More than You Ever Wanted to Know about CMS

Course Management Systems (CMS) provide a service to deliver educational courses. There are over 40 providers of CMS, making choosing a CMS an overwhelming task. There is a great web site call Edu Tools that compares CMS products. To view Edu Tools Click Here
Typically, CMS have the same basic components in common. These include:

Course Management: This includes a syllabus, calendar, announcements, and assignments with due dates and grades can be posted.

Readings: Links to course readings along with lists of required course readings.

Content Presentation: Lecture notes can be stores for student review. Links can be supplied for audio and video and slides. PowerPoint presentations may also be maintained in the CMS.

Course Communications: Supports asynchronous (any time any where) e-mail. This can be one-on-one, one-to-several, one-to-all. They also include chat rooms for class discussions.

Group Project Space: The system can allow instructors to assign students to groups and they, in turn, can share documents for discussion and revision.

Student Assessment: Provides tools for tests and quizzes. Some CMS allow the instructor to set the time frames for taking the test and set a time limit once the test is started.

Digital Drop-box for Assignment Submission: Can be provided for student submission of assignments.

Course and System Statistics: A CMS can provide tracking tools to allow the instructor to know when each student accessed the course components, how often, and how much time was spent. It can also provide other statistical information for a broader perspective.

Wikis and CMS can both contain communication and assignment tools. Wikis can be more personalized with pictures, etc. I found the Wiki a lot more fun, but the CMS is easier when having a class discussion. I also don't see a Wiki as being statistically friendly for the instructor.

Most of us who have taken a distance course are familiar with the Blackboard CMS. Someone else prefers Moddle. I would use the comparison tool to start, but ultimately it's just a matter of getting in and using one; and, if if works for you, that will probably be the CMS you stick with.

Web Office Applications

Web office applications can be educational, used for collaborative projects, or just for fun. Because my #2 grandson is into magic tricks, I have dedicated this power point presentation, Magic Cards ,to him. It's just a bit of fun and makes you wonder "How'd he do that!" If you take some time to think about it, you can figure it out.

Now a little about office applications. These applications include spreadsheets, calendars, power point presentations, to name a few. These can be stored on a web site for use on the internet. They can be shared with everyone or limited to invited guests. You can allow the items to be edited, for collaborative purposes, or you can shut off the edit feature. Sharing them on the internet seems so much easier than sending out individual emails. Also, as we become more and more mobile, it just makes sense to have our projects stored on the net so we can access them from anywhere we are likely to be.

Enjoy the magic trick!

How About A Survey?

Healthcare and health insurance is a big issue right now. While you are visiting this site, why don't you take a moment and participate in my very short survey on health insurance. Click Here to take survey

The survey site I am using is Surveymonkey. It is a free site for basic services and is super easy to use. Nowadays we participate in surveys for everything. Students can use them to gather statistics for projects, teachers can use them, and organizations can gather information and input from their members. I only wish I had known about this service when we were surveying our union members before negotiating a new contract. Putting surveys on the computer saves a lot of trees, and all the information gathering is done for you.

Every year my school district is required by the state to survey the parents about their school. Imagine the time and effort an online survey would save. Now, if I can just figure out a way to get all the parents on board.

About Videos

This week was all about videos. I took my trusty sony CyberShot digital camera and headed off to the Disney Resort area. There really wasn't one thing I wanted to video so I started taking short shots. The question was what to do with the little clips. I couldn't have 3 thirty second videos. As usual, this project started to snowball. I googled video joining and found a free site through gold-software (see my links) which allowed me to join my clips into one large one. The directions were super easy, and for me with little patience, it was a blessing. I then went to YouTube opened an account and easily uploaded my video, Disney Plaza, or you can view the video from this blog as there is a feature to insert videos.

Videos can be a great asset to a class. They can add a visual perspective to different places like the Disney Plaza video, or. . . . . . . .




they can be used for demonstration purposes like the video below of my #2 grandson showing off his yoyo skills.

Sharing Photos

When I mentioned that I would be sharing photos on my blog, it generated some interest with #1 grandson. He is very interested in American history and wanted me to post my pictures of Philadelphia. So, this slideshow is dedicated to my grandson. You can view the photos from the photo sharing site bubbleshare or you can view them from the slide show located on the right.

I really liked bubbleshare; remember it's all about being super easy. I downloaded my photos and the program let me rotate them, rearrange the order, pick an album background, and even add some text. The text function did not work all the time as you will notice if you view the slide show on my blog.

This time it was easy to import the html to put the slide show in the blog, but I'm having a bit of a challenge changing the size. It seems to be sort of okay for now.

I can see some educational benefits of photo sharing. They give us historical perspective. Additionally, photos can be our window to the world. They give us an idea of what things are like, but they only capture a particular view. I would hope that viewing photos would peak the viewer's interest to actually go to some of the places to experience what they had seen with all their senses thus making the picture complete.

More on Podcasts

Now that I have sufficiently recovered from my podcast experience, I can now reflect on the educational aspects of this technology. I see the big advantage being that podcasts are portable. You can download them to your Ipod and take them with you on your daily run, or in my case a quick walk with my outdated MP3 player. You can even play them in the car on the way to work.

Another aspect of podcasts is that they can help fill the gap for auditory learners. Being an auditory learner myself, being visually online all the time can be draining. Plus you can multi-task with podcasts, like fold laundry or cook dinner. Then, again, maybe podcasts aren't so wonderful. Wait, I just had another idea. Wouldn't it be great to play a podcast that gave directions to something and you could work along with the podcast instead of having to stop to read the directions at each step?

Podcasts do have their place, and I will probably try creating another one when life is not so hectic.

PodCasts - What a Nightmare!

Making the recording was the easy part. Just did what the text suggested and went to Audacity. Still, nowadays, there are no instructions. Just clicked around until I found record. When I was finished recording I followed the directions to export as MP3. That saved my recording to my flash drive. Now what to do with the file?

Blogger does not support MP3 files so I had to go to a third party host. The thing is, everywhere you visit you have to join up to get in to see the site, and frankly I lost track of how many sitesI visited. I need user friendly so I started with the text's suggestion of OurMedia.org. I got there and couldn't even figure out how to start. Finally, I googled free podcast hosting. I came up with 4shared.com. This sight was something I could handle, and I was able to link to this blog. The link sends you to the sight and then you play the podcast from there. To hear my podcast, you can click here . Okay, so that was basic. But, I wanted the picture of the little machine that you clicked on play and you could see the little line go across the screen.

The text suggested searching "enclosures" under the help section. I found out that it was possible to embed html codes. At this point this project became a collaborative effort. It was, "Okay, family, get on line and start lookin." Finally we hit on Podcastmachine.com. Previewing the site showed you could make your own player. I signed up, yet again.

Podcastmachine.com was more straight forward than some of the other stuff. After I made my player and saved it, I went to blogger layout and added a gadget for html java script third party code. I copied the html code and pasted it into blogger. And voila! There was my player on the side of the blog. But, now it was too big. I went back into the html code in the gadget and it was easy to see where to adjust the width and height.

I'm really happy with how this turned out. I know I drove everyone nuts, including myself. Now it's off to the NLC for residence week and really make myself crazy.

Check out my podcast player on the right side of the page for information on who I am in my other life.