Liberal Studies This Week

Monsters and Myths and my Obsession with Zombies

2010-05-24T09:46:00.019-05:00

After a grueling semester of reading a dozen or so memoirs, three Beatle books, and countless web-based links, I'm beginning to understand that online LIS majors better deserve Pinkerton's motto of "We Never Sleep." Indeed, the ever present reddened eyes of LIS majors are strained, dried, and yearning for a much needed rest.

But I couldn't help opening the book for this summer's MPH478 course entitled, The Body of Frankenstein's Monster by Cecil Helman. I'm sure most of you already know, but it seems I always have to remind myself that Frankenstein is not the monster, but rather the Swiss doctor who egotistically offered us mankind's first abomination as well as the "mad scientist" myth. I've only read the introduction and the first few chapters, but so far Helman's book magnificently explains my obsession with the supernatural and how it plays into our psyche.

For those like me who are fascinated by monsters and zombies (I know you're hiding somewhere out there) this book addresses the physical connection to these fascinations, and most important, why all this has stood the test of time. It's a very good read thus far.

Although I get a little frightened when a four credit course requires only one book, I'm really looking forward to it nevertheless.

Gotta love liberal studies!

Prezi

2010-04-17T19:30:00.003-05:00

I'm still fine tuning this project but I wanted to throw it out there to get some feed-back.

I think I've mentioned Prezi in the past. I've always hated PowerPoint but Prezi is slick enough that I'm willing to ignore my dislike of presentation software. It allows the user to not only present information, but to present it visually in a way that reinforces the content. In this example, I've been able to plot out a structure that, to some extent, illustrates a seemingly complicated curriculum AND I'm able to fly around the illustration to present the details.

LIS Degree Planning on Prezi

General thoughts on the iPad.

2010-04-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, I may be a fanboy but I like the iPad. Is it just a big iTouch? Yes, but the first thing I thought when I used an iTouch nearly three years ago was “this would be great if it were bigger.”

The combination of an A4 data processor and solid state memory adds up to the fastest computer I’ve ever used. You can expect responses measured in fractions of a second.

The display is beautiful and the sound is surprising full given the tiny speaker port. I used the ABC app to watch the Jamie Oliver program that I missed when it was first broadcast and it was such a satisfying experience that I can imagine watching programs on the iPad rather than recording them on my DVR and watching them on my large screen television.

The touch screen is VERY sensitive. I didn’t have a problem with this but family members, who are not iPhone users, noted that they were having trouble controlling the touch-based operating system.

I didn’t spend a lot of time outside using the iPad so I don’t know that I can give you a definitive answer on whether you could read a book in full sunlight. Bright sunlight is clearly not the optimal viewing environment. The screen image does lose some of its crispness in sunlight but it is still remarkably easy to see details on the screen. If I were to guess, the problem will not be the image on the screen but the reflection on the screen.

As much as I like the hardware, it will be the software that makes or breaks this new class of touch-tablets – there will be many released this year including the Joo Joo which is now available. At this point, there are not a lot of apps so I feel a bit like a new sports car owner who’s only allowed to drive in a parking lot.

ABC, Netflix, USA Today, BBC, New York Time and Epicurious.com all have great apps. They have taken advantage of the iPad’s operating system and created custom browsers that present their content brilliantly. Apple has added a lot of finish to simple things like contacts, calendars, iTunes and the app store, and the Safari browser. Without a doubt, the iPad email client is the best I’ve ever used. I’ll admit, I’m not sure that I’ll like typing long emails on the virtual keyboard but I’m not sure there’s a better way to read emails and keep in touch with friends and family.

I’m really looking forward to new software as it is developed but there are a few things that I think Apple should add to the operating system.

Okay, the iPad is primarily designed to consume information and not to create it but that doesn’t mean that I don’t need the ability to print. Most of the apps allow me to email information, which is a way to get data of of the iPad, but why not give me a wireless printing option? Yes, there are wireless printing apps but this ability should be native to the OS.

In the same vein, I bought Pages and Numbers (think Word and Excel if you’re a Windows person.) These apps allow me to save to iWork.com, which is fine I suppose, but there are other clouds – why not MobileMe or Google Docs? The more Apple allows me to move data off and on the iPad wirelessly, the more likely it will fit into my lifestyle.

As I was considering this, I began to think of the iPad as a portable device and the iPhone as a mobile device. The iPad is easy to carry around the house or pack up and take to work or to Starbucks but the iPhone fits in my pocket and is with me at all times. They should work in tandem.

For example, as I was playing with the Epicurious.com app, I noticed that with one touch, I could create a shopping list for each recipe. What good is that shopping list if it stays on the iPad and I have to lug its fragile glass screen to the grocery store? Why not a “send to iPhone” option? This way, iPad allows me to consume information, in this case a recipe, and iPhone would allow me to carry necessary information that I need into the world.

Friday Fun - cat humor

2010-03-19T10:50:00.002-05:00

Yes, yes, Internet cat humor is trite but this one features a cat that looks just like mine. Moreso, my cat's meow sounds a lot like this cat's 'mouse.'

Evernote?

2010-03-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

So about Evernote, it is a place on the web to save notes. That's it, nothing more. You can save documents, images, voice memos, emails. You can select text from a webpage and save it or you can archive the entire webpage for future use. You can add labels to each note to help you with future searches. You can create notebooks to help you organize notes around a central purpose.

To help you, Evernote provides a number of tools. You can log-in to their webpage to organize and access your notes or you can download their software so you can open the client on your desktop - this allows you to drag-and-drop files as you organize them into notebooks. You can download webclippers so that you can save webpages from Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, or Chrome. You can use an Evernote client on your smartphone. There is even a growing list of software and hardware options that interface directly with Evernote - Wacom tablet EyeFi photo cards, Lexmark scanners, etc.

So how is this useful? However you make it useful.

Some of their examples include a library of business cards in photo form, the details of your vacation planning, the research you do for making major purchases, a record of your favorite restaurant menus. Its use is totally dependent upon your imagination and needs. I have notebooks to archive webpages which may "inspire" future design projects I might develop, recipes that people recommend, movie reviews.

A free account has a few limitations and includes a banner ad but it is fine for most needs. If you end up becoming a power user, it costs just $45 a year.

Andy thinks too much about technology.

2010-03-09T19:22:00.000-06:00

When I was an art major I learned about the concept of negative space. The space around your figure can be as important or more important than the figures themselves. If you’ve never heard of this, consider this simple example.

It’s only recently that I began to consider software and product design in terms of negative space. I’ve always been one to want to know something’s purpose. What’s it for? Tell me about the features? It never occurred to me that a brilliant design might mean leaving questions like these unanswered. By not telling a user a product’s purpose, a designer allows each user to identify its purpose so that unknown potential might be explored. So a product’s purpose need not be limited to its form but can be defined by space in which it exists.

Consider Twitter: what is it? A social network? A marketing tool? A forum for ritual communication? A search engine? A news aggregator? A tool of social justice and democracy? A creative writing medium perfectly suited to metafiction?

Yes, it’s all of these things but not because the creators told us so. They created a simple tool for micro-blogging which people didn’t seem to understand at first. The website was sparse with not a lot of guidance and very limited functionality. The buzz was that users should tell readers what they were doing from moment to moment but this was just what the tech-geeks wrote on their blogs. In practice, it was playground without any rules and it was in this lack of a singular purpose, which may have reduced Twitter to a fad, that so many varied purposes evolved.

I started writing this to introduce why I was recommending Evernote but I’ll leave this to the next post.

Radio Free Springfield.

2010-02-09T17:23:00.004-06:00

If you've taken Media from a Liberal Arts Perspective or Computer Mediated Communication, then you know Jim Grubbs. (You may not realize it but he was also one of the professors who designed LIS 301.)

When Jim isn't teaching in the COM program, he is the administrator of our campus radio station, The Prairie Star.

To be clear, we have two radio stations at UIS. We have a traditional broadcast station which is an NPR member. If you're in the area, you can listen to WUIS at 91.9 FM but you can also listen online.

The Prairie Star is an online radio station which acts as a teaching lab. Before the station found its permanent home, it was secretly housed just down the hall from my office and Jim was always gracious to share his progress and even to let me listen in before the official launch.

So, if you must listen to the radio while you do your homework, you might as well make the station The Prairie Star

UPDATE: I received a nice email from Bill Wheelhouse, the General Manager of WUIS. He noted that WUIS is now broadcasting an HD channel - Alternative Public Radio. If you have an HD radio you can tune in to 89.3 in the area or listen to the broadcast online. I'm listening now and the recent music playlist includes Prince - Little Red Corvette, Richard Thompson - I Feel So Good (I love that album), Tears for Fears - Shout, and Run DMC - It's Tricky. That's a lot of variety and nothing like NPR:)

Friday Fun - Cherpumple

2010-01-29T16:20:00.002-06:00

What is Cherpumple? Better to watch the video than hear it from me.

It's like repeatedly hitting yourself in the head with a hammer . . .

2010-01-27T16:07:00.000-06:00

Last fall I thought: I like the Beatles and Michael Cheney has always been a nice guy, so I’m going to ask him if I can sit in on his online course. He graciously agreed.

Mind you, I’m not really taking the course. I’m reading the assignments and watching the videos and listening to the music but I’m not writing the papers or taking the quizzes. Still, even though I’m only doing half of the work, IT’S A LOT OF WORK! Don’t get me wrong, it’s a reasonable amount of work for the credit I might earn and the books are really good but I work all day and then I have to come home and do homework! What’s up with that? Shouldn’t this be easier?

And, scene.

That was my improvisation of stressed out student but even though my tongue is in my cheek, it doesn’t mean that the feelings aren’t real. The class is a lot of work even though I’ve only taken on half of the work load – and the fun half at that. This stress isn’t new to me. I earned my BA and MA while working full-time. I remember how discouraged I felt keeping up this workload knowing that it was going to take years to reach the goal. Still, even though I remember the experience, I forgot how it felt to balance work and class until last weekend when I spent hours going over the syllabus, reading, and watching 2 long videos. (Of course, I didn’t read the syllabus correctly and I watched the entire videos rather than just the short pieces I was supposed to watch for week one.)

I’m not sure why I thought to post this other than to acknowledge that the memory of my student experience, which I’ve always thought helped me relate to adult students, has become a fading memory without me realizing it. So, it’s good for me to experience this again – but maybe it’s good for you to know that the stress and anxiety will one day be a fading memory.

(By the way, the conclusion of the post title is . . . because it feels so good when you stop.)

Friday Fun - yes, I'm okay being a nerd

2010-01-22T16:37:00.002-06:00

Last week, the Consumer Electronics Show took place in Las Vegas. This is the mega trade show which previews all of the things we’ll waste our money on in the coming year (or at least dream about wasting our money on.) Here are the three things that I might consider wasting my money on.

Boxee Box is a software package that hardcore nerds use to watch and interact with Internet content on their television. In the past, you had to create a media server if you wanted to use Boxee on your living room television but now you can buy the Boxee Box. Not only does it stream Internet video to your television, it also can pull your audio and video from your computer through your wireless network. If you have the nerd gene, check out the cool design and look at the backside of that cool remote control.

I sent this link to my wife and her response was just ‘COOL’. The ORB ring is a simple band with a high-resolution display screen. When your cell-phone rings, your ORB ring will vibrate. Look down, and you’ll see the caller ID on the screen. (This is where we get our nerd on.) If you want to talk to that person, take off the ORB ring, twist it and it becomes a Bluetooth headset. It also displays text messages and calendar reminders if you use a smart phone to sync to your calendar.

Do you own a hybrid vehicle? Ever wish you had that technology in a bicycle. If so, Sanyo has the eneloop for you. Okay, I’ll admit, when I was a kid, television promised me a hover car by 2010 so I’m a little disappointed that we ended up with the eneloop but that’s only in comparison to me Jetson-inspired fantasy. You have to admit, this is a pretty neat idea.

Do you take pictures and share them online? You might try the Eye-fi It looks like a traditional media card, because it is with storage up to 8 GB, but it’s also a wi-fi device that allows you to use wireless networks to send your photos to the Internet directly from your camera. Sure, you can buy a digital camera that is wi-fi enabled but what if you already have a digital camera. Just slide the Eye-fi in your media port and you’re ready to go.

And, if you’ve ever wanted to spend a full-year’s salary on a television CES had a lot of options most of which were 3-D enabled. For me, I like the Toshiba Cell TV. No, it’s not a cell phone but a cell computer microprocessor which (if I understand correctly) is capable of as many a trillions FLOPS (calculations) per second. To give you an idea of the computing power here, this television is yet another 3-D enabled television but it is also capable of converting a traditional 2-D broadcast to 3-D on the fly. It also has 512 dimmable zones. (If you’re a nerd you know dimmable zones create deep blacks on a television image and that 512 is 4 to 5 times what you’d expect.)

It’ll cost a fortune but it comes with a terabyte media server, a Ble-Ray player, video phone built in, WiFI and interaction with Netflix, Vudu, Pandora etc AND it has wireless HDMI. Look at the picture and you’ll see a screen and a box. The screen hangs on the wall but the box is the actual television. Its wireless beams its muscle to the screen.

If you want to see more tech from this year's show visit their site

Woohooo! Three day week-ends every month! Oh wait . . .

2010-01-20T16:33:00.000-06:00

If you have not yet heard the story, faculty and academic professionals (people like me) will be taking one furlough day per pay period this semester. (We only get paid once a month so it’s not as bad as it sounds.) There has been a lot of debate about how this might affect students. I’m on the fence, what do you think?

The furloughs are due to the fact that the State of Illinois has not actually provided us with much of the money that was allocated to us in the state budget. I’m sure if my understanding is still accurate but we’re 50% of the way through the fiscal year and we’ve been given about 4% of our funding. If there is not impact on students why not do away with our funding altogether? Clearly we don’t need it if we can carry on without it.

On the other hand, I think most would agree with me that we have an obligation to do whatever possible to look out for students’ best interests. Whether I’m paid 100% or 95% of my salary, I don’t punch a clock. I work whatever hours I need in order to get my work done and I’m okay with this because I chose this job. I’m must rather be paid a bit less and work long hours from time to time if I can do the work I do rather than some other job that I don’t value.

So what do you think? Should furloughs be as invisible to you as possible or should we use these days to make a statement?

One way or another, the furloughs probably won’t be completely invisible. You may notice that furlough days are noted in your syllabi or that an email might result in an auto-response about that person taking a furlough day. The fact is that when I take a furlough day, I can’t read emails or return phone calls. (Of course I have free will and could do this but that would create legal/financial difficulties for the university so I won’t.) This is true of everyone else.

So, you may have a dire emergency that only one person can resolve. If that emergency happens on that person’s furlough day, it will not be addressed until the person returns and catches up on the lost work. Of course this is just a what-if. For example, I’m sure the health services and counseling offices aren’t going to completely abandon students. They’ll work to maintain coverage. Still, you may have an issue that seems dire to you. You may have an important question about an assignment and not being to move forward without an answer. In truth, these “emergencies” happen even without furlough days. (What is the saying?: one person’s emergency is another person’s lack of planning.)

Hopefully, these days will pass as painlessly as possible but do realize that a furlough day might result in a delayed response.

Friday Fun - Bed Jump

2009-12-11T10:31:00.003-06:00

Okay, finals are next week and soon you will need to relax. For some, I'm sure the one thing they want to do is to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. This blog thinks you should jump rather than crawl into bed. Well, it just thinks you should jump.

http://www.hotelsbycity.net/blog/bed-jump/

Oral History at UIS (SSU)

2009-12-10T14:42:00.001-06:00

One of the best kept secrets at UIS is that in the early days of our university, we had an active Oral History office. I’m far from an expert on this topic but my simple description of oral history is that it is an effort to interview people who have observed and participated in history (also known as everyday life while it is happening.)

You can find a guide to our Oral History collection here

There is a mix of transcriptions you can read and recordings of original interviews which were never transcripted. Some of the oral histories were parts of extended project and others are just interesting stand-alone interviews. I spent an hour or so reading an interview with one of the original SSU librarians (UIS was SSU in its earliest days.) It was remarkable interesting to hear how a university library collection comes into being. Once you have a million volumes, you never really think about the day in which you didn’t have any books, or even shelves.

Among the many projects, there is a series of interviews with people who have lived through the 1908 race riot in Springfield. You can read some of these transcripts but also find some of the recordings in iTunesU. Just open iTunes and search for 1908 race riot. You’ll find the oral history recordings under Revealing Voices which will be listed in the iTunesU section.

Say 'cheese'.

2009-12-04T19:45:00.001-06:00

If your family is like mine, you’ve reached the time of year when your picture will be taken as often most celebrities. You can’t fix an awkward facial expression but you can really tweak most photographs so that they look like a professional took them. I’m pretty good with Photoshop and nearly everything I learned came watching the Photoshop Workbench.

The workbench is a regular series in which Mark Johnson takes a photograph and makes it better. What I like about the series is that it doesn’t feel like a how-to or instructional series. Instead, it’s like watching over the shoulder of a really talented guy at work. As you watch the videos, you may not ever need to do exactly what he does to a specific picture, but watching him will demystify the tools so that you feel comfortable playing with them yourself.

You can find his website here. Yes, there is an ad for his DVD on this page (I bought it a couple weeks ago even though I’ve already watched most of them years ago, so yes, they are that good:) If you scroll down though, you’ll see the workbench videos.

If you are brand new to Photoshop, I would recommend some of his earlier videos. They are hard to find so here is a direct link. This is a 9 part Photoshop 101 and some of them are pretty techie but I’d recommend parts 6 through 9 – part 9 is really great.

What’s that, you don’t have Photoshop? It’s too expensive? Come on, it’s only a thousand dollars! That’s a reasonable price to pay for professional looking snapshots but, it you don’t have the money to spare, remember that you are a student and can get big discounts on software. The thousand dollar Photoshop is only $176 if you buy it from the U of I.

If even that is too much money, you can download GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) here. This is an open source photo editing program. It doesn’t work exactly like Photoshop but many of the underlying concepts are the same.

Congratulations

2009-12-03T17:09:00.002-06:00

If you know Dan Bornt, send him an email and congratulate him.

He's recently been informed that he has won first place in the Lincoln Forum's essay contest. This is a national competition with recent winners from Cornell, UNLV, DePaul, Harvard, and Southern Illinois University.

You can read more about the contest and the Lincoln Forum at http://www.thelincolnforum.org/scholarship-essay-contest.php

Text Books!

2009-11-18T09:33:00.003-06:00

I suppose Congress deserves most of the terrible things we say about them but they do, on occasion, do something useful. Case in point: H.R. 4137 Higher Education Opportunity Act which was signed into law by President Bush in August 2008. This is the most recent reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 which, among other things, is the law that funds federal financial aid programs.

This time around (this is the 8th reauthorization) Congress has included text books in their review. There are two interesting sections.

Section 112 requires schools to provide timely information about required books so that students might be better consumers and so that they might acquire their books as quickly as possible. For example, it requires schools to list the ISBN and retail price of the required and recommended books in their online schedules - so students will know how much they should expect to spend on books before they enroll.

Section 803 provides funding to establish pilot programs "to make it possible for bookstores to give students the option of saving money by renting course materials." This doesn't mean that book rentals are around the corner for every school but it's interesting (to me at least) that this idea was deemed important enough to include in reauthorization. The next reauthorization is due at the end of 2013 so if these pilot programs go well, maybe this idea will be expanded next time.

Enough of the boring stuff and on to the useful part of this post. It is still not completely clear how UIS will implement the requirements in Section 112 but there is an early indicator on our website right now. Earlier this semester, I wrote a post about a new tool available on the registration website called the UIS Semester Planner. If you go to the registration website now and look under the Course Schedules link, you'll see that this tool has been renamed the UIS Semester Planner and Textbook Information! If you want to know what books are required for your spring classes, you can find the details now. (You are seeing what the bookstore has on file so if you don't see information it is because they don't have the information.)

Friday Fun - The Giz Wiz

2009-11-13T09:18:00.004-06:00

Do you like gadgets? Doodads? Doohickeys? Do you find yourself browsing at Best Buy? Do you go to the mall just to play with the display items at Brookstone?

If you said yes, you probably know the Giz Wiz already but if not there is still hope for you.

The Giz Wiz is Dick DeBartolo. Who is he? Well, if you've read a Mad Magazine at any point since 1966, you've probably read his writing.

If you ever watched the Match Game, you've heard the questions he wrote. You can see Match Memories here. (This is an unedited behind the scenes of the recording of that program.)

But if you like gadgets, you can think of Dick DeBartolo as the Giz Wiz. Today marks the 960th episode of the Daily Giz Wiz podcast on the TWiT Network with host Leo Laporte. if you have 15 minutes to waste each day, you can keep on top of the gadget market. Beware though, regular listeners end up buying gadgets.

Something to listen to on the treadmill

2009-11-10T12:15:00.002-06:00

Well, my goal of 2 weekly blog posts was dashed on the rocks of spring registration. Hopefully I’m back on track this week although I have to admit that my brain is still shut down from too many hours staring at a DARS report.

On to more important matters – have you ever heard of iTunesU? If you are a regular iTunes user, you may have noticed that when you search for content, iTunes searches across all categories: songs, movies, television program, podcasts, apps, and iTunesU. For example, if you search for parliament, you get great funk albums, political podcasts from Great Britain, season one of Babylon 5 (I’m not sure why), and an entire page of educational content from iTunesU.

iTunesU is a way for member schools to provide content through the iTunes Store. Like most podcasts, the content is free. This is a great outreach tool for schools since more than 200 million iTunes user world-wide can access their educational content as easily as they can download a copy of ‘Thriller’. You may be able to supplement what you are learning in your classes. Struggling in a philosophy course? Maybe Philosophy for Beginners from University of Oxford might help. It is also a great course tool since iTunesU campuses can also limit access to content so some content may be available to the world and other content may password limited to students enroll in a particular class.

UIS first became an iTunesU school in January 2007. I’m not completely sure, but my understanding is that at that point, we had an iTunes server but we weren’t linked into the iTunes Store – you had to come to the UIS website to access our content. This past summer, UIS was accepted for listing in the iTunes store so now if you type my last name into iTunes, you’ll find the podcasts that I did last year (I feel like a minor celebrity.)

You can search for UIS in iTunes or you can go directly to the UIS iTunesU page here You’ll find a variety of content from Speakers Series recordings, to campus community podcasts, to the podcasts used in online courses like the new LIS 460 The Beatles: Popular Music and Society. Dr. Cheney, who created this course and the podcasts, says that they have gotten a lot of attention since UIS was accepted into the iTunes Store – 56,000 download or previews in the last three months.

Friday Fun: Something good on televsion - just not here

2009-10-23T11:08:00.004-05:00

First, an apology. My goal is to add something useful and something useless every week but it's been a particularly jam-packed schedule the past couple weeks. If it helps, I did create the list of online courses and added that link to the main program page - you can find it here. That wasn't a blog post but it is useful all the same.

This week, I'm thinking that we need better options for television programs than odd men pretending to put their children in flying saucer balloons so that they get a reality show so that they can be followed around by photographers leading to endless complaining about their lack of privacy. I'm not sure what this Japanese television program is, but I'll take it over most reality shows any day.

Check out Chappie TV for more

You totally look like . . .

2009-10-16T11:21:00.008-05:00

In my life, I have been told I look like many people. The most common and the one that was, at times, creepily true in the 1980s was that I looked like John Cusack

I didn't really like going to his movies because we did look an awful lot alike in those days and it was uncomfortable to see that face so large.

In the same time frame, my sister used to tell me that I looked like Tom Hanks. I think it was because we both had curly hair in an era of feathered hair.

When the Culture Club became an MTV staple, a picture of Boy George without his make-up rose to the surface. Yep, he looked at lot like me, even in my opinion.

As we all grew older, I looked less and less like them but started to look like someone else who had entered the spotlight. Even my wife thought I had the Data look and she bought me a small Data statue next to my computer keyboard.

Now that I think about it, the first time anyone told me that I looked like someone else was way back in grade school. That person is still a close friend and he will still occasionally refer to the fact that he thought I looked like Pinochio. I don't recall lying a lot back then and a didn't have a big nose (that came with puberty) so I can only assume that it was because I had a Pinochio lunch box and that's how he could tell me apart from all of the other kids.

If you're into people who look like other people (or things) you'll totally like this website

http://totallylookslike.com/

So. Who do you totally look like?

Friday Fun - This kinda stuff never happens to me

2009-10-09T14:21:00.002-05:00

I really like The Sound of Music for a number of reasons: it was on TV the first time I kissed my wife, it was directed by Robert Wise who edited Citizen Kane and directed The Day the Earth Stood Still (the good one, not the one with Keanau) and it was playing in theaters the day I was born. This video gives me a fourth reason.

All Things Google

2009-10-09T09:03:00.005-05:00

I like Google. I mean I really like it. Over the past year I have been slowly transferring everything I can over to Google. This includes my word processor, spreadsheets, and email. I do believe that in the near future professors will be able to use Google instead of Blackboard for running courses. We already use Blogspot and Google's wiki is much better than PB wiki or the other free competitors.

There is so much Google offers, it can be a bit overwhelming at times.

This Blog gives the ins and outs of Google. I find it incredibly useful. Whether you are an online student or on campus, if you are looking to make your electronic life a little better, check it out.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

BK

Developing a plan for your degree

2009-10-07T16:13:00.003-05:00

Creating an LIS degree plan can be a daunting process. Students must balance requirements and Boyer categories and the resulting process can seem like putting together a jigsaw puzzle of polar bears on a snowy day. It need not be that hard. Yes, there are dozens of decisions to make but this doesn't mean you have to worry about every decision. Here is how I would create an LIS degree plan.

When you start the degree planning process, you will have covered all 8 Boyer categories and should have a fairly good idea of what each entails and how it might fit into your academic planning. I'm not going to suggest that you forget all of this, but I would suggest that you put Boyer on the back burner as you start the process.

Degree plans include requirements, courses that you consider vital to your personal academic goals, and classes that may not be as important to your personal goals,but which are still necessary to meet our degree requirements. If I were creating a degree plan, I would address these three types of courses in order.

First, list all of the classes you need to take: LIS 301, LIS 451, an LIS program elective, ECCE, General Education courses (if you still need them.) There are some options to consider but you can't get away from these classes - they're required so write them down first.

Second, list the courses you really want to take and that you feel are important to you personally. This might take some research to identify your options but this should be the fun part of your planning. Hopefully you'll be able to fit all of these courses in your degree but they are a lower priority than the must-have requriements.

Once you have these two lists created, pull Boyer off of the back burner and consider how the classes you've listed fit into the eight categories and assign a Boyer category to each of them. If you've chosen the LIS program correctly (meaning you truly want an interdisciplinary degree)then your list of requirements and important classes will likely cover most of the Boyer categories.

If you've covered 6 of the Boyer categories without even considering Boyer when you developed your lists, then it's like having the jigsaw puzzle 80% completed before you start working on it. This way, you can worry about the 2 Boyer categories that didn't fall naturally into your plan rather than worrying about each of the dozens of decisions required by the planning process.

Friday Fun - An ode to eating too much

2009-10-02T12:24:00.003-05:00

I may have mentioned this blog last year but it's still one of my favorites. Whether you need motivation to drop a few pounds or, like me, you like to look at food that is really bad for you rather than eating, you can't go wrong with This Is Why Your Fat. To give you an idea of what to expect, let me introduce you to The Widowmaker.

This is described as a pound and half of ground beef, a package of bacon, a package of italian sausage, a box of Hot Pockets, a half package of fried onion strips sandwiched between two Tombstone pepporoni pizzas then topped with Velvetta and marinara.

Look for more delicassies like this at http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ You'll even find Springfield's own horseshoe sandwich listed.

Speaking of horseshoes, Springfield will be featured on the Travel Channel's Man V. Food this coming Wednesday. If you haven't seen this show I can't recommend it enough. The host is not a competitive eater, just a guy with a graduate degree from Yale who likes to eat and takes on local food challenges. In Springfield, he'll eat corndogs at the Cozy Dog Inn (a Route 66 stopping point), he'll eat a horseshoe sandwich (I make the best so ask me for the recipe if you want to try them), and for his challenge he will attempt to eat three bowls of Joe Roger's Firebrand Chilli (and yes, chilli has two l's within the Springfield city limits.)

http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Man_v_Food

We don't need no stinking lists

2009-09-30T15:54:00.002-05:00

Okay, I’ll say it – wouldn’t the Liberal Studies program be a lot simpler if we just provided students with a list of courses that fit each of the eight Boyer categories? I know you’ve all thought it so let’s consider it for a moment, or more specifically, let’s consider how we might create these lists.

A professor can control the content they include in their lectures but they can’t control how that content will be received, rejected, weighted, or expanded upon by their students. Each member of class will read the same texts (hopefully), participate in the same discussions, write the same papers, take the same tests but this doesn’t mean that each member will walk away with the same learning experience. As individuals, they will bring their unique backgrounds to the learning process and their backgrounds will color what they learn.

For example, let’s take Annette’s Women Centered Literature course. On which Boyer list should we include it? Language? That makes sense. Art? Certainly. Literature uses metaphor to discuss complicated issues. Identity? Well, this wouldn’t be true for me, personally, but it might be for others so why not include it on this list too. Institutions? That may not be an obvious choice but the reading list may introduce someone to a feminist point of view that challenges their understanding of society.

So, if pressed, I might include Annette’s course on four Boyer lists. Would this mean that everyone could use Annette’s courses in the same way? Should I be able to use Annette’s courses to cover Identity if I enroll in the LIS program? It’s on the list. Right?

(If you don't know the pop culture reference in the title of this post, start with The Treasure of Sierra Madre and then see the updated version in Blazing Saddles.)

Friday Fun - Orsinal Games

2009-09-25T09:15:00.001-05:00

I've had this bookmark for about 8 years. I first found this site when I was learning to program in Flash and used this site as inspiration. Nothing I did ever came close to being as beautiful and elegant as these little Flash games but it was useful to try to figure out how they were made

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

LIS major in the news

2009-09-24T08:44:00.002-05:00

I just saw a story about Courtnee Brown come through the UIS RSS feed. At first I was worried because the brief bit of text included with the link said that she had 22 kills. In volleyball, that's a good thing:)

Congratulations Courtnee.

http://www.galesburg.com/the_paper/x593049227/Brown-contributes-for-UIS

A new tool in time for spring schedule planning

2009-09-22T11:52:00.001-05:00

A while back, unbeknownst to me (I’ve always wanted to use that word), the registration office developed a tool to help our Deans’ Office staff to work on the schedule. It allowed them to view future schedules as a calendar rather than a list. They thought it was so useful, they posted it on the schedule website – but didn’t mention it!

http://uisapp.uis.edu/schedule/Default.aspx

This is a great tool. Campus-based students can search for classes using the calendar view so that they can look for possible conflicts. It allows you to search the full schedule or limit your search by college or program. Even better, and unlike the dynamic schedule, this tool allows you to select multiple programs to search. So you want to know what’s being offered in ENG, HIS, and PHI? Now you can do it in one search rather than three.

In addition to general course searches, it also has search functions dedicated to ECCE course – search by ECCE group! – and online courses. I’ve suggested that if they provide the ability to search for General Education courses that the tool might be perfect.

So here’s what I need from you. One of my roles is to fill gaps and one of the more significant gaps I’ve attempted to fill is to provide a more detailed approach to searching for classes, specifically for online students. This is why I create web pages listing all of the online courses each semester. I think this tool address the gap I’ve attempted to fill.

Is there a reason for me to create schedule webpages?

Let me know what you think. This tool doesn’t address everything I add to my schedule webpages but it does include 95% (and maybe no one really needs the other 5%?) As I type this, I’m thinking that they are no longer necessary but they exist to serve your needs so, if you feel you have needs that aren’t addressed by the new scheduling planning tool, let me know.

Friday Fun - Cool and Refreshing

2009-09-18T11:38:00.003-05:00

Don't forget, as you do your homework you need to stay hydrated. For me, the only thing that quenches that thirst for learning is Liberal Studies brand bottled water. Each bottle is filled with pure, chlorinated water from the drinking fountain outside my office. Buy a case today!

Okay, it's not really for sale but you can make your own soft drink can or bottle here

Extracurricular or extra pain in the neck?

2009-09-16T12:28:00.004-05:00

Last week, Scott commented to my post:

"I wonder how most of my fellow online students can actually be involved in the extracurricular activities at UIS though, distance aside many of us lead lives that we have to fit schoolwork around, rather than the opposite (as sad as that is sometimes.)"

This is an issue that I have considered many times in the past ten years and I have to say, I don't have an answer. I love the idea that online students would have some way of creating a community. To a large extent, the goal of this blog is to provide a chance for LIS students to post their ideas and to interact with one another in forum that offers more substantial interaction than a microblogging site like Facebook or Twitter. (Remember, if you already have permission, you can create your own posts rather than simply reading and commenting upon my posts If you want permission, just let me know.)

The big question is do online students really want to participate in extracurricular activities at UIS or even to interact on a blog like this?

If I were to over-simplify the population of online students they would fall into two groups: those who live too far from a campus to attend and those whose time commitments make it difficult to attend traditional class meetings. In many cases (maybe most cases) LIS students fall into both categories. So, if one of the benefits of online learning is that it allows students to fit classes into their already busy schedule, will those same students want to further complicate their schedules by adding extracurricular activities?

My limited experience suggests that the answer is no, but what do you think? Would you want to commit time to an activity? If so, what sort of activity would be attractive? Would you want to participate in a formal activity, an actual student organization, or would you prefer less formal interactions like this blog or, Scott's examples, a Second-Life site or an online gaming group?

Please tell me your ideas.

One thing to consider though. Online students don't pay certain fees since we recognize that they can't participate as fully as campus-based students. If online students want to participate in campus groups, this will likely come at a cost.

Friday Fun - A-ha! Literally.

2009-09-11T10:14:00.004-05:00

If you've never heard of literal videos, the idea is to rewrite the lyrics of a song to describe exactly what is on-screen during the videos. It may just be me, but I think they're hilarious. Look for more literal videos at Dust Films (I also really like the Tears For Fears video.

The best advice I have to offer (plus eDocs.)

2009-09-08T15:06:00.002-05:00

I’m narrowing in on 20 years of advising students so, while I am always suspicious of experts, I suppose I have learned a few things worth sharing. The #1 best advice I can offer any student? Go to class. The moment you start considering class meetings as options rather than obligations, is the moment that you begin to drift away from the goal of graduation, or at the very least, learning. Woody Allen said that 80% of success was showing up and he couldn’t be more correct.

I would suggest that simply going to class will raise your grade by one letter, even if that’s from an F to a D. Holding out the option that you can just skip means that there’s no pressure to prepare for class so skipping class leads to skipping readings which leads to lesser understanding of future readings which leads to weak background knowledge which leads to confusion in future classes which leads to frustration and a lack of confidence in your academic pursuits. For many students, this leads to dropping classes and, for some, to just dropping out altogether.

What’s that? Online students can’t skip class? Sure they can, they just skip class mentally rather than physically. If you rush through your online material, aren’t you skipping class? What about if you view your online courses as a series of deadlines to meet rather than a learning process? Or, if you go to your discussion board and quickly post something that requires no thought? I’d say that’s skipping class because you’re not taking advantage of the opportunity in which you’ve invested your money.

Of course, Liberal Studies students don’t skip classes – this is just the #1 best advice overall. The #1 best advice I can offer you is to use eDocs. I keep repeating this in various formats so I must really believe it

If you don’t know, eDocs is an online document management system. All UIS students have 1 gigabyte of storage and all you need to do is log into the eDocs system to use it http://edocs.uis.edu If you’re comfortable with technology, you can probably figure out how to use the system on your own, but there is extensive training available online at http://www.uis.edu/its/otherservices/edocs.html

Why should you use eDocs? Simply put, to protect your investment. Each semester I hear from at least one student who has had a hard drive crash or a storage device that has been lost or stolen. They’ve lost everything related to their degree and their UIS classes. I would encourage every student to start an eDocs folder for each class they take and to put everything from that class into the folder: syllabus, assignments descriptions, readings, handouts, the work you’ve turned in, the feedback you’ve been given. Doing this will result in a neat portfolio of your learning. Even better, it will result in an off-site back-up of your learning.

E-Docs has a lot functionality and there are some really cool and useful things you can do with it but if all you do is use it like a hard-drive for your UIS classes, you may never realize how much easier you’ve made your life.

Friday Fun - CNR

2009-09-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of Weird Al, The Match Game, and CNR so this Friday Fun is a natural fit for me. (The video is pretty tame but I suppose it is PG rated.)

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

A new way to make presentations

2009-09-01T09:49:00.003-05:00

I just discovered a really cool tool. We've all suffered through PowerPoint displays. They are probably the most used/most hated presentations because the speaker tends to read what is on the slide and the audience tends to fall asleep. On the other hand, PowerPoint is really easy to use and busy people don't have time to put together presentations using Flash or some other more powerful engine.

But this might be an option. http://prezi.com

Prezi allows you to think visually and to make a presentation based upon that visual structure. It's hard to describe so this example might be best - you'll find many more of them on their website.

Friday Fun - Rock Band

2009-08-28T10:37:00.003-05:00

This is the first of what will be a weekly time-wasting opportunity. Hopefully, everyone will have a few minutes to waste on a Friday as the work week ends and the homework weekend begins. (Feel free to post your own Friday Fun links as well.)

I chose this video, not just because it's really cool, but as a tie-in to an announcement. UIS once offered a Beatles course under the LSC prefix. (For newer students, LSC courses were an earlier version of what are now ECCEs.) Many students included the course in their degree plans only to be disappointed when it, along with all LSCs, disappeared from the catalog.

The Beatles class will return this spring as an LIS 460 so look for it this November when the spring schedule appears online.

Did you know . . .? It's our tenth birtdhay!

2009-08-26T16:21:00.001-05:00

The Liberal Studies program, originally called the Individual Option program, was one of the first degrees offered by UIS, originally called Sangamon State University In the fall of 1999, it became the first online undergraduate program offered by UIS.

I started with the LIS program in the middle of that first semester and man oh man how things have changed. Back in the olden days of 1999, I spent a lot of time trying to convince students that online classes were real classes and that the diploma was the same diploma they might earn on campus and not something printed on a graham cracker. When we admitted students, we went through a 45 minute interview process to determine if they had the necessary technical skills. I was doing about 200 of these interviews a year so I was VERY happy when online learning started becoming “normal.”

One of my favorite memories of those early days was a visit from our dean. He was describing the proposal process for this new online venture in Liberal Studies. In his words, he said they set an enrollment goal semester one, semester two, semester three and then a miracle would happen. He was telling me this in the semester in which the miracle was proposed to happen – it had happened. LIS went from a pretty small degree program to one that was admitting 120 new students a year. The online program even jump-started the campus-based program so that now we are able to have strong groups learning in both options.

If you’d like a small glimpse of the early LIS online days, go the registration website. The smiling students you see there are some of the Spring 2002 LIS graduates.

Welcome

2009-08-07T10:58:00.004-05:00

Welcome back to school (or if this is your first semester, just plain welcome.) The first week of the fall semester is the second-most exciting week of the year. The most exciting week, of course, is graduation week. We’re all sad to see summer pass but happy to roll-up our sleeves and get busy once again.

This is a relaunch of the Liberal Studies This Week blog and my hope is that it will become a true community blog. I plan to post at least twice a week. One post will be a Did You Know . . . so that I can share things about UIS that you may not know. The other will be Friday Fun. This is an idea I’m stealing from my wife who is a communication director. This will be something that will hopefully make you smile and give you moment to relax and catch your breath before you leave the work week behind and begin the homework weekend.

But the goal is to make this a community so I need you to join in. I’d like everyone to have a chance to share their ideas and their experiences as students and as people. There are no rules involved, other than being respectful of others, so you can post about whatever you’d like.

Last semester, we had a few brave souls join me in attempting to form a community of blogs but this was a lot to ask of all of us – it’s hard to find time to post to a blog. Liberal Studies This Week will be a blog community so there is no pressure to post regularly – if you’re not posting someone else will be.

If you are a member of the Liberal Studies community and would like to post to this blog, send me an email, aegiz1 at uis.edu . You do not need to be a blog expert to participate. It’s as easy to do as sending an email and, if you prefer, I’ll set you up so that you can send an email directly to the blog and it will post without you ever even logging into the site.