Sofchalk Lesson Builder

This week our department decided to begin working with a content building software called Softchalk Lesson Builder www.softchalk.com. I personally worked with this software in one of my Ed. Tech courses over the summer which allowed me to share my feedback with my supervisors. The benefits of this software is that is provides learners with an interactive learning environment which includes puzzles, drag and drop activities and assessments. I am sure that this software also has potential in k-12 as it makes learning fun. What are your experiences with this software? If you have not used it, I encourage you to try it. Trial version is available for download and allows 30 days of unlimited use.

READI-Online Student Self Assessment

Today I started researching a product/service called READI (http://www.readi.info/index.cfm?fuseaction=home). It is basically a self assessment of basic skills (technical and educational) that allows students to determine if they are qualified to take an online course. Lately, our institution has seen a rise in "helpless" students who have a hard time in an online course. As usual, administration wants to reduce the number of these unprepared students and is considering the adopting of the READI assessment. I am fairly new to this service, but I wonder; even if the assessment tells a student they do not meet the minimum requirements to take an online course, what will stop them from registering anyway?

Perhaps this only applies to higher education, but since more and more ISD's are putting content online, this might be a solution to help those students who cant help themselves. What are your thoughts on this intiative?

Communication Tools in Online Courses

Today I provided a training for prospective Blackboard instructors at my institution related to communcation tools in an online course. I always try to stress to instructors the importance of having excellent communication skills in an online course. What I have done is take my own experiences in my online courses and used that as examples of how to improve future online courses/instructors. What do you feel would constitute good "communication" practices in an online course? Should instructors respond to emails in a timely manner or simply let the inbox reach numbers in the hundreds before a reply is provided?

Open Source vs. Real Software

I have to say that given the chance to work with Opensource software or purchasing supported software, I would always choose supported, "real" software. Too often the big buzz word in technology is Open source. The allure of "free" software might sound enticing to over-budgeted educational endeavors, but sacrificing the support structure to save a few thousands is not worth the "free" aspects of these types of software. Another buzz word about Opensource is customizable. this is misleading in that first of all in order to customize an opensource software you need to have a staff member with that knowledge. Next, inadvertatnly, the institution becomes a slave to the person who is adminsitering the program. If they leave, there goes the custom aspect of the opensource software.

Ok, now that I got that out of the way....please let me know which way you "swing" on this topic. Do you go for the cheap/free customizable software with limited support and a "do it yourself" type of administering or do you decide to pay the money to license a legitimate software with a real support structure?

The Jing Project

This weekend I was fortunate enough to download and use a new software; Jing. This software is a watered down version of Techsmith's Camtasia and can be downloaded for free at the following site http://www.jingproject.com/ . With this software I was able to create a quick tutorial (see below) using the video capture capabilities and also add narration at the same time. It also allows the user to save the output file or host it on the screencast website. I highly recommend using this free software for quick impromptu presentations/tutuorials. I do have to say that due to the "free" nature of this software, it is hard to add alot of flashy elements, but if you seek something straight to the point, this is the way to go. Remember its free to use!!

http://screencast.com/t/1ilm3pwY

Welcome to Blogging!

Lately, Web 2.0 technology such as blogs has seen a tremendous increase in popularity; most notably during the 2004 presidential elections and momentum has not dwindled since. What have been your experiences with blogging?