tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338158642012-01-30T12:52:42.117-08:00News, updates, and musings on learning technology at the University of Wisconsin OshkoshThe Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-14243095794927896302011-07-01T05:59:00.000-07:002011-07-01T06:04:30.020-07:00

Today is the beginning of my new job: Interim Chief Information Officer. I should say my additional job. I will still be Director of Learning Technologies. The leanest administration in higher education here in Wisconsin, ya know.That Interim puts kind of an odd spin on it. There's no press release for an interim appointment and by definition, it's temporary. It's not uncommon around here for

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-21854796694657043402011-03-03T07:47:00.000-08:002011-03-03T09:01:43.056-08:00

I had an idea that was actually the result of considering another problem for which the answer was making the class more student centered. One issue faculty always mention as an impediment to both effective class discussions and problems learning the material in general is that students don't do the outside-of-class reading, so you have to lecture in more detail than you might if they were

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-55547979573647873602011-02-14T11:32:00.001-08:002011-02-14T11:41:08.608-08:00

Last week I attended a planning session on our General Education program. At one point a discussion centered on the fact that many of our general education courses are offered in 200 seat lecture halls. Several methods were offered to improve student engagement, but the one that surprised me was team-teaching. That not only included the obvious gen-ed value of finding cross disciplinary

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-5798909223102879832011-01-28T08:24:00.000-08:002011-01-28T08:25:15.844-08:00

I'd like to announce a new series of Learning Technology workshops intended to showcase small but useful applications that are available for free. "A Digital Amuse-Bouche" will consist of one-hour hands-on IDEA Lab workshops offered 3:30 to 4:30 on Thursday afternoons five times during the semester. (The day was chosen using clickers to poll the audience at Passport to Technology last month)

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-69897796226752131002010-12-29T13:34:00.000-08:002010-12-29T14:06:37.578-08:00

Classroom response systems, aka clickers, are a great way to provide some interaction and student-centeredness to a large lecture hall class. Even in smaller classes, these systems can provide useful feedback to both instructor and student as well as providing stimulus for discussions. They are expensive though, and I always have my eye out for alternatives. Recently I've found two that can be

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-6087095250328087832010-12-27T04:41:00.000-08:002010-12-27T08:00:53.056-08:00

I've played guitar since I was thirteen years old. In college, I was an active local folkie. Except for one spontaneous coffee house performance in the late '70's, and accompanying Christmas carols at a pack meeting, I hardly touched it for the rest of the century. Then, in 2001 Sarah and Andy gave me an American Standard Telecaster, and a year later a Marshall amp. I've been a regular basement

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-7349239554478094242010-11-23T07:08:00.000-08:002010-11-23T07:36:34.830-08:00

One practice that wastes a lot of paper yet doesn’t yield any benefit is printing Powerpoint presentations one slide to a sheet of paper. One real downside is that it creates quite a stack of paper. Who needs to carry around 36 sheets of paper when you could get away with six. Another problem other than the simple mass of the extra paper is the hassle of leafing through all those pages to review

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-8996302440626864662010-09-15T06:52:00.000-07:002010-09-15T12:44:16.202-07:00

One of the weird things about learning technologies is the way new things pop in in fits and starts and dominate your life for a while. Some become so mainstream as to be almost invisible. Desktop Publishing came in the '80's, Presentation software (dominated by PP of course) and course management systems in the '90's, student response systems (clickers) in the oughts were exciting new

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-49171270975970262232010-09-08T07:30:00.000-07:002010-09-15T06:50:23.931-07:00

One of the changes I'm most excited about this fall is that all our classroom computers now have built in cameras and have the videoconferencing software Skype installed. Almost every faculty member has colleagues who are either experts on some topic you cover, or are teaching a similar class at another institution. Bringing in guest lecturers has always been a great way to engage students, but

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-31962189328072308462010-08-31T06:43:00.000-07:002010-09-01T05:44:43.725-07:00

I've worked for 25 years for Media Services at UW Oshkosh, but no more. I'm not going anywhere, but we're changing the name to Learning Technologies.If you think of the last time you actually held some specific media in your hand other than a CD or DVD (which are just digital storage devices), you'll understand the logic. The last time I saw a 16mm film was appropriately enough at my

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-30567361762048066752009-09-28T06:25:00.000-07:002009-09-30T07:25:13.537-07:00

One of the mainstays of 20th century audio-visual is the overhead projector (AKA view graphs to those with military backgrounds). As a matter of fact they're having remarkable staying power in the 21st. As with most technologies these days, it's being overtaken by a more flexible and convenient technology, the document camera. Overhead projectors have been nearly ubiquitous in classrooms. It

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-76513862728140135232009-08-28T08:28:00.000-07:002009-09-23T14:09:11.499-07:00

I contributed a post to the UW System Learning Technology Council Blog about Podcasting last week, so I might as well cross-post it here.You can go directly to it at this link.

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-48428194312046755012009-07-16T07:08:00.000-07:002009-08-28T08:35:41.189-07:00

This blog is supposed to be about instructional technology, but one of the first things you learn in instructional design class is that it isn't the solution for everything.I really enjoyed this post from a Geologist on using a technique to stimulate discussion. Actually I think it could be applied in developing discussions in an on-line class where it's critical to involve all members of the

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-23945384940224034592009-06-22T13:12:00.000-07:002009-09-30T07:29:39.681-07:00

Since the mid-'90's I've been doing workshops training people to use Powerpoint and do it effectively and have had a web page with my workshop handouts and presentations. In the presentation I use to introduce the workshops, one of the things I recommend is the use of custom animation to introduce concepts on a slide as you get to them in your spoken presentation. Recently on a Physics Blog of

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-85968061641862648452009-06-18T14:05:00.000-07:002009-06-18T14:16:59.724-07:00

The Church Lady always made that sound like a bad thing, but with instructional technology, making something more convenient can lead to benefits for learning. I recently participated in a planning meeting for a daylong faculty development session to inform faculty what instructional technology tools are available and to encourage adoption. We talked about what added value these technologies

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-69770142651801453262009-06-12T12:26:00.000-07:002009-06-12T13:13:47.096-07:00

Sometimes you do get what you want. This is a little bit of a long story involving the history of classroom technology and the sometimes labyrinthian budgeting of the University of Wisconsin System. The large lecture halls on our campus were some of the first rooms to be "technology enhanced," which means to have some sort of projector installed which will serve up the screen from an installed

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-12404798333763540752009-05-06T12:15:00.000-07:002009-05-06T12:28:23.899-07:00

Digital video is easy to capture with web cams  but they're usually have an unzoomable wide angle lens and have no viewfinder, so you have to watch the computer to point them.  Video is easy to capture with Mini-DV cams, but then you have to connect the thing to your computer and do a real time capture of the video.  There are VHS webcams out there that are pretty good camera's, but what use is a

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-44746165198258469492009-04-22T09:13:00.000-07:002009-04-22T14:36:56.782-07:00

I attended a joint meeting of several groups from UW System involving technology in one way or another.  One of the sessions in the Learning Technology Development Council focused on production of media and what resources were available to faculty to have materials produced for instructional use. A common theme that emerged is that many institutions have units that teach faculty how to produce

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-82883980629066461482009-04-16T07:43:00.000-07:002009-04-16T12:46:18.967-07:00

I seem to have a thing with video conferencing lately, but you really can't get more AV than interactive moving pictures and voice. Videoconferencing is a great way to bring distant experts in to interact with your class without paying for a plane ticket and a hotel room or to have a similar class at another institution collaborate or compete with your class. One objection I  hear often is that

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-28379360992560062252009-04-10T08:49:00.000-07:002009-04-10T09:54:01.120-07:00

Videoconferencing has been developed to reduce the amount of travel our faculty and staff have to travel to attend meetings. Most meetings we travel to consist of people from more than one institution. We can now make connections to up to three sites from all our video conferencing facilities.We have had video conferencing capability in two classrooms for quite a while, but most of the time

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-12915631106196249942009-03-31T13:41:00.000-07:002009-04-01T07:56:23.684-07:00

Titanfiles is a system which provides not only networked storage which is available on-line from anywhere, but it also allows you to control with whom you want to share either a single document or a whole directory. It also turns out that it's not a bad little video server. Digital video files have many useful purposes in education. You can provide a more personal message to on-line students or

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33815864.post-60917061256893200422009-03-26T13:01:00.001-07:002009-03-31T07:41:24.708-07:00

Easily the most widely adopted technology at UW Oshkosh is projecting some sort of computer image in the classroom.  Anyone who has been using them has probably noticed that the image on a lot of the projectors has degraded significantly.  The good news is we have discovered that many, but not all, will be able to be restored to almost like-new condition. This story mainly involves the NEC GT950

The Audiovisualisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14992589820467485368noreply@blogger.com0