Work

• Still working with DubLabs to get our updated D2L mobile app working with UofC CAS authentication etc…. This has taken a long time. Hoping the end result is worth it – we have a working mobile app (built with the original D2L-built Campus Life platform), but that product was phased out by D2L1, to be replaced by the DubLabs-powered service. Seriously unimpressed by how this transition has been communicated and handled.
• Did the first “intro to my course” video, which will eventually be used as a way for (primarily online) instructors to put brief “Hi! This is me, and here’s some stuff that’s going to be awesome in my course/research/etc…”. The first video was mostly to do a full cycle of planning/shooting/editing/publishing, and it worked out pretty well. I’d do a few things differently, mostly in composing the framing of the shot (I’d tilt the camera down a bit more next time, for less dead space above the instructor, and be more mindful of lines in the background).
• Edited and posted Reclaiming Educational Technology: Higher Ed and Startup Cultures – all 4 videos are available, and now I need to work on a super-cut edit that pulls the bits of all topics together.
  Worked with Pearson to integrate their stuff into our D2L environment. And, on the same day, consulted with an instructor who is putting together an OER grant. I’m hoping that balanced things out enough…

Read

• Natasha got a paper published – Exploring the context of Canadian graduate student teaching certificates in university teaching | Kenny | Canadian Journal of Higher Education
• Why 3D printing is overhyped (by a guy who makes a living in 3D printing)
• Learning economics through game-play
  

  “Students playing the game did as well as those reading a textbook” and “Game behavior appears directly related to test performance”

• deshake a time lapse sequence… – I used this trick, having Photoshop do Magic Stuff™ to an image sequence – to stabilize the Taylor Institute construction camera footage. What a difference! (the camera shifted a few times as a result of power bumps in the ICT building, making for some jarring bits in the unprocessed video)

• David Wiley: The “Blurred Lines” Between Traditional Online Courses and MOOCs
  

  “This brand inversion, which places the platform ahead of the institution or the “course staff” (we don’t use the word “faculty” any more), points to a disturbing trend”

My take is that commercial mooc platforms’ goal is to disrupt higher education, and institutions that blindly signed on to their platforms basically signed oaths of fealty and subservience. well done.

• George Veletsianos: Institutional MOOC reports: missing any?
• Tony Bates: Ease of use as a criterion for technology selection in online learning
• George Couros: A Roadblock as an Opportunity #DigitalPortfolios on ePortfolios:
  

  If it is truly “their portfolio”, then shouldn’t students be able to have ownership over the majority of the content and who has the ability to see it? I know that if someone were to decide for me what I put in my portfolio and who was allowed to see it, I probably wouldn’t put much effort into it Wouldn’t students be any different?

Stuff from Twitter:

• Tool-driven scientific revolutions (on the “it’s just a tool!” front – tools are important because they help us do things differently)
• Creativity & motivation – quick video that talks about the uncanny valley people work through when getting better at something
• via Clint Lalonde: A qualitative investigation of faculty Open Educational Resource usage in the Washington Community and Technical College System: Models for support and implementation
• via Alan Levine: Ten ways to improve your craft without buying gear
• via Don Presant: Must-have sections of an e-portfolio

Other

• apparently, tobogganing on non-City-managed hills is illegal in Calgary. And has been for a couple of years now. Seriously? I think I’ll walk across the street to break the law with all of the scofflaw kids sliding down the local non-Official hill.
• ski day #8 of the 2014/2015 season. Another great day at Nakiska.

1. who let us know about this through sending us a surprise contract modification to sign, which was the first we’d heard of DubLabs, or that Campus Life was being outsourced. Something that might have come up at the D2L Fusion conference, but apparently didn’t. [↩]