This TED talk does a swell job demonstrating how hidden assumptions can make collaboration murky, and how self-direction, self-organization, rapid prototyping and iterations as well as evidence-based feedback can enhance collaborative efforts:
Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team
Add comment February 29th, 2012
I got pretty excited about YouTube’s closed captioning feature today. Well, it went like this… I uploaded a new version of a student testimonial video of students in the SUNY Delhi online RN to BSN degree program, and I wanted it to be closed captioned. So in YouTube, I went to the “Captions and Subtitles” tab, where there was an already existing “Machine Transcription” which I downloaded out of curiosity. Wow. It was scary what I found in it! At first I thought it was uploaded by another user. Then I realized it was just something similar to the voicemail text transcription in GoogleVoice, which can be pretty far off…
YouTube Captions Made Easy
But then I noticed I could upload my own file – so I just copied and pasted the plain text transcript, with line breaks between lines into a plain text .txt file, and uploaded it to see how it worked… It was simple and painless and WORKS GREAT! It actually seemed to match up when people spoke to the words. The one issue I had was where there was a pause with music and text and nobody speaking, but the captions moved ahead anyway. At any rate, this is great news for ADA and UDL people looking for easy and cheap (free) ways to caption videos. Just type out the text transcript, save to a .txt file and upload to your videos!
Check it out! (You may have to click on the CC icon in the lower right of the video window to activate the captions:
Add comment September 10th, 2010
GoogleVoice announced (via Twitter and their blog) several exciting new features including:
Still waiting to be able to port a number into GV, as well as the ability to sign anyone up, but these are some big steps forward for a great new service.
PS, if you’re all worried about Google being Big Brother – consider this: it’s not the government, it’s a business (and a relatively cool company for as big as it is), and although they will match adds to text, etc. it’s done by a machine. But yeah, if you’re planning a major act of terrorism, planning a major universe overthrow, or using it to peddle drugs, might not be for you.
Add comment September 14th, 2009
Aha! Thanks to @paulmyatt ( http://ow.ly/iWem ) I have discovered how to add a GoogleVoice gadget to Gmail’s sidebar. Yay! I also then figured out how to add Gizmo5′s VOIP gadget as well – so that now, I can see my GV voicemail’s in Gmail, send/receive SMS there, make phone calls with GV, and receive phone calls to my GV # via the Gizmo5 widget. Sweet… (It’s also possible to add both of these to iGoogle, but the URL’s are slightly different…)
Part of the reason this is possible is Google Labs – a feature most Gmail users probably have no idea about, but which is awesome. You have to go to “Settings” and then to “Labs” to see all the possibilities. There are some great ones. The problem is, they could disappear at any time, but aside from that… Google Calendar, Google Docs, the ability to have chat on the right, “mark as unread” button, send SMS in Gmail chat, and, for the purposes of this post: Add any Gadget by URL… Very important! Once you have enabled that, you can enter the URLs below to add either GoogleVoice and/or Gizmo5 gadgets to Gmail…
Oh, disclaimer: the Gizmo5 gadget is too wide for Gmail, but with the side-side scrollbar, it’s still usable… Enjoy!
Google Voice by Nicholas Wilde
http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/103004048084238050439/GoogleVoice.xml
GizmoCall by Br. Francis Therese
http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/103368509318653270970/gizmo5.xml
Add comment August 5th, 2009
I retweeted a post today that went like this: “@rosslarocco,@gfriese: 3 ideas to create #eLearning content with #GoogleVoice, http://ow.ly/hFR7 easy audio recording 4 faculty!” After visiting that page it hit me that the text transcription of the voicemails in GoogleVoice could have some implications for section 508 compliance in online courses. Basically, by using GV to record audio you will also automatically get a text transcription of the audio. Although you won’t have the highest quality of audio, as we’ve seen over the last decade or so, great content overcomes diminished production values. Also, the text transcription won’t be perfect, but after touching it up, you will have at least had a super easy way to record and embed audio into your course, as well as a head start in transcribing the text for the audio.
So here goes:
And here’s the text, which I can retrieve from either the email GV generates or logging into GV itself:
Hey, this is Clark. This little mini lecture is about how you can use your google voice number to leave yourself a voicemail and then you can embed that into your course has an audio file. So you could use it for recording, say, a little mini-lecture or an announcement for students for which want audio and so on. And then once I’m done, of course google voice is also going to transcode or make a transcription of that voicemail into text which means that I can take that text and I can touch it up, because I’m sure there’ll be a few errors in there, or you know here or there. But I can touch that up and then I can, you know, use that text transcription to make this audio more section 508 compliant by including the text transcription of the audio file in my course as well. So I’ve got an easy way to call in by phone, basically, or on the computer as I’m doing and make an audio recording that I can… it’ll give me an MP3 of that recording it’ll make make it so that I can embed that recording into an activity or discussion forum in my Moodle course, for example. And it will also transcribe it in the text so it’s kind of a multifaceted easy way of doing audio for an online course and helping you along the way of getting a text transcription for that audio as well. So I think that is pretty cool and, have a great day, thanks.
Add comment July 20th, 2009
Here are some of the things I’ve currently be using: (in a non-cellular region ie. no iPhone or the like:)
Ok, confused yet? I’ll map it out:
It’s all pretty dumb, but it seems to work, and that way if I’m running around here or there, one can just dial 1 number and it should track me down.
If or when Google Voice starts allowing number porting, and receiving calls in Gtalk, I will port my 718 # to GV, drop inphonex, save some money, and then I’ll have 1 converged number which I’ve been using for years, and can simultaneously ring my cell, office, Gtalk, Gizmo5 (and thus, Skype). I’m actually glad Skype doesn’t allow number portability, as I might have ported my number there previously and been stuck. Notice that among them, currently I’m paying for SkypeOut and for Inphonex. Once GV allows porting, I should be able to drop the Inphonex and only pay for SkypeOut to have full coverage. Whew. Is there anything more boring than this blog post?
Add comment April 10th, 2009
Have you ever put your Netflix account on hold while on vacation or for some other reason? Did you realize that under Netflix’s current business practices and policies could actually end up paying for your account anyway, even though it’s on hold?
I put my Netflix account on hold on December 2, 2008, because I was getting tons of videos to watch for the SAG awards nominating committee. Unfortunately, what I didn’t notice was that my credit card had just paid for November 28 – December 27, 2008. So I figured – I bet Netflix is sophisticated enough to catch that and give me credit, or roll the credit forward into the next month of service…. Oops.
Then, on January 15, 2009, I was notified that my hold had ended, and I decided to lengthen it, so I changed it to March 1, 2009. Meanwhile, my credit card had already been charged again, on January 15, 2009. Double whammo!
So then March 1, 2009 rolls around (today) and yet again, I am charged for the next full month. There are still no credits in my billing page, no acknowledgment of the fact that I had paid for nearly 2 full months of “on hold” service. So I call up Netflix, and lo and behold, I am able to be given credit for the January charge, but NOT the December charge, because it was too long ago. Yeah. Uh… Huh?
So Netflix is sophisticated enough to manage putting your account on hold or off hold, but not to connect that with its billing system, apparently. The morals of the story is:
Add comment March 1st, 2009
From Collaborative Online International Learning Conference, Purchase, New York, November 2008:
Add comment February 23rd, 2009
From SLOAN-C ALN Conference, Orlando, Florida, November 2008: Did I Ever Tell You the One About the Faculty Development, the LMS Migration, and the iPod?
Add comment February 23rd, 2009
Add comment September 15th, 2008