Author Archive for alan

22
Aug

Bryan Alexander on New Scholarship: NMC Conversations #5

By Alan Levine 1 Comment
Categories: Audio and Special Guests

NMC Conversations #5
[download MP3] 21.2 Mb 30:50

Continuing from Conversation #4, we again cover the Horizon Project theme by talking with Bryan Alexander on the 2007 Horizon Report horizon of New Scholarship.

As Director of Research for NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education), Bryan researches and develops programs on the advanced uses of information technology in liberal arts contexts. His interests “concern mobile and wireless computing, digital gaming, and social software. Other interests include digital writing, copyright and intellectual property, information literacy, project management, information design, and interdisciplinary collaboration”. In addition to publishing on NITLE blog’s Liberal Education Today, he posts frequently to his own blog, Infocult: Information, Culture, Policy, Education, travels incessantly for workshops and invited presentations, and publishes his work in places such as EDUCAUSE Review.

Based on discussions we have had with Bryan about connecting NMC and NITLE , and his active participation in our Future of Scholarship Track at the NMC 2006 Regional Conference, we were excited to connect with him for a conversation about one of NMC’s focus initiatives- New Scholarship.

While we started with some talk about the relationship of blogging and scholarship, we arched more broadly to areas of academic practices, publishing, innovation theory, and affordances of powerful tools such as visualization. We might have gone for hours if someone was not watching the clock.

For reference, resources mentioned include:

Read on for a full transcript of this conversation…

Continue reading ‘Bryan Alexander on New Scholarship: NMC Conversations #5′

06
Aug

Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay on International Project Based on Horizon Report: NMC Conversations #4

By Alan Levine 1 Comment
Categories: Audio and Special Guests

NMC Conversations #4
[download MP3] 11.9 Mb 26:00

With the arrival soon of the month of August, we at the NMC start thinking again about the Horizon Project as this is the time of year we assemble an advisory board that will generate the topics that will result in January 2008 as the next Horizon Report.

It was appropriate that we talked this time with two secondary school teachers, who work on two different continents, about the amazing project they ran this year based on the 2007 Horizon Report.

We spoke via Skype with both Vicki Davis, a teacher and technology leader at Westwood School in Camilla Georgia and her colleague Julie Lindsay, who is in transition from her position at the International School Dhaka (Bangladesh) to become an educational technology specialist at Qatar Academy (note, at the time of this call, Julie was on holiday on the Gold Coast of Australia, and our Skype connection was not optimal).

Ironically, I stumbled upon the project via a mention from Vicki via Twitter!

Their Horizon Project, which ran from April through the latter part of May this year, was an international collaboration between their two schools and three others in Austria, China, and Australia. In this project, student teams from across these geographically distant schools worked together to research the six topics of the Horizon Project. Using web 2.0 tools described in the report as well as others, they examines how the six will impact schools, politics, and society in the future.

This was an extension of the first Flat Classroom project, an award wining effort, that Vicki and Julie ran in December 2006.

We talked to Vicki and Julie about how their project came to be, what the students gained from the project, what the teachers gained, and heard fascinating insights into the ideas of the students. And it was exciting to hear that another iteration of their Horizon Project will take place in Spring 2008– plus we are hoping to have participation from these innovative teachers in our Horizon Advisory Board this year.

Some references mentioned in this interview include:

Read on for a full transcript of this conversation…
Continue reading ‘Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay on International Project Based on Horizon Report: NMC Conversations #4′

05
Jun

A Peek at the 2007 NMC Summer Conference: NMC Conversations #3

By Alan Levine 0 Comments
Categories: Audio and Special Guests

NMC Conversations #3
[download MP3] 14.7 Mb 21:20

Live from Indianapolis, Alan, Larry and Rachel invite special guest Darrell Bailey, Executive Associate Dean, Informatics at IUPUI to have a conversation about the 2007 NMC Summer Conference which starts here tomorrow.

In this podcast, Darrell shares his excitement about bringing the conference to his campus. We chat about the keynote sessions, featured sessions, the Five Minutes of Fame, poster sessions, some special awards that are being given out, special activities like the opening reception, the visit to the Eiteljorg Museum, IUPUI campus tours (see the Lambda rail, the hub for Internet 2!), the Friday night jam session. We have a number of events you can participate in remotely via Second Life, and Darrell shares the the keynotes can be seen on the Research Channel network. Look to the NMC web site for links as well to watch the keynotes live via streaming video. And see the web 2.0 content we are wrapping around conference events.

Read on for a transcript from this conversation…
Continue reading ‘A Peek at the 2007 NMC Summer Conference: NMC Conversations #3′

22
May

Virtual Worlds (and Beyond): NMC Conversations #2

By Alan Levine 0 Comments
Categories: Audio

NMC Conversations #2
[download MP3] 13.9 Mb 20:18

In our second podcast, we turn to virtual worlds– as many people know, NMC has been heavily involved these past 15 months with our NMC Campus in Second Life, but wanted to point out developments we are tracking in broader realm as part of of the NMC Virtual Worlds efforts.

For this session, Rachel takes a turn at the host of the show. Also, as we test out our podcasting techniques (we are located in three different states, and depending on the time of year, two or three different time zones!), this type we held our conversation in a Skype conference call. Alan captured the audio using Ecamm Call Recorder (Mac OS X application) which can separate audio input and outputs to different audio channels. So tune in for some sterophonic effects!

As a reference to topics and sites mentioned in this show, see also:

  • Eduserv Foundation Symposium “Virtual Worlds, Real Learning?” a conference from London streamed into three Second Life locations, one of them at NMC Campus.
  • Workshop on Theater in Second Life
  • Media Grid (Grid Institute, Boston College, Sun Microsystems) “a computational grid platform that provides digital media delivery, storage and processing (compute) services for a new generation of networked applications. Built using Internet and Web standards, the Media Grid combines Quality of Service (QoS) and broadcast features with distributed parallel processing capabilities.”
  • Project Wonderland (Sun) “Project Wonderland is a 3D scene manager for creating collaborative virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio and can share live applications such as web browsers, OpenOffice documents, and games.”
  • Burning Man Earth (Google) “a 3D virtual representation of Black Rock City, including theme camps, art installations, structures, and activities, that will be available year round, so you can learn what was done, how, and who did it … you can also contact and connect with people who did your favorite projects. As such, it represents a mapping of the Burning Man cultural genome.”
  • Torque Game Engine (Garage Games) “is a modified version of a 3D computer game engine originally developed by Dynamix for the 2001 FPS Tribes 2. The Torque engine has since been available for license from GarageGames to independent and professional game developers.” (description from WikiPedia)
  • Croquet Consortium “a powerful open source software development environment for the creation and large-scale distributed deployment of multi-user virtual 3D applications and metaverses that are (1) persistent (2) deeply collaborative, (3) interconnected and (4) interoperable” — SDK 1.0 released March 27, 2007
  • Second Life Educators Listserv (SLED)
  • Second Life Best Practices in Education Conference 2007 (May 25, 2007, free!)

In addition, this story came in after our recording:

  • IBM simulates business software in 3D game (CNET news.com) “Call it “SOA” for the gaming generation. IBM on Monday introduced a three-dimensional video game that puts a businessperson in a virtual office with the task of constructing a more efficient company. The game, called Innov8, is meant to address a lack of skills in understanding and improving a company’s internal business processes. “

Read on for a transcript from this conversation…

Continue reading ‘Virtual Worlds (and Beyond): NMC Conversations #2′

25
Apr

Welcome to the Show: NMC Conversations #1

By Alan Levine 0 Comments
Categories: Audio

NMC Conversations #1
[download MP3] 15.3 Mb 17:03

This is the kick off this new podcast series where Larry, Alan, and Rachel talk about the plans for this podcast series, why we are doing it, and outlining some things to look forward to in the future.

In our first few recordings, we are trying some different audio technologies as we refine the form. Today, we held a conference call on our telephone bridge we use for meetings, where the hosting service provides an optional audio recording.

Today’s conversations included:

  • What nmc conversations is — the format, guests, upcoming topics.
  • Why we want to do this — some of the history of the NMC’s focus on podcasts — its appearance in the 2006 Horizon Report, the Spring 2006 Online Conference on Personal Broadcasting last April with keynotes by Phil Long and Laura Blankenship
  • NMC Web 2.0 (Our new web site) and how this fits in with some exciting new things coming up
  • A reflection on how rich media content is changing how we think about almost everything.

We are now adding transcripts to our shows… read on.

Continue reading ‘Welcome to the Show: NMC Conversations #1′