Traveling into the Void

At least that’s how it feels when you are driving into a complete white out.  It seems like nearly all of my travel this 2011 semester has been timed to perfectly match a recent or approaching winter weather event.  I’ve had flurries, unplowed roads, thundersnow, snowy fog, etc.  Today’s trip to Brandywine:  calling for ice and sleet.  Add a thick crust of road salt to all of this and you have a perfect summation of life on the road as a traveling consultant in winter.

This is a good day on route 22, I’m afraid.

Now let’s put some of that Spring into this semester’s designation, shall we?

Stack of iPods

I have, sitting on my desk right now, a stack of iPod touch devices that I have slipped into Belkin Ergo cases with straps.  I have loaded onto each a copy of iMovie, a custom Media Commons background and an organized set of icons.  These devices are intended to travel to the upcoming TLT Symposium where they will be used as video capture devices that can allow attendees to record their community engagement experiences, edit them quickly and upload directly to our YouTube channel.

But these iPods represent a bit more than just a trinket to be used at a conference.  We are actually exploring how we can replace our fleet of Flip cameras as primary video production devices for each of the Penn State campuses here at the Media Commons.  The benefit is, of course, the flexibility of the iPod touch.  Instead of just shooting video, students could use the same sub-$300 device to edit, upload, research content online, record audio, take still photos, type up notes, etc.  And that’s just with the default apps.  One can imagine field guides, lesson manuals and more preloaded on iPods for specific classes.

Of course, all of this experimentation is leading us towards an even grander goal: iPad (2) as primary device for producing, editing and sharing content for students.  The promise of such a solution is too great to not begin exploring it now.  Being able to grow at the cost (in up front purchases and tech support complexity) of the iOS is so much more appealing than trying to add more Macs to each campus, don’t you think?

(From my iPad blog.)

DML Conference Schedule (Madness)

The Digital Media & Learning Conference has published its schedule for the 2011 “Designing Learning Futures” event and it’s a bigger collection of workshops and panel discussions than I imagined!  17 workshops and 42 panels are spread across several tracks on four days, providing ample opportunity to learn from some of the best minds in the field.  I’m most interested in the “Novel Content Sourcing: Reframing Curriculum for the 21st Century”, “Designing for designers: Exploring ways in which online community settings support young people’s participation as digital media creators” and “New Participatory Models of Professional Development” sessions – and that’s just from day one!  This conference should be a lot of fun – and Long Beach at the beginning of March is never a bad departure from the snow that keeps falling on University Park.