F.R. “Fritz” Nordengren (beta)

The 12:10 conspiracy and what it means to you

Conspiracy is one of those words that evokes action, isn’t it?

Soon, you will receive an Outlook® Meeting planner or notice about the Lunch and Learn schedule. They are planned for the last Wednesday of each month beginning in Septemberand will begin at 12:10 (a clue). Each session will give some helpful advice and tips on different pieces of education technology. Some will build on earlier presentations — but — each will stand on it’s own — no prerequisites!

Not everyone can — or wants to — spend the lunch hour learning about web-techno-gizmo stuff. So along with this is another program called 12:10 (another clue). 12:10 is loosely based on some awesome work done by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County, set up by Helene Blowers, their Public Services Technology Director. 12:10 is an opportunity for you to explore 12 Education Technology tools and concepts and in addition to learning, be eligible for cool prizes. During September, I will post a list of 12 things you can do to learn more about education technology. Each of those items are things you can do on your own, when you want to. If you complete the item, you can record your progress. Our goal in 12:10 is to learn about 12 things in 10 months. (Yet another clue!)

All of the “things” are activities that are interactive — and will help you gain a better understanding of education technology concepts beyond pieces of software. So until later in September, be aware of the possible 12:10 conspiracy theorists… and look forward to having fun. (As preview, you might enjoy this short presentation 7 1/2 habits of highly successful lifelong learners)

We have a winner in our Trivia.quiz this week and I’m been very appreciative of the questions and the ideas for lunch and learn topics. Please keep them coming and feel free to visit, email, stop by if you want to talk about how I can best help you.

Last week we asked: According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project: What percent of all Americans have broadband access at home:

47 % or 29% or 15%

47% have broadband at home

15% are dial up.

29% are not connected. The balance of respondents had access some other place

This week’s Trivia.quiz

According to Pew (again) Which activity have more people reported they have done in the Internet:

1. Buy a product
2. Look for health/medical info
3. Search a map/driving directions

Email or post your comments to the blog. Winner receives desk-side beverage service!

Why Johnny doesn’t read (your textbook)

Yesterday’s Insider Higher Ed Insidehighered.com reported on a meeting over the weekend of the American Psychological Association. Research presented there reporte on how students evaluate textbooks and the factors that make them more or less likely to read textbooks. I think there is a corollary to other instructional media from this report, more on that in a second. The research suggested 4 factors:

Four factors (not all of which professors can control) best predicted whether students would spend more time with the textbook: gender of the students, the quality of visuals and the quality of photographs in the books, and the extent to which professors link assigned textbook sections to lectures and other in-class work.

What I don’t have from the InsideHigherEd piece is the definition of “quality”, but I can share from my experience: even in matters of taste and aesthetics, the lack or presence of quality is obvious, even to those with the most unsophisticated creative eye. (For example, a photo out of focus is obvious and a negative to most everyone.)

If want to ask you to indulge a leap of logic. Let’s explore “engagement” as one dynamic of whether a student reads the book. Can we borrow this idea of visual quality to explore engagement in other media? If so, then better quality images and visuals create higher engagement.

Quality images, quality visuals, quality audio are skills easily learned. With some simple skills, and a basic understanding of the fundamentals of media, everyone can make better presentations, better hand-outs, better, media. It’s not that quality visuals replace quality writing and instruction, it’s that poor quality visuals detract.

But as one of our learning partners mentioned to me in passing “I don’t even know what questions to ask,: which is a common sentiment when it comes to some things technical.

So I’d like to hear from you — what kinds of things you would like to know in a series of short (I do mean short) focused seminars on media production:

Graphics 101 I can’t draw a straight line, but can I get the computer to do it for me?

Photos: Why are my small photos SO BIG and my BIG PHOTOS so small?

Sound: The secrets of making audio work in your presentations

Video: The still / slide show vs full motion? Why, when and where?

Others? What would you like to learn to do better?

Trivia.Quiz UPDATE:

We had a number of guesses to last weeks quiz and the answer is: If MySpace were a country, it would rank between Brazil and Pakistan (8th!) , based on MySpace subscribers in July and the 2007 CIA World Fact book. I imagine MySpace will move to 7th place yet this month. (6th place will take a while!)

THIS WEEK’S Trivia.Quiz

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project: What percent of all Americans have broadband access at home:

47 % or 29% or 15%

Same deal as last week, send your answers, the winner gets the deliver of the beverage of their choice to their desk. (In the event of a tie, a random drawing will determine the winner)