
    Could not login User to OpenMeetings, check your OpenMeetings Module
    Configuration
    ”
    After tried all of the following:
    Backuping my current courses on my current Moodle site;
    Installing a new Moodle site using Simplescript (I also installed other applications such as Guest book and Drupal on the way, which took more time from me);
    Installing a new Moodle site using Fantasico De Luxe;
    Trying to figure out how to import an external course to Moodle (although I figured out that is the option in the Course administration section, which called “Restore”. It was very frustrating that the Moodle site kept giving me error msg saying that I can’t import Guest Login because it caused conflict, even when I removed everything that possibly related to Guest Login.);
    Trying to rename my old Moodle site and then install a new Moodle site from scratch;
    Trying to recover my old Moodle site and then overwrite it using the latest version of Moodle 1.98;

    Nothing can fix this.

    During this process, I posted a question on the Openmeetings google group, and got the response from the author this morning, saying that there was no Openmeetings server running on the same URL where my Moodle runs… Confusing, then I went to search on the whole Openmeetings site again, and finally found something like on this link:
    http://code.google.com/p/openmeetings/wiki/InstallationOpenMeetings
    Finally I know what I needed to get an Openmeetings run on my Moodle server…wait! It asks for these things:
    Java Version greater or equal 6
    Database available (MySQL,Postgres,… MSSQL,Oracle,DB2 see full-list) It is recommended to make/use an empty database/scheme
    Database MUST listen and allow TCP/IP connections! And the default character-set/scheme must be UTF8! For example a fresh MySQL does not listen on TCP/IP by default and has not utf8 as default-character-set defined. You have to change these settings and restart your database server so that changes take effect (mysql-config is in my.cnf). Postgres for example does also not listen by default on TCP/IP but uses by default UTF8 (since postgres 7 or 8). To change Postgres listening on TCP/IP check postgresql.conf and add your host to the pg_hba.conf. In Postgres you need to create a database using template1 cause template1 create automatically a scheme called public which is needed (and since postgres 8 you can use several schemes inside one database public is the default one Postgres-Docs).
    OpenOffice-Service started and listening on port 8100 (see OpenOfficeConverter, this is not necessary for installation but for running later on)
    Installed ImageMagick (this is not necessary for installation but for running later on), you can get more information on http://www.imagemagick.org regarding installation. The instructions for installation can be found there http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php, however on most linux systems you can get it via your favorite package managers (apt-get it)
    Installed GhostScript (this is not necessary for installation but for running later on), you can get more information on http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ regarding installation. The instructions for installation can be found there, however on most linux systems you can get it via your favorite package managers (apt-get it).
    Installed SWFTools (this is not necessary for installation but for running later on), you can get more information on http://www.swftools.org/ regarding installation. Some of the Linux distributions already have it in there package manager see http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/swftools), the recommended version of SWFTools is 0.9 as prior version have a big that does lead to wrong object dimensions in the Whiteboard
    Install FFMpeg (this is not necessary for installation but if you want to test the recording you have to install it). You should get FFMPEG in an up to date copy! For Windows you can download a Build for example from http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/builds/ Linux or OSx Users should be able to use one of the various Installation Instructions on the Web. You need to enable libmp3lame!
    Install SoX (this is not necessary for installation but if you want to test the recording you have to install it). You should install SoX in a up to date copy! SoX 12.xx will NOT work!
    MAC OSx / Linux Users => Get Flash Player 10 Beta!! It fixes the CPU Problem for Streaming Video => http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/

    and I need to work on these:
    Download OpenMeetings including Red5
    Unpack it (Please make sure that you use an up-to-date unzip-software) (and copy it somewhere in you system, do not start it from your Windows Desktop)
    you have now a folder openmeetings_version_no_xx
    Prepare Database Settings – go to openmeetings_version_no_xx/webapps/openmeetings/conf/hibernate.cfg.xml
    MySQL-Database-User: Rename mysql_hibernate.cfg.xml to hibernate.cfg.xml and alter following config values in (mysql_)hibernate.cfg.xml

    root jdbc:mysql://YOUR_HOSTNAME/YOUR_DATABASE If you have problems in connecting your database, a common error is that the Database does not listen to TCP/IP Connection, or you properly need to replace the jdbc-driver with the one for your database-version. Of course you must alter YOUR_HOSTNAME/YOUR_DATABASE to fit your needs for example to:jdbc:mysql://localhost/openmeetings
    Postgres-Database-Users: Rename postgres_hibernate.cfg.xml to hibernate.cfg.xml and alter following config values in (postgres_)hibernate.cfg.xml

    postgres jdbc:postgresql://YOUR_HOSTNAME/YOUR_DATABASE Of course you must alter YOUR_HOSTNAME/YOUR_DATABASE to fit your needs for example to:jdbc:postgresql://localhost/openmeetings
    Any-Database-Users: Rename any_hibernate.cfg.xml to hibernate.cfg.xml.
    Alter the following config values to fit your needs:

    user *****

    org.postgresql.Driver org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQLDialect jdbc:postgresql://localhost/openmeetings

    You can see a list of available dialect’s here hibernate-SQL-dialects. You must download the driver for your database and copy it to $OPENMEETINGS-HOME/WEB-INF/lib
    (Re)start Red5 (The table’s will be automatically created by hibernate if there is something wrong with your database values you will see errors in Red5 logfile
    go to the Installer by accessing it via browser: http://localhost:5080/openmeetings/install and follow the instructions
    After Running the Installer all basics are installed. Now login and go to the Meeting-Rooms and check all features. You possibly will have some difficulties uploading files. Check if OpenOffice is really running, swftool, ImageMagick (including GhostScript, FFMpeg) is available on your System-Path (or your customize the path in the Configuration).

    Finally… I lost my ambition of running a virtual classroom on my Moodle server. I know if I have enough time, I will figure out the way of doing this, but I just don’t have that much time to spend on this right now.
    Hopefully in the near future, someone will read this blog entry and will give me some updates on what is available on Moodle for a free and easy virtual classroom…

  • I tried another blog service provider —blogger

    I have known blogger.com for a long time but never tried it until just now.

    It is belong to Google also.

    I like Google, but after I tried blogger, I don’t like it so much.

    The main reseason is it is not so convinient as edublogs when you try to edit links. Of course it gives you much more freedom to edit your blog’s apperance with html language as you like. But what I need is just a simple blog , to accomplish my requirements of publish my idea , add links and view others’ comments.

    Also, edublogs have some shortcomings.

    It doesn’t allow you to edit the blog’s template. You can just choose one from its templates. And I don’t like the “About this site”. It also saids:”Just another Edublogs.org weblog” and I still have not found where I can change or get rid of it. Although I have another “About” on the right side under the “Pages“.

    Also, it doesn’t allow you change your font directly by simply press a font button. If you want to change a word or a phrase’s  font, you can just edit it under “HTML” mode.

    People always don’t like to accept unfamiliar things except they find there are much more interesting features. Me too.