Watch: “Calgary” by Bon Iver
An absolutely excellent video for a fantastic song.
An absolutely excellent video for a fantastic song.
Today was the fifth and final of my MC 101 sessions for the Summer and I’d say the programming went out with a bang. New Kensington had the largest turn out of all the campuses I have been to with 17 people in attendance. Of those, about 65% were faculty, many of whom had not worked with the Media Commons in the past.
Though a full house, 031 ITC proved to be a great room for the event, making possible a fair amount of conversation during lunch with its U-shaped configuration. The flat panel TV with HDMI port that was brought in ahead of time worked out really well for the experimental afternoon session, too.
About that: Deborah arranged for a voluntary afternoon workshop on using our Mobile Media Pilot technology to create short videos. I used the iPad 2 as a teaching tool connected to a display for the first time today, which was a great way to show mobile iMovie – and come to the realization that there are enough differences in interface that also showing the iPod touch on a document stand might be a good augmentative strategy for later training. The participants really enjoyed getting out into the field with the iPod touch and produced good results in just a short time (around 45 minutes total).
Update: Evaluation
Participants at New Kensington were asked to rate the Overview session that started out the day. Responses were entirely positive, with 5 choosing Excellent and 1 choosing Good.
They were then asked to rank the entire day as Relevant and Interesting to them professionally. 4 Strongly Agree that MC 101 had relevance to their work and 5 Strongly Agree that the materials covered interest them.
Finally, participants were asked to rank the particulars of the day. Organization and Pacing scored highest marks with 5 and 4 Excellent responses, respectively. Communications and Refreshments received a 3/3 Excellent/Good split of responses, with the latter’s lower numbers probably resulting from a morning coffee mix up. The venue received 2 Okay marks, perhaps due to the full house we had which made 031 ITC a bit tight.
All respondents would attend this event again or recommend it to a colleague. The anecdotal responses also praised the way the event made MC resources approachable, as exemplified by this comment:
Absolutely an excellent workshop! The facilitator/presenter Nick was conversational and presented technical information in a very easy to comprehend way. The links and information were all very useful, and a lot of good questions from the attendees. Very impressive.
I’m now in the homestretch of my MC 101 sessions, rounding out my last week in Pittsburgh with my fourth session at Greater Allegheny. I arrived at campus early, but still found that the Traina presentation space was already being set up by Gil Loshelder (AV) and Housing & Food Services (catering). The space was excellent for the kind of event that I’ve been putting on and I think that is going to reflect in the evaluation data.
Ten people attended the overview and the Chancellor, Curtiss Porter stopped in over the lunch hour, bringing the total up to eleven. Two faculty clients who we have worked with in past semesters were present and the rest of the crowd was staff from across many areas of the campus. All participants were very interested in discussing the potential of the Media Commons for their departmental projects and the faculty were very curious about the Mobile Media Pilot as a means to shake up their courses for the Fall.
I followed up lunch (which was excellent) with a tour and a bit of hands on time for a few staff members who hadn’t yet seen the MC space. All three left with a good idea of ways they could take advantage of the editing space for media projects they had been considering for a few months.
Update: Evaluation
Only three of ten participants have submitted feedback, but I wanted to share the data so far and will come back around to update everything if more submission are received.
Two thirds of respondents thought that the Overview of the Media Commons and our resources was Excellent while one third thought it was Good.
All those participants who responded Strongly Agree that the MC 101 event was Interesting to them and two of three Strongly Agree that it was professionally relevant.
All logistical aspects of the event were ranked positively by the three respondents. Organization, Pacing and Venue received the highest praise while Communications and Refreshments were each marked as Good.
Everyone polled would attend the event again or recommend it to a coworker. The only anecdotal feedback concerned a more hands-on session being included with MC 101, presumably in the afternoon (which had not gathered enough group interest to merit booking one at this particular campus visit).
Ever wish your business card could say more about you than just your contact information? This “new” (to me – it’s actually from 2009) application of Augmented Reality helps take the lowly business card into the world of interactivity:
AR Business Card from James Alliban on Vimeo.
You could imagine adding the same sort of thing to your résumé header to play an introduction to potential employers or a sample reel of your work. Or in the middle of a written paper for a class assignment as a way to embed a supporting video or audio project. Really, I’m surprised we aren’t seeing MUCH more of this already.
I’d also recommend checking out James Alliban’s other immensely creative projects like Konstruct over at his site.
Despite many highway repairs, road closures and detours, I made it to Altoona today for MC 101 session #3 in 148 Hawthorn, a room I wasn’t even aware of until 9:30 this morning! The space is generally used for music practice and theory classes but worked fantastically as a presentation space. Again, the windows really made for a light, airy feel and the tall ceiling kept it seeming more like a gallery than a traditional classroom. (A slightly more powerful projector would have been the only improvement to the set up that I would suggest.)
Thirteen attendees made it out today for the overview session with a few more coming in to join us for lunch as a few left to tend to office needs or FTCAP obligations. Everyone seemed to enjoy the overview session and peppered me with lots of questions about topics like the Mobile Media Pilot, the One Button Studio and the EGC. I also had a few faculty folks who were surprised to learn that our MC training and support carries no cost for their departments.
My personal favorite part of the day was learning about a Norwegian TV project being filmed and live streamed from 20+ HD cameras attached to a mail ship sailing around the country right now – which Paula Ford posted to our Facebook page after telling me about it and sharing videos clips on her iPad.
Update: Evaluation< Same as Harrisburg and Shenango, MC 101 participants were asked about their experience of the entire event.
Eight of the thirteen participants responded to the evaluation in just 24 hours. Of these, all but one ranked the quality of the Overview session to be Excellent, with the remaining respondent ranking it as Good.
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All respondents felt that MC 101 was Interesting to them professionally (5 Strongly Agree, 3 Agree) and most felt that it was Relevant to their work (5 Strongly Agree, 2 Agree, 1 Neutral). Since this was a mixed crowd of faculty and staff, the emphasis on course projects may not have been entirely applicable to support staff from all departments.
Communications and Pacing received the highest marks of all event logistics (5 Excellent, 3 Good) while Organization was also highly ranked (4 Excellent, 4 Good). The Venue and Refreshments were generally marked as acceptable and I did receive one comment that the projector was not bright enough for the room, as I expected I might.
One respondent also provided the following commentary on the Media Commons in general:
You people there are the most helpful of any department at the university. I’ve been here for 2 years now and had a video project, sometimes 2 every semester and was always able to get help either on the website or by placing a phone call.
No matter how stupid my questions were, and trust me, in the beginning they were pretty bad, your people were always pleasant and explained to me either how to do what I wanted to do or took control of the computer and showed me.
You don’t usually find that kind of excellent service anywhere and I applaud all your efforts.
Parts are cheaper, knowledge and sharing are happening more than ever, and it’s easy to find people who have the skills you may need to work with. Even 3D printing is becoming more common. When you combine all this, I think we might just be entering a wearable electronics era.
Phillip Torrone provides an exhaustive (if exhausting) rundown of his experiments and the experiments of other within the realm of wearable technology. Notable mentions include the iCufflinks and Project Runway‘s Diana Eng.
(io9)
My second MC 101 session was at Shenango today and was another successful event, if anecdotal attendee response is used as any indication. All 8 registered participants made the trek out on a day threatening rain and joined me in Sharon Hall 314 (a room I hope to use again in the future for its airy set up and great windows overlooking town).
Lunch provided an opportunity to talk with the two faculty attendees who I have worked with in the past, Dr. Joy Perrine and Dr. Lisa Reeves Bertin. Joy is very interested in working on gamification concepts in her Fall courses and will be getting in touch with the EGC to discuss this further while Lisa is strongly considering an iPod touch pilot for her Fall MIS 204 class. Both Joy and Lisa are hoping to also book an MC open house event in conjunction with the student-run computer club on campus – around which training for their courses and a new faculty orientation to the Media Commons could occur.
Because most of those who registered were past MC clients, the focus of the afternoon session became a tour for the single newcomer. This tour proved to be very productive conversation opportunity as ideas were swapped for ways the Media Commons could be better integrated into the Library which is currently under renovation. I hope to have assessment results posted here in a few days!
Update: Evaluation
Like Harrisburg, I asked the attendees to rate their entire experience with MC 101 from beginning to end.
Of the attendees who evaluated the event, all said they Agree that the event was Relevant to them professionally and all thought the event was Interesting from their viewpoint as educators (1 Strongly Agree, 4 Agree).
Event Organization and Communications received highest praise (3 Excellent, 2 Good each) and Pacing (3 Good, 2 Excellent) and Venue (3 Good, 1 Excellent, 1 Okay) were also rated positively. Refreshments were least well-received anecdotally and ranked with 1 Okay, 2 Good and 2 Excellent. Compared to the meal options provided by C&J Catering at the Harrisburg event, I would have to agree that I would make different choices with catering were I to plan it again. Something to file away for next time.
Most importantly, 4 of 5 respondents would attend an event like MC 101 again or recommend it to colleagues – and the one who would not only wanted there to be more hands on opportunity at a future event, having already covered this overview. This response coupled with anecdotal feedback makes me confident future MC/EGC programming at Shenango is highly desired.
Well, this ought to be entertaining:
Salutations Lulz Lizards,
As we’re aware, the government and whitehat security terrorists across the world continue to dominate and control our Internet ocean. Sitting pretty on cargo bays full of corrupt booty, they think it’s acceptable to condition and enslave all vessels in sight. Our Lulz Lizard battle fleet is now declaring immediate and unremitting war on the freedom-snatching moderators of 2011.
Welcome to Operation Anti-Security (#AntiSec) – we encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path. We fully endorse the flaunting of the word “AntiSec” on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art. We encourage you to spread the word of AntiSec far and wide, for it will be remembered. To increase efforts, we are now teaming up with the Anonymous collective and all affiliated battleships.
Whether you’re sailing with us or against us, whether you hold past grudges or a burning desire to sink our lone ship, we invite you to join the rebellion. Together we can defend ourselves so that our privacy is not overrun by profiteering gluttons. Your hat can be white, gray or black, your skin and race are not important. If you’re aware of the corruption, expose it now, in the name of Anti-Security.
Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood.
It’s now or never. Come aboard, we’re expecting you…
History begins today.
Lulz Security,
http://LulzSecurity.com/
I’ll be keeping an eye out for all manner of juicy leaked documents. If governments thought WikiLeaks was a nuisance…
As Engadget says, this teaser debut video for Sony’s new line of tablets reveals next to nothing about the devices. But, man – it’s gorgeous! Can’t wait to see part two.
I know that the vast majority of people cannot sit through countless hours of financial documentaries like I’ve been doing recently (I realize I’m some sort of anomaly or glutton for punishment but I really do like them!), so this brief video explanation of what gives with the American economy is brilliant. Watch former Labor Secretary and economist Robert Reich explain it with pictures.