Parting ways with Jing - switching to Screencast-O-Matic

This week I received a couple of urgent emails from Screencast telling me that my Jing account was about to max out, and that if it did, people would no longer be able to access all the videos I had created on it. So I went to my Jing account and deleted old videos that I no longer needed. However, I then read the small print and realized that Jing has a limit on how many downloads can occur from one's Jing account -- and since my students and others have been watching my Jing "how to" videos more and more, my account was rapidly reaching the limit. Of course this is a clever scheme to get me to pay the $99 per year to enable to increase the storage I have on Screencast and the downloads. But I don't want to go there, as there are many other free options out there...

So, I just tried creating a video using Screencast-O-Matic, uploaded the video to my (free) YouTube account, and bingo -- it is really slick AND works better than Jing (the video I created in my last blog entry here -- on how creating an MP3 for Moodle from a Voice Memo -- I created using Screencast-O-Matic and uploaded to YouTube).

Screencast-O-Matic is really intuitive and easy to use. The first time I used it I had to download a plug in to enable it to work (just follow the prompts to do this), and then it was straightforward. Once I had created the video I had the option of  uploading the video to my Screencast-O-Matic account, uploading to my YouTube Account, or saving the video to my computer. I chose to upload to YouTube (and then I can link to it there or embed it into a page) and I also saved it to my computer.

Try it! I'm eager to hear from others out there about your experiences using Screencast-O-Matic, Jing and other video capture tools like Snagit (interestingly, Snagit is a product of TechSmith, which is the same company that makes Jing).

How to Convert Voice Memo (recorded on iPhone) into MP3 in iTunes and upload to Moodle

This week I had a question from one of my students about how to go about creating a voice recording and putting it into a Moodle course. I have recorded voice memos on my iPhone and before and emailed them to myself, but hadn't tried using these in a Moodle course before. So I decided to try this, and created a video to show how to do this.

I will also describe below the steps that I showed in this video in case you want to have them handy as you try out the process:

1. Using my iPhone VoiceMemo app I recorded myself speaking
2. From within the VoiceMemo app I selected the memo I had recorded, and emailed it to myself.
3. I opened my email, and downloaded the memo into my iTunes account on my computer
4. Next, in iTunes Preferences, I went to the Advanced settings --> clicked on the "Important settings" button and chose to import using MP3 encoder.
5. Still in iTunes I opened the memo (To find it in my iTunes account I went to "Recently added" where it showed up as the latest voice memo that I had downloaded)
6. I selected the memo and then under the "Advanced" file menu I chose "Create MP3 version" --> this saved a version of the voice memo in my iTunes account as an MP3 and added it in my list of Recently Added Voice memos.
7. I then clicked on this version and dragged and dropped it onto my desktop (making it easy to find when I wanted to upload it to Moodle)
8. Next I went to my Moodle course, selected the option to add a resource --> link to a file or website --> and followed the Moodle prompts to upload the MP3 voice memo (that I had dragged onto my desktop)
9. This memo then was uploaded into Moodle and could be played as an audio file directly in Moodle.

How to make a free phone call using Google account

A wonderful feature that comes with Gmail accounts is the ability to make free phone calls (I don't know how this applies outside of the USA, but within the USA you can make free phone calls within the USA). This feature comes with both personal gmail accounts and academic accounts (e.g. University of MN gmail).

I created a short video to show how to make a phone call from my gmail account to show you how to do this:

Using UMConnect (Adobe Connect) from iPad and IPhone

I just came from a meeting where we connected with a colleague in Ireland using Adobe Connect on the iPad, and the quality was excellent! (audio, video and text). Here's a photo I took of the iPad showing what the session looks like on the iPad. This opens up all kinds of possibilities...

Uploading Video to Blog

My students have been working on their blogs, experimenting with different uses for their blogs, and trying to upload different kinds of files. What is interesting is that Blogger enables you to upload video, but not audio files. Here I have uploaded a video that I took at the UMD Take a Stand Rally. I am checking to see if this works. I recorded this video as  Quick Time video using my Canon Power Shot digital camera (just a little point and shoot). It is 18 seconds long, and is 24 MB. 

A mistake people sometimes make when uploading video to blogger is missing the step, once you have uploaded the video, to click on the blue "add selected" button to add the video that you have uploaded to the blog entry, as shown in this screen shot below:

Once you do this, the video is added to the blog. Then the last step is to make sure that you post the blog entry to your blog:)

Update on posting audio file - by using link to Google Doc

I'm still working on ways to upload audio files as part of my blog. As I noted in my previous entry, this worked great using my Posterous blog, but isn't as easy in Blogger, as Blogger doesn't allow you to upload an audio file. To get around this, what I have done is:

1. Upload the audio file into my Google Docs account
2. I made sure to change the share settings for the file in Google Docs so that it is set to be visible to anyone who has the link
3. Then I copied the link from Google Docs
4. Here in my Blogger blog I can share the link. If you click on this link it will take you to my Google Docs

This isn't a great option as in my experience the more steps you require of an end user to be able to access something you share with them online, the less likely they are to follow through and access it. If it works simply, quickly, intuitively with one click, and if it doesn't require actually downloading anything (i.e. users can view online, rather than downloading audio file, pdf or other file), then it increases the likelihood that people will access the file.

I did find some guidelines about audio files in Blogger, and it seems that they are advocating variations of what I describe above. Here are some guidelines about this:

• Posting music/audio 
• A consuming experience. This describes a much more complicated approach where you combine the audio with a stationary screen shot to make a video, and then upload this video into blogger (why Blogger allows you to upload video and not audio beats me!).  While this is a clever idea to use this workaround, it's really a lot more work to do and may put off a lot of folks (like me!) who want a quick and easy way to upload audio files.

My evolving thoughts on this: 

• If I wanted to use my blog to share a lot of audio files, then I might consider using Posterous rather than Blogger as my blog too because if the ease of uploading audio files. 
• Another thing that I also prefer about Posterous is that I can sign into it using more than one email. This is important since I currently have to use my personal gmail account for my Blogger blog rather than my education gmail, and use separate browsers for each, because of the security restrictions on the education account. But, for now, since this tech blog is in Blogger, I'll stay here -- at least for a while!

Posting Audio File to Blog

I've been playing around with audio file sharing via blogs, and found that this is easy to do on a Posterous blog, but not in Blogger. To do this in Posterous what I did was:
1. Use my iPhone Voice Memo app to record a voice recording on my phone
2. From within the app I chose the option to share the recording by emailing it, do I emailed it to my my Posterous blog (as that's an option for how to post in Posterous). I also included the text content of the blog as the email message.

It worked! Check it out:
http://hrallis.posterous.com/testing-to-see-if-i-can-upload-voice-recordin

Synchronous Distance Ed is wonderful when it works, utterly frustrating when it doesn't!

Roller-coaster distance education experiences for me this morning! I was on the receiving end today, in the capacity of a student in two separate experiences, the first amazing, inspiring, and fascinating, and the second filled with potential, but for today, merely frustrating and marginalizing. Both of these were really valuable, because when the technology does work, I learn so much from the content of the lesson and from seeing ways in which technology can really enhance learning. When the technology doesn't work, even though the lesson content is lost, I still learn a great deal about how to trouble shoot and  what doesn't work. But also very importantly, I learn what it is like to be on the receiving end, as a student, experiencing first hand the frustration of being left out and marginalized because I can't get the technology to work. I know that the teachers on the other end are doing everything they can not to have me feel this way -- but this is still part of the reality of online teaching. So let me share more about each experience:

Experience 1 (the amazing, inspiring and fascinating one!)


This morning I joined a live (synchronous) Geography of Bahrain class taught from Bahrain by my brother, Donald Rallis, who is a geography professor at the University of Mary Washington in the U.S. state of Virginia. Donald is currently in Bahrain, en route to Cambodia. He teaches World Regional Geography, and tries when possible to do so from some of the countries about which he is teaching. In addition to posting photographs in Picasa and maintaining a Regional Geography Blog about his travels when possible he conducts real time classes using a free synchronous meeting tool called DimDim (but don't get excited about trying it out -- it is about to cease to exist -- but there are other equivalent tools out there). During these live classes we can hear him and if necessary see a video image of him (but today he didn't use video, possibly because this can compromise audio quality). He teaches using an interactive lecture style where he shows lots of photographs (using PowerPoint uploaded into DimDim), sharing a variety of web pages related to what he is saying, plus uses other media (e.g. video, graphs) as needed. As he does this he asks the class questions, and students respond by typing their answers or asking their own questions in the chat window. I have a screen shot here to show you what this looks like:

What makes these classes perhaps even more interesting and engaging than if they were taught in person, face-to-face is that they are taught on site. There is a certain "wow" factor knowing that Donald really is on location in that country, but more than that, what he does is sometimes is turn his webcam on so that we can see what is going on around him. Using his laptop he will turn the camera so that we watch traffic going by as he describes traffic congestion and how transportation affects the lives of people. I remember watching one class that he was teaching where he had a hotel room overlooking the Straits of Malacca, and as he taught us about the importance of location, we watched ships behind him passing through the straits.Quite remarkable!

Experience 2 (utterly frustrating and marginalizing, yet also valuable):

This semester I am taking a class for university faculty about teaching with technology. The class consists of series of workshops taught from the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota. I think that most participants will be from the Twin Cities campus, but others can join from the coordinate campuses (Morris, Crookston, Rochester and Duluth). Today was our first day. The instructors had done a great job ahead of time emailing us about what to expect and about how to connect to class. We were given the URL of how to join the class using UMConnect (the university version of Adobe Connect Pro). We were also asked to install cross-platform software called Movi, and given a very detailed, informative set of PowerPoint slides with directions and screen shots showing us how to download and install the software, and how to get started to join the rest of the class online. From what I can see so far is that Movi is a video-conferencing tool that enables all participants to see and hear each other, and also to be able to share our screens with others. Yesterday when I practiced connecting from my office, it seemed to work fine...

Today I logged in to UMConnect and Movi shortly before class was due to start, 10:00 a.m. U.S. Central time. UMConnect worked great -- I got into the room and said hi, via chat window, to the other participants. Then I opened Movi... and it was downhill from there! What I could see from what others were typing in the chat window was that everyone was having problems getting audio to work in Movi. But I couldn't get it to work at all for more than a short time. I could login and see the video of me, and a couple of times the videos of everyone, with the sound coming through in very short bursts, but never where I could make out anything anyone was saying. Then Movi would crash and I'd have to force quit and restart. In the meantime, others appeared to be moving right along (no pun intended!), and the poor instructors were trying to help me and everyone else using the chat window to trouble shoot. Here's a screen shot showing you what this looked like:

The problem is that Movi uses a lot of bandwidth, and I think the assumption on the part of the presenters was that everyone would be connecting using a high speed connection. I work at home on Thursdays (it is my online teaching day and I get much more accomplished if I teach from home where I am not interrupted). My Internet connection speed is supposed to be high speed, but mostly is not, and it is very unreliable. It works (usually!) for my own teaching using Moodle and UMConnect, but clearly was hopelessly inadequate for the demands of Movi (I tried doing just Movi, rather than both UMConnect and Movi at the same time, but still no go).

So, lessons learned!

• I will have to go to campus on Thursday mornings to connect using high speed connection
• Movi looks like a tool with tremendous potential, but not if I am to use it with students who do not have very high speed connection. Since accessibility is critical issue so as not to marginalize anyone, that means that it isn't an option yet for my own teaching.
• When I use tools that use a higher than normal bandwidth (such as Movi, but also UMConnect), I need to include the technology requirements with the information I send out to student before class so they can look to see if they have what is needed. I also need to find out if they don't, so I can make alternative arrangements so that they can still participate in an equitable way, or else I need to use different technology. [In the case of this faculty workshop here, using Movi is part of what we are learning, so this isn't an option for them. It's different for me when I am teaching students]
• Even though I am relatively technologically competent, I am not immune from feeling like a lost child, ready to scream and cry and rant and rave when this $&(&$##@##)!! [insert your own interpretation of what that means!) technology doesn't work!! It is a horrible feeling, with all sorts of negative thoughts swirling through my mind:  I feel incompetent, like it is just me and everyone else gets it and I don't, why am I doing this anyway, is it worth it, I would rather be outside playing right now, I hate computers, why do I live in the woods rather than in "civilization", etc etc. In other words, I think I am feeling exactly like many of my students who are taking my Distance Education right now have felt at times during my course! And if they are reading this, they are grinning right now and thinking, "Welcome to our world!!" :)

Blogging While In The Woods

So this afternoon my techo journey is taking me out into the woods on a walk with our dogs, my iPhone, and newly downloaded Blogger app. I am typing this with my thumb as I multi-task my way along the trail, taking photos, typing, but mostly soaking in the beauty of this stunning fall day. Ah yes -- this is one of the finer points of distance education -- being able to get outside and still work (at least for a while -- once I hit "publish" I will become one with the woods and abandon technology for a while!).

Let's see if this works!:)

How to Save Webpage as a PDF and then annotate it

This is just a quickie post because I was asked how to annotate a web page. I know there are other tools to do this, and invite others to jump in with suggestions here, but one quick and easy way is:

1. save a web page as a PDF (on a Mac you just choose "print" but then instead of printing it you choose from the print window "save as PDF." Windows users, how do you do this on Windows?
2. Then, once its a PDF, you can write on it and highlight, use notes and so on, either using Adobe Acrobat or on a Mac you can also use the Mac Preview program. I just did this with your blog here and "Jinged" it. 

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying: We HAVE to speak out and work together to stop this and all forms of bullying, intolerance and prejudice!!


I wrote this a while ago but for some reason I didn't post it (I just saw that it was still listed as a "draft"!). Given the recent events at UMD I though I would still post this, as sadly it is more important than ever for us to stand up and speak out against cyberbullying (and every other kind too!). This past week, a conservative campus youth group, Youth for Western Civilization,  was handing out pocket U.S. Constitutions at the University of MN Duluth (UMD). A representative from Youth for Western Civilization videotaped and selectively edited the video of an interaction between him, the UMD Director of the Office of Cultural Diversity, and the UMD President of the Black Students' Association. This video was then posted on the website of another conservative student organization, Campus Reform along with the contact information (phone and email) of the UMD Director of the Office of Cultural Diversity. This, in turn, was posted on the website of another right wing group, The Blaze.

Since then, both the Director and the BSA student president have been receiving hundreds of threatening phone calls and emails in an orchestrated campaign of intimidation. The effect has not only been devastating on these individuals, but also on the students for whom the UMD Multicultural Center is a safe haven -- many of whom are still traumatized by the events of last year surrounding a horrific, racist event on Facebook at UMD.

Also recently in the news: an article in Digital Life Today about the apparent suicide of a young gay teen, Jamey Rodemeyer, as the result of bullying. Read this article -- it describes the traumatic experiences of this 14 year old boy who was relentlessly persecuted through cyberbullying because of his sexual orientation.

I know that there are critics of social media who blame these tools when they are used for cyberbullying. I would argue that the tools themselves are not the problem, but rather the ways in which they can be used by people intent on intimidating and harming others. As I argued below in my earlier post written in 2010, every time any of us witness any kind of bullying (cyber or other) and do nothing to try to stop it, then we become collaborators in perpetuating the cycle of cyberviolence. So next time you see someone on your Facebook wall post something that is hurtful of others, respond (not privately as a message, but publicly on their wall) so they and others can see that this kind of behavior is not acceptable. Thanks everyone! :)


Blog post originally written in 2010: The senseless and tragic suicide of Tyler Clementi, a gay college student this week who took his own life because of cyberbullying has me feeling outraged and more determined than ever to work to try to educate anyone I can about how essential it is for EVERYONE to speak out and act to stop intolerance and prejudice. 

For those of us who are in education, especially those of us who teach people how to use the Internet and other forms of technology, we MUST do everything in our power to help people (young and old) (a) understand their responsibilities in appropriate and respectful use of technology and (b) stand up, speak out and stop the use of cyber-technologies and cell phones bullying as tools of intolerance and bullying.


My plea to anyone who may be reading this is that you will make a commitment to intervene and do everything in your power to help. I truly believe that there is no such thing as a bystander (people who stand at the side and do nothing when someone is being bullied, or when injustice is happening). If we are not actively involved in speaking out to stop bulling and injustice, I believe that our inaction places us in the role of perpetrator (alongside the bully). I know it isn't our intention, but when we are silent it is interpreted (especially by the victim) as meaning that we support the perpetrator.

If you see or hear about anyone using any Web 2.0 tools in ways that hurt others, please don't remain silent!

So Many Blogs, So Little Time..

The subject line for this weeks blog refers to 2 aspects of "so many blogs"-- the first being that I have been exploring different blogging tools, and also that I am now so enjoying following the blogs of my doctoral students (which they are doing for our course Distance Education - Theory to Practice). Their blogs are a description of the "practice" part -- what they are learning as they try out all sorts of different online tools -- and also their reflections on the intersection between theory and practice.

So first: It is amazing how many different blogging tools there are out there! I still don't have one favorite, as there are pros and cons to each one, and also which is best depends on the context. So let me share some thoughts, and I would love it if others would jump in and add comments about the blog tool you use, why you chose that one, what you like about it and what you don't!

• Blogger.com: that's what I am using here! What I like about this is that it is one of the tools that comes with the Google Suite, so it interacts easily with the rest. I use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs, and so being in one place is useful. I also find Blogger fairly intuitive to use.
  Major downside: Because I also have an official education Google account through my university (Univ of MN), things can get confusing. The educational Google account does include a blog and Google Reader, BUT you can't follow other people's blogs (not quite the same as subscribing) using that account. Additionally, I began my blog and using Google reader long before our university moved to Google and gmail, so I don't want to move things over there. Thus I have to use a separate browser for my personal gmail (and my blog and Google Reader), otherwise when I am in my work email (UMD gmail), if I try to edit my blog or follow other blogs, I am told that I am already logged into Google under another account. Frustrating! But I do understand that the university has to have special authentication to login to Google because we can store and access confidential information through this account.
  
• Posterous: I am enjoying Posterous (see Helen's Happenings) more and more as a blog tool because it is so easy to use! I started using it to replace my handwritten, paper phenology journal that I have kept for over 10 years. My paper journal filled up, so I decided that instead of staring a new one, I would just switch to Posterous because then I could add to the phenology journal any time I liked from anywhere, and easily include photos and even video. Before I had to have the physical journal in my hands to do this.
  -- For one, it is very easy to post a blog entry to my Posterous blog merely by emailing my Posterous account. The subject line of my email becomes the blog heading, and if I attach a photo or video (or any other kind of file), it is embedded in the blog. Sweet!
  -- Also, there is an app for Posterous, meaning that I can post from my iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, and can also subscribe to and follow other Posterous users blogs on my iDevice using the app.
  
• Weebly: Weebly is not a blog itself -- but rather a tool to create a website (free and cross wor). In addition to having different web pages as part of your site, you can also have a blog to go with it. I LOVE Weebly -- I strongly encourage my students to use it to create professional portfolios (but when they use Weebly for that purpose, then they don't usually have a blog as part of it). Example: I created a professional portfolio for my dog Peanut as a demonstration!  I did set up a Weebly site with a blog just to show how it is done.
  
• Blog.com: I just learned about this tool this week from a colleague of mine who is teaching in England and having her students keep a blog as part of her course over there. So of course I had to jump in and try it right away, and it's really easy and intuitive to use -- I will add this to my list of suggested tools in the future.
  
• Tumblr.com: I tried this out a year ago and forgot about it -- but have a student using Tumblr this semester and his blog look great!
  
• Typepad.com: See http://www.typepad.com/ This looks like a good tool, but it is free only for a trial period -- thereafter it is $8.95 for the basic blog and then more expensive for more features. Since there are so many good free blogs out there, I don't see this as a viable option

Posting images and commenting on blogs

This week my adventurous students have been jumping into the bloggosphere and have begun blogging (as I am) about their experiences using technology. There have been some issues that have emerged as they have done this, so I thought I'd blog in response.

Issue 1: Posting images (especially from Jing)

I haven't yet figured out what might have caused the problem, but some folks have reported not being able to upload a Jing image into their blog. Here's how I do it:

• I take a Jing screen shot (and if I want to put annotations on it, I do)
• When I am done annotating, I click on the  "save" button below the Jing image  so that I save it to my computer (rather than clicking on the button to save it to my screencast account)
• Next, in my blog, I click on the icon to upload an image
• On the upload screen that appears, I click  on the "choose files" button and locate and choose  the image that I just saved onto my computer
• A thumbnail of the image that I want to upload appears in the blog image upload box, and I click on the button that says "add selected"
• The image is upload to my blog -- voila! :)

Issue 2: Allowing others to post comments to your blog

What makes blogs even more meaningful is when others can comment (in appropriate ways) on what you have said, giving encouragement, asking questions, sharing their opinions or suggestion etc to extend and deepen the ideas that you have shared. To enable this to happen, you need to allow them to comment. Here's how to do it:

• Go to your blog dashboard 
• Click on the settings link
• In settings, click on comments
• Set comment options to allow others to comment (you can allow anyone, or just 
• Save
• If you moderate comments, you do need to check your blog and approve comments waiting to be moderated so that others can see them (unless you don't want them to be seen!).

I invite others to jump in here and share your experiences -- where you have had problems doing this and what happened, solutions you may have, or other questions!

Find my iPhone/iPad/iPod

This is just a very quick post because it is something that I think is really useful to folks who have iPods/iPads/iPhones and don't know about it: how to find your device by tracking it online!  I know I heard about this but never set it up until I thought I'd lost my device this week.

So I went to How to set up Find my iPhone and did this -- and it works! On my laptop I logged into the free me.com account I had just created and directed it to to find my phone (which I have next to me as I type this while sitting on the couch at home). And magic -- there on the screen a map appeared showing a flashing blue dot hovering over the exact location of our house on a Google map! Next I did exactly the same thing for my iPod Touch and my iPad, and it works for them too. I'll show a screen shot below of what the Find My Phone results look like.

Now, if someone could just invent an app to help me find my phone inside our house when I can't remember where I put it, that would be really cool!

My Techno Journey Continues, this time with my doctoral students

I'm back! I have sadly neglected my techno-journey blog since my last technology class, but I'm raring to go again, greatly inspired by my students:)! This semester I am teaching a course called Distance Education: Theory to Practice for doctoral students, and my students' first task is to create a Distance Education Techno Journey blog. I am a great believer in at least attempting to practice what I preach, so of course I need to get blogging! I'm really excited to be doing this with a new group of students:)

So I'll jump right in here with some of my recent great discoveries on my Techno Journey (my journey has been continuing in leaps and bounds since I last blogged here -- I have just not written about it). Here are 3 just to get started...

1. Tech Talk America: This has been a wonderful addition to my life for a while now. I subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, and listen each week to the entertaining and very informative tech update from co-hosts David A. Cox and Allen Gallant. I also follow them  on Facebook and receive their weekly newsletter. All of these are filled with hot-off-the-press (or web!) tidbits on practical, easy to use, fun tech tools and news e.g. their app pick of the week. I highly recommend subscribing (to the Podcast and newsletter at least, but the Facebook updates are great, too). They also have a now free (used to be paid) webinar series providing live (online) tutorials on how to do all kinds of cool things.
2. iPad: Although I have had an iPad for a while (first the iPad 1 and now 2), it's only really since this last summer that I have become a huge fan of it. I used to think the iPad (and also iPod Touch) was merely a "computer lite" but as more an more really impressive apps are created, it has become MUCH more than a computer -- doing things that cannot be done on a computer. And with the invention of really good iPad keyboards (I use the Zagg one after doing quite a bit of research on iPad keyboards. However, since I bought this at the start of the summer, other better ones may be out now) and word processing apps like Pages or just using Google Docs, I can use my iPad instead of my computer to take notes in meetings, observe student teachers and much more (easier than carrying around my laptop). I could say a lot more about the iPad -- and will in a later blog, but this will do for now.
3. Posterous blog: I found a wonderful and really easy to use blogging tool called Posterous. What I really like about it is you can post to the blog merely by sending an email! It's free (of course -- I am all about free and cross platform!) and doesn't require any set up at all. I have started using it to keep a phenology journal which I have called Helen's Happenings. Sadly I neglected it over the summer, but I'm back at it again.