Too many technologies for communication?

Technologies for communication, collaboration, social networking, and career building are plentiful. I have a presence on Facebook, Linked-In, Second Life, and Shelfari. I Twitter, and post on this blog and another one entitled Instructional Zen, which is focused specifically on instructional design for online learning. The dilemma is each of these tools are separate entities and I often wonder, wouldn't it be nice to have each of my favorite online technologies in one place and with one connected interface? Sure, I can and do use iGoogle to and Google reader to help organize all my tools and feeds, but am hoping someone will come up with a more full featured and customizable product. One that will allow me to go to one web page to access all the content I want in a way that makes sense to me. If you know of anything out there or on the horizon share it with me.

As a post script you've most likely noticed that my posts have been fewer and farther between. Life, work, and school have consumed much of my time. Once I have finished my comprehensive exams my posts should be more regular. Until then, I will post as I have time.

Tips for Smaller Web Video Files

More and more training is composed of online interactive components and the use of video. What is of concern is that if the video is not properly compressed it can take forever to load and play. One thing you don't want is a frustrated user who has to wait for the video to load or to have it stop playing multiple times because the loading has not kept up with the player.
Many of the video editing software have great tools to help you export video to web friendly formats, but some of the presets don't always pare the file down as much as it should. Here are a couple things you should look for when exporting or saving video for the web:
1. Average video whether Standard Definition or High Definition is shot at 29.9 frames per second (fps). Average Web video fps should be around 20 fps, so make sure that you choose a lower fps. It's always good to try several beta saves at different rates and test them to see how they load and look on the web.
2. Most people don't know that stereo audio is a big space hog. When video is taped it usually is in stereo and that it takes up nearly twice as much space as mono. Unless you really need the audio to be in stereo, opt for a much smaller file by choosing mono from the options menu.
3. Lastly, if you want to pare down that file even more, consider using a Flash Video encoder. My video workflow for web goes as follows. First I export my video for web using a lower fps and mono settings. Next I import my video file into Flash video encoder. After it is encoded i import the file into Flash and publish as a swf and html file and upload it to the web.

By following these simple steps you can make your video files much smaller and make it easier to view them on the web. Hope this tip has been helpful and let me know if you have any helpful tips to keep those video files from getting out of hand.

Educational Technologies and Online Standards

As an instructional design consultant who is passionate about effective learning, I persistently learn new technologies and evaluate their suitability for learning. However I find my vision for many applications is at present can be limited by the available technologies, and the time and cost needed for development. Even with all the choices we are presented with I sometimes feel like the early instructional researchers setting at a mainframe with keypunch cards generating simple questions and answers. The radical evolution of technology provides us almost unlimited possibilities to develop and disseminate learning, but much technology assisted learning and training seems to fall short of the mark. Is this due to our vision, the technologies themselves, or the relative infancy of understanding how individual human beings learn? Even with all of the research into how we learn as humans, we are still for the most part limited in our understanding of this complex process. We have powerful tools at our disposal but our present knowledge of learning does not allow us to fully utilize the technologies we have.

All the assistive technologies aside, we must first have a foundation upon which to build learning and training. At present we are still steeped in the tradition of the factory, sage on the stage model of learning. No matter how far we have come technologically much online learning I have encountered in my work is unfortunately an electronic version of this methodology. Quite frankly I have been appalled by the lack of standards for teaching and online education and have many unanswered questions. Among those are:
• Have institutions adequately planned and prepared migration of face-to-face classes to the online venue?
• Have many institutions rushed to provide online education just to keep up with the pack or to provide increased revenues?
• Who still believes that the paradigm of the face-to-face venue can/should be applied to the online one and why?
• Who is watching over the online education henhouse and why must we do so?
• Should the accrediting body require standards for ALL courses that are online or continue to allow institutions to choose example courses?
• Is our accrediting body equipped to properly evaluate online courses?
• Who is overseeing the quality of the courses and who decides what is good and what is not.
• Should there be standards that instructors must meet in order to be accredited to teach online?
• Should the institutions themselves formulate and implement standards or should this be the function of an accrediting body?
• Is how instructors present course materials and use or not use the capabilities of an online learning platform a part of their academic freedom?
• Can an instructor who is a subject matter expert in a particular area, but with little training/education in online instruction teach in this venue as they please, or must they learn and apply proper pedagogies/andragogies and technology tools?
• Should faculty be required to become technologically fluent and learn how to teach online/follow those standards before being allowed to teach online? …and the list goes on…

In addition there is the continuing obstacle of lack of understanding of technology as a tool for learning and not the solution by organizational heads in business and education. Yes, it is certainly an ID consultant’s job to educate their clients, but when they come to the table set on a certain direction and filled with ill-informed passionate enthusiasm for a specific direction it is incredibly difficult to dissuade them from continuing on this path. It is akin to stopping a freight train. No matter how much of an expert you are saying an idea is a bad one does not make way for open communication and problem solving. Key to changing these misconceptions is to ask why they have chosen the particular solution, then laying out the better possibilities, which may or may not include some of their original idea. If those in charge are open to alternative ideas and see you as an expert minds may change. If the potential client is still stuck on using an inappropriate solution the consultant must either delicately try to provide information that would present their case sufficiently as to change their minds, decide not to take the job, or ethics aside go with what they want even if it means going against better judgment and developing instruction that is less than stellar or that will be found to be ineffective. If every institution would acknowledge that researched and clear standards for learning are as important as those in place for running the business, the process of designing training and education would be simpler for those who must develop and use it.

Running from Technology

Fear of technology is very real and present in academia. You can almost smell it. It’s the fear of having to keep up with the latest technology and the concern that as soon as faculty learn any new technology it will become outdated or fall into disuse. The huge challenge of trying to keep abreast of and skilled in these technologies can be intimidating. The reason many faculty don’t want to embrace new technologies is three-fold. First finding the time to learn these technologies can be difficult. Adding learning new technologies to an already full load of teaching, researching, publishing, committee meetings is a daunting task. Secondly, technology is changing at breakneck speed and what may be viable today may be a dinosaur tomorrow. This can foster a mindset of “sticking” with know entities. You’re probably acquainted with faculty members who refuse to give up their overhead projector, because whether they admit it or not moving to presentation software is out of their comfort zone. Third, for those who may be late comers to technology or feel technically challenged, why would anyone want to take the risk of looking “dumb” in front of peers or at worst their students? Aren’t they supposed to be “experts”?

The big question is; should faculty be responsible for the creation of all the educational multimedia they wish to utilize? Must they choose/learn the newest multimedia software, or know how to record, optimize, and upload that material? The truth is faculty do not need to have a PhD in Instructional Multimedia Technologies (IMT), or Instructional Design for Online Learning (IDOL) to integrate engaging, innovative and effective multimedia technologies in their curriculum. More and more universities are establishing centers dedicated to studying and implementing technology for instructors. These centers work with faculty to integrate appropriate technologies and multimedia into their curriculum so that they can focus on teaching, not the nuts and bolts of technology.

Faculty should remain the subject matter experts (SME) and be able to rely on a team to assist them with more advanced technical educational multimedia. While faculty must keep up with technologies that will find everyday use in education and the proper pedagogies associated with the intended venue, they shouldn’t be expected to be instructional multimedia experts. This is best left to SME’s in the field of Instructional design and multimedia. A best-case situation is one in which faculty members and Instructional Multimedia SME’s collaborate to create engaging, innovative and effective learning objects that utilize multimedia.

Online Education, What is best case?

Making an excellent education accessible for everyone is a noble goal. One problem with migrating all content to online is that 1.) Not all learning styles can be met online. 2.) It is critical that the learner be self-motivated in online classes. How can we expect students, especially those from K-12 who are used to being spoon-fed to function well in this environment? 3.) Fear of new and existing technologies can cause "technophobia" and avoidance of their use. Most of my peers care deeply about their discipline, but I find that many don't have the time or confidence to learn new technologies on their own. 4.) Some faculty do better at teaching and others research. I have held the opinion for some time that while a faculty member should always remain informed as to their discipline, some should be allowed to focus on teaching and others on research. 5.) The bottom line for universities has always been money. Money is needed to operate the physical plant, pay employees, and provide services. Student tuition, government funding, and donations are critical to keep the machine running. Even online institutions are moneymakers. They have seen the writing on the wall and understand the profitability of migrating to the online venue. Just take a look at most brick and mortar institutions and you will find a huge push to take courses online. With shrinking enrollment rates and funding cuts offering online classes is very cost-effective.

Concerning a distributed learning system. Who will be setting the standards? Employers right or wrong look to some sort of certification/accreditation of potential employees in order to help them choose the best. Their are better ways of determining whether a one person is better than another for a position, but I'll leave that for another post.

For me the big issue with online classes/education is that of creating an environment which is pedagogically/andragogically sound, uses new media and technologies appropriately, has an intuitive user interface, is engaging, and meets students varied learning needs. Current Learning Management Systems (LMS) are evolving and while I find none to be a best-case tool for synchronous/asynchronous learning, I do see newer technologies such as wiki's, blogs, chat, etc. being adopted. The futurist in me hopes that someone will finally get it right by offering either an all inclusive platform, or tool that allows multiple components from other sources to be merged into one customizable interface.

Future of Technology 1967

As a futurist I enjoy reading about and viewing video about predictions that were made in the past. Here is a news story about a short film that was made in 1967 by the Philco-Ford Corporation entitled 1999 A.D.
Even though it contains 60's stereotypical gender roles this video was amazingly right on target.

Increaslingly we are trying to define and create acronyms for technology users. For example the word Newbie or Newb has been use for some time. I have taken the liberty of coining new terms to describe those who use uqiquitous devices.

Uud (u-ud)– skilled daily user of ubiquitous devices. Either grew up using devices or gravitated towards their use. Age independent.
NUud (nu-ud) – someone new to ubiquitous devices, a newbie. Still learning or not very good at using the devices.
GUud (gu-ud) – someone who is a power user and has to have all of the latest ubiquitous devices. An early adopter, or geek.
RUud (Ru-ud) – someone who in non-techie, avoids or refuses to use digital ubiquitous devices. Out of the loop, or a luddite.