FSC/MEC Research Class 3 January 30

Good Friday to you all. It looks like we "dodged the bullet" as they say as the weekend storm they predicted for us earlier in the week will pass to our south and they're going get clobbered.

Tomorrow morning, Linda LeBlanc will be with us. She's going to give us a tour of FSC's online library resources. She always does a great job and I know that there will be valuable information presented to will be useful to all of you even if you're already familiar with some aspects of their capabilities.

After that we'll discuss some ways that we can gather and store resources for our projects-graphics and essential file formats, nomenclature requirements, etc.

More on the above later, but please try to arrive at the lab tomorrow by 8:30. I'll be there as close to 7:00 as I can and you should feel free to get there anytime after that if you need to do some work there or you need any help from me.

Assignment:

Sometime before Tuesday, please do the following:

Fitchburg State College Online Library Activity

After listening to an introduction to FSC’s online library services, please access one or more of their featured. Then locate two available full text articles that you think other teachers in your field would find useful. Please email them to yourself (any email account you choose) and send a copy of the best one to me at the same time using the “cc:” function of your email software. I won’t respond to them. I’m only curious to see the kinds of things you come up with. I always learn more from you than you do from me.

Please use any available class time to accomplish the above.

I’m including the name and address of our presenter below:

Linda LeBlanc

Access Services Librarian

978 665-3062

lileblanc@fsc.edu

At some point today we need to spend some time in a debriefing of our class in TI last week-effectiveness, navigation issues, office metaphor, the help desk, etc.

After lunch we will begin to search in earnest for things that will appear on our projects. With that in mind and in an attempt to head off any potential problems, I want to cover issues related to:

• Web authoring and editing software Nvu (http://portableapps.com/apps/development/nvu_portable) and graphic editing software-GIMP (http://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/gimp_portable)
• Overall page setup-single long page or connected ancillary pages
• Content construction-unformatted!
• Collecting graphics judiciously
• Web page nomenclature
• Fonts and styles
• Indents
• Bullets and numbered lists
  
• Links
• Backgrounds and colors
• Publishing to the Web (FTP and uploading)
  

My main goal is to help you get a project published not to "teach the software" as they say. When we're done, we will have published your project to MEC's Web space and you'll have a copy that you can modify, as need be, and use on your school's site.

FYI ONLY!!! Take a look at Google's Sketchup program. Let's classify it as one of Google's most powerful special tools. It's offered in a couple of version levels of which the basic (although certainly robust) is free for download by anyone. The basic version is "open source", can be accessed from a flash drive, doesn't need to be installed on a computer's hard drive, and therefore leaves no "footprint".

I''d like to give you a personal anecdotal example of how I used SketchUp. My 23 year old son was working in Asheville, NC. He's very "outdoor oriented" and spends much of his free time mountain biking, mountain climbing, hiking, and canoeing. It was natural that he came across an ad (Craig's List or other somesuch venue) offering an Old Town canoe in exchange for some construction work to be performed.

Two women who owned an old garage needed two corner posts replaced and estimated that it would take someone roughly 10 hours to complete. Tom contacted the women and then called me for advice. Actually he had no clue how to do the work, but he is in good shape, honest and dependable, and resourceful (I happen to be one of them).

After discussing it with him including details of the agreement (materials, hourly rate should the work run over the 10 alloted hours, etc.), I tried to get him to visualise how the work would be done safely. I wasn't confident that we were on the same page, so I decided to use SketchUp to show him exactly how to do it (one picture is worth a thousand...), by drawing him a 3D model and sharing it with him.

His only connected computer belonged to his employer, so he wasn't comfortable using a non-approved program on it. In spite of my assertions about the "no decernable footprint", he said he wouldn't use SketchUp on the computer. For that reason, I knew I'd have to use a different format for him to view my creation.

And so I recorded my SketchUp file, as I used its "Rotate" tool to view it in 3D, using a program (not open source and not inexpensive) called Camtasia Studio. I put the file on a CD and mailed it to Tom. He got it and he "got it", did the work successfuly, and received his canoe.

I'd like you to take a look at the file by going to http://cgi.mec.edu/~groves/SketchUp/corner_jack2.avi Please take five or six minutes to do so.

Please remember it is one perfect example of a practical use for SketchUp. Had my son had the Internet connection then that he does now, he could haveve used his own computer and we could have done to whole lesson online without the aid of the US Postal service.

I wanted to simulate problems that you may run into so I located a favorite instructional YouTube video on folding a shirt in seconds just as an example. Then I wanted to download it to my hard drive and run it later much as you would do for your students.

Well, I found a couple of pieces of software, both free and open source that could help her in her efforts and may be of interest to you as well.

The first one from sourceforge is called xVideoServiceThief. Do not let the "T" word scare you. Sourceforge represents the wonderful people who freely gave us Audacity among other superb programs. Mac or PC, you can go to http://xviservicethief.sourceforge.net/ and download the applicable version for you.

When you unpack it, you'll see a small number of files and folders. I used another cool, free, and open source screen recorder program called CamStudio to make a short video for you which shows the files I'm taking about and how to paste a YouTube URL of a video that you want to download into the operative box. You can see my video later at: http://cgi.mec.edu/~groves/videothief.avi. When you've downloaded your target video it will be deposited into the "Downloads" folder. You can access it there.

You'll need a second (open source as well) program to view it. It's called FLVPlayer and it's available through Applian Technologies at http://download.cnet.com/FLV-Player/3000-13632_4-10467081.html or http://applian.com/. I made a second vid for you using CamStudio again that shows you how to "drag and drop" technique to run a captured YouTube video with FLVPlayer. You can see that by going to: http://cgi.mec.edu/~groves/shirtflvplayer.avi

FSC/MEC Research Class 2 January 23

I hope you guys all had a great week. As I told you on Thursday, my plan is to run our virtual class from MEC's lab in Billerica. After much thought and from gauging the tenor of your emails, I could not be certain that all would be completely comfortable in a virtual environment. And that doesn't take into account any glitches you might have run into using your own PC.

I've done this many times with the caveat that I would be in the lab in the role of a support safety net. Before you decide, please, if you haven't done so already, check your TI capability be logging in and going to your office. Make sure that the chat window opens and that you have the option to communicate there.

Either way, I'll be expecting you at 9:00 am. I will physically be in the lab very early, you will be able to see me there, but I won't expect you till 9. If you decide to appear early, please send me a private chat (I'll be sure to hear the bell) so I'll know that you're there.

....to be continued


Before I forget, there are a couple of items that I forgot to go over with you in class last week and I'd like to discuss them now.

First, there are a couple of ancillary sites offered by a couple of search engines that give an interesting and sometimes humorous look at the way people look for things on the Web. Google Trends shows you the latest most common searches rated by total hits: http://www.google.com/trends

They list the most commonly searched for terms over a recent period. Some of them claim to refresh the results every so often which could be as short as a matter of minutes.

I also wanted to spend a few more minutes talking about additional ways that search engines look for keywords. We did mention the 255 possible words inserted as Meta tags, but there are others. Thinking about them will help you during your searches as well as later on when you want to attract search engines to your school's Website. See the newsletter clip below, written by a Web designer.

WHERE DO SEARCH ENGINES LOOK FOR KEYWORDS?

Knowing the Answer Can Boost Your Rankings

Search engine optimization (SEO) might seem like some arcane formula known only to a select few Internet gurus, but I’m going to share some secrets that’ll hopefully demystify the art of SEO. If you’ve spent any amount of time doing business online, then you probably know about keywords and keyphrases. But what you may not know is how important these are to your page rankings. When people go online in search of something the first thing they do is type a word or phrase into a search engine like Google or Yahoo. So it’s important to know where the search engines look for those words in relation to your Web site if you want your pages to show up high in the rankings. Text Links A text link is a word or phrase that’s constructed to take visitors either to another page on your site or to another place on the web. Some Web site owners make the mistake of using words like ‘click here’ or even a graphic in order to send viewers to another place. But generic text links won’t help people find you if they’re typing in specific keywords and search engines can’t read graphics. So you need to construct the link so that the keyword IS the link. For example: If you’re offering web design services and you want someone to go to your page regarding that, you would use the term ‘web design services’ as the link. Title Tags Title tags are the words that appear at the very top of your browser window. Since each page normally contains a title, you’ll want to use keywords and phrases that are popular among searches so that the search engines will find them. Don’t use generic terms like ‘Home’ or even cute phrases like ‘Welcome to My Business’. Words like these will get you buried in the rankings. Also be sure that each page on your site has a good keyword or phrase in the title. Description Tags Description tags are one type of meta tags. These tags are not visible to page viewers, but are routinely seen by search engines. Description tags are information that’s inserted into the head of your page’s HTML code (if you’re not comfortable coding pages then get a pro for this). You’ll want to use text that describes your page in this tag. Many search engines use the meta description tag as description that appears in their listings. Some people think that by inserting many keywords into their meta tags is a surefire way to increase their page rankings, but search engines are much smarter now than they used to be, and will often ban pages that cram too many keywords into their description tags. Keyword Tags Keyword tags are another type of meta tag, which aren’t visible to viewers. These are also inserted into the HTML code under the head section. Keyword tags are passed over by the bigger search engines like Google and Yahoo, but you will still need to use these tags because some of the smaller search engines still see and rank them. Headings and Headlines Since search engines look at text in order to find keywords relevant to a search, you need to use those popular words and phrases in headings and headlines for content on your pages. Headline text codes differently than body copy text and ranges in size from H1, which is the largest to H6. Search engines pay more attention to the larger headlines, so again, if you’re not good at HTML coding, ask a pro to help. Body Copy Body copy of web pages is another place that search engines look for keywords so you want to be sure that you’re using good, highly searched keywords within your page’s content. You can help the search engines by making these keywords and phrases bold and by using them more than once on the page. It’s also wise to place your keywords as early in your copy as possible. Some people recommend using your keywords two to three times per paragraph, but doing this often creates awkward sounding copy that turns readers off. Today’s web surfers are smarter than ever. They know when they’re getting good content and when it’s just words designed to show up high in the rankings. There’s no sense in getting people to your website and then giving them garbage to read. Alt Tags Alt text are words that appear when you place your cursor over an image contained on your pages - these are sometimes referred to as mouseovers. Again, viewers don’t normally see these tags, but the search engines do pick them up. While there’s more to SEO than just keywords, they are the most important aspect to getting good rankings. They are the words typed in by searchers and they are the words that are going to bring visitors to your site – so choose and use them wisely. - Nina Menezes

Next we need to look at some directories of search engines. The first one lists a long list of engines along with the types of information they would best reveal. The site was last updated in 2009-a good thing and it's been around for many years in another form. It was created by a librarian.

http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/5locate/adviceengine.html

Please take the next chunk of time to explore the list. Zero in on two that you are unfamiliar with, but two that would probably locate information you might typically be looking for and use the same search terms on both engines to compare results. Try, even better, to locate files related to what you teach, but may be in an unusual format such as audio or image files.

Next, please look at KidsClick which I'm sure must be known to a lot of you: http://www.kidsclick.org/ ,which is a librarian compiled matrix of engines suitable for children.

Then take a look here: http://www.digital-librarian.com/search.html Digital Librarian: Search & Navigation Tools and try the same strategy with two new engines there as you did at NoodleTools. They tout their site as The Best of the Web and it's range is certainly various and vast-the most comprehensive list I've seen. Again, we'll take some time here-15 minutes or so.

While you're in TI, please take the next 15 minutes or so to look at the ASO room there. ASO stands for After School Online. ASO is where some interesting real time discussions take place between teachers from everywhere. ASO was where I had my first encounter with Tapped In.

As you enter ASO, please look for the "Featured Items" area and click on the link entitled "Archived Transcripts". When that opens you'll ses categories like -Arts and Humanities, -General Education, -Professional Development, and -Math, Science, and Technology. Click on one of those and then to the transcripts of a recent year. Look down through the topics until you find a promising one and then open it.

Let me tell you what to expect here and why I'd like you to look there. These transcripts deal with problems that we all, as teachers, encounter. Here you'll find opinions as well as links to Websites that offer some solutions.

For example: Under Math, Science... I found in the 2009 transcripts the topic

Cyberethics, Cybersafety, Cybersecurity

and within that a number of discussions regarding the subject of Sexting. Please take a look in the ASO and I'll see you when you get back to my office when you're done. Take your time-at least 15 mins. I'll be waiting.






Next week, one of the first things we'll be doing is to take a tour of the FSC online library services as well as additional services available to off campus learners as we are. A presentation will be given to us by Linda LeBlanc (lileblanc@fsc.edu) FSC's Access Services Librarian.

She's very effective, organized, and patient. I know you'll be impressed with all the their library has to offer to you as one of their students.

She'll arrive around 9 and stay for lunch. It's SOP to have her do these sessions for the particular course since it's focus is research. I've known Linda for over ten years and probably had her do this for close to that many times I've taught this course.


To that end and in preparation for next week, let's do a dry run and go to http://www.fsc.edu/library/, login using the login and password that I sent you. Once in, please click the "Library Services" on the left, then click on the link "Distributed Learning Services". Then read the following:

What are distributed learning library services?

How do I access these services?

Who can use these services?

Please let me know if you have any problems with ID or password as you'll be using them next week.


Finally: Drifting toward a project selection.
Please spend the rest of class time browsing the files you'll find at http://gilligan.mec.edu/~groves They are almost exclusively teacher created projects prepared for the Web. They run the gamut; some are Webquest while others are Pathfinders (see Pathfinder Guidelines with the featured files in my office).

As you peruse the list of projects by teacher name, please note the content of course, but also observe the color palette that they chose along with the graphics. The content you would extrapolate to your own needs as well as the selection of graphics, but ask yourself, "How does the whole thing work?" and "Could I adapt this to my curriculum?"

The degree of sophistication of the projects, will vary quite a bit. It depended on the level required for each class. Please remember that all those teachers came to the class with different skill sets, and they all worked very hard to create an effective learning object for their students.

You will also find a few things that do not appear to belong there. You'll probably be right. They might have been posted there as examples for other classes on how to upload files of different formats. If you do encounter them, please disregard them and move on to others.

Assignment for Monday:

Please chose two of the projects at the "gilligan" site that you find most useful. Create a new post in your blog and mention the sites and what you thought about them in a paragraph or so.



For those who are "chompin' at the bit", I'll give you a few tips on how to get started on the things that I can help you with-links, graphics, text. Notice that I didn't mention content. That's your forte, not mine.

As you begin to focus in on your topic, please bookmark any sites that you feel might have something you can use either in terms of graphics or even merely a possible link off your page/s.

That way you won't be frustrated in trying to relocate something you can't remember.

Next, save any superb graphics you encounter-ones that you couldn't live without. Don't go crazy because fewer is better. Then save them to a "Graphics" folder on your flash drive. If you don't remember or don't know how, I'll show you now or later or even both.

Snowed In in Norway

I finally made it back on line. It wasn't easy. As I told you they closed the library in Casco ten minutes after I got there on Tuesday. It hasn't stopped snowing for three days. Mr. Bean, our plowman, came by at 3:45 this morning to plow us out, but it has continued to snow lightly all day.

I got the car out today and on my way here, not 1/4 mile up the road I realized one of my rear tires was flat. I went back in the house and called AAA. They came an hour later and put the donut on the wheel so I set off again. As I neared the first corner after leaving my driveway, I almost ran into the tow truck that had come to my rescue. His truck slid off the road sideways into a banking, partially blocking the road.

At that point, I began to wonder if some sinister force wasn't being used against me to keep me from my objective.

I did make it into South Paris where my tire is being fixed. I'm writing you from the library in Norway, the town next door. I'll be leaving shortly to go back to the Ford dealership to have the placed back on the car...phew!!!

I wanted to let you know that I'm planning to be in the lab on Saturday. If any of you are uncomfortable with the idea of doing the virtual class from your home, you can come in and stay as long as you like. The option is yours!

I'll be there very early, just because I'm a morning person and I like to get organized for you guys before you get there. At any rate you don't have to show up in my office till 9:00 AM. I'll be in there early, but you needn't be.

Eric

After Class 1

Congratulations everyone, you made through our first class. All you guys were great!-funny, bright, accepting, responsive and very open.

I hope that you found the experience low stress, and enjoyable. I hope as well that you'll take much useful information away with you during and after the course because of what you've seen here..

IMPORTANT: Carefully record all usernames and passwords that you create each day (and every day actually) so that you don't find yourself wasting time looking for files that you need!

This blog is going to be one way that we stay in touch, given the fact that one of the classes will take place on line in real time (synchronous) and some of the course will be asynchronous. An overriding concern of mine has always been the comfort level of my students, since I believe that it has a direct correlation to how readily and enthusiastically the technology will be transferred to the classroom. To that end I will reiterate what we do in the course here and in my office at a virtual professional development center called Tapped In (http://tappedin.org).

Please make sure to check both sites during the week. As you know it's important that we set aside a regular time to perform that checking each week. In asynchronous classes, assignments get viewed by classes over the course of the week-and sometimes in an untimely way that does not allow enough time for thought and responses.

I'm acutely aware of the incredible demands on every classroom teacher. I think that you'll see that in the flexibility of the way in which I conduct my courses. We do need, however, to touch base a couple of times each week, no matter how briefly. In addition, please let me know as soon as necessary if anything I can control is causing you undue stress.

Yesterday, we did brief introductions, discussed our schedule of classes, traded email addresses, (mine as you know is egroves@comcast.net), visited my office at TappedIn and set up accounts and offices for you there, discussed blogs and set up one for each of you at eBlogger.

Please be patient with our pace whether it be, in your view, too slow or too quick. I'll try individualize it and tailor the material covered to each of you as best I am able.

Ok, let's get started with a short assignment:

Please go to the Websites of the two listservs that you chose to subscribe to yesterday. Since you could not have as yet received a deluge of information from them, which would happen over time, please go to their respective archives, do a search, and locate what you would consider two high quality lessons that you would use with your students. Next please cite them in your blog along with a couple of paragraphs outlining their purpose and your rationale for using them.

If it all works, each one of us should get an email notification from everyone else. Then please go to each of your colleague's blogs and make brief note of (hopefully) affirmation.

All of this will make you more comfortable with listservs, searching within them, and collaboration through blogs.

Even though you will receive this material as a email initially, please go to the blog itself for viewing at: http://mec-researchclass-sp2010.blogspot.com/

I will be off the tether from now till Tuesday during the day, so my responses won't appear till then.

Enjoy the holiday with your families tomorrow.

Eric

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to "Using the Computer as a Research Tool". I'm so glad to be teaching this
course and it's going to be nice to see some familiar faces as well as get to
know some new ones.

This post is an essential dry run, but it is only one of a number of ways
that we will communicate during the next 5 weeks or so.

The class will meet at 8:00 AM on the following days: Saturdays, Jan. 16, 23,
Feb. 4, and 27. If all goes as expected, the class on Jan. 23 will take place online. That's right. Our next class will be online; therefore you can break out the snuggies and the hot chocolate and never leave your couch.

In addition to our actual class time in MEC's lab, we'll be meeting virtually in
my office in TI's virtual professional development center (more about that
later) or via blogs (yours and mine) and email.

During the beginning of the first session, I'm going to try to learn about your
interests for your research and which directions you might want to proceed in with regard to your class project.

Before I forget, I want to give you my email address. It is egroves@comcast.net
and you'll find the addresses of your fellow students in first email's header. The address (URL) of this blog is the following: http://mec-researchclass-sp2010.blogspot.com/ and I will be using it to communicate with you between classes and as a fairly accurate chronicle of what we cover in each class.

More later on...

I'm trying to see if this will come through as an updated post.