Ruralocity Blog

Last week I worked on a small school project in which we explored the merit of iPhones in education. Abiliene Christian University, it turns out, is on the forefront of this cause, with an excellent blog called iThinkEd posting the progress of their study into the matter.

Today, ACU announced they will begin handing them out for free to incoming freshmen, beginning this fall. Students will be able to “receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors’ offices, and check their meal and account balances” via web-based applications developed by the school.

This is very intriguing! Makes me kind of wish I’d contacted them last week about their work; they’re going to be hammered with requests now. Good luck, ACU!

(Via Engadget)

I use Safari as my web browser because it’s pretty. There, I said it. OK, I also use it because it’s easy to sync up bookmarks between multiple computers and my phone (yes, I use del.icio.us, but I don’t like adding sensitive stuff there, such as where I bank). But as pretty as Safari is, it can be a little light in the features department. That’s what makes Keywurl so neat.

Keywurl is an open source (read: free for you) plugin for Safari, meaning it adds extra functionality to the browser. Once you install it and restart Safari, you can search particular sites directly from Safari’s address bar (or, where you type a web address). Let’s look at why this is handy. This table outlines a few examples:

OK, maybe it doesn’t look as impressive in table form as I thought it would, but it’s really handy, trust me. You can also extend it. For example, here’s an expansion you can use to search KU’s directory:


http://www.aims.ku.edu/directory/search?searchfor_name=@@@


Give the expansion string a simple keyword such as ku, then you can easily look up contact information on campus, using the main KU directory by typing something like


ku aaron sumner


Pretty slick, huh? Here’s one for Emporia State University:


http://www.emporia.edu/search/facstaff/staff.php?search=@@@&Input=Submit


(Note: From what I can tell, ESU’s faculty/staff directory only supports one keyword–so enter in just a first or last name.)

Installation can be a little tricky–locate the README file in the download and follow the instructions carefully. It should only take a minute or so.

Download Keywurl and give it a try. If you have any handy searches to share, add them to the comments.

In the interest of trying out the new Apple TV features we rented Michael Clayton a couple of nights ago. We’re finally getting around to watching it tonight. It’s paused while B. takes a call, so I’ll go ahead and report.

It’s pretty easy to find a movie using the built-in navigator. On some movies you have the option to view the high definition version for an extra buck (which we did). At that point it accesses your Apple Store/iTunes account to make the transaction. Apparently, the first time you do this you have to connect to the iTunes Store on a computer to verify the change to your account. I’m not sure what change I made but I think it was when I told Apple TV to remember my password. Anyway, after I verified the change I went back to Apple TV and repeated my choice to download the HD version.

At that point, downloading starts. I have no idea how long it took to download, but after about four or five minutes it was ready to start streaming. If I rent this way again I might try this option to see how well it works–on this Thursday, though, we went to bed instead.

Fast forward to this evening: We queued the movie up and began playback. The HD version’s picture and sound are both great. The picture quality is 720p, which is the same for most (all?) HD television (Blu Ray is technically much higher quality, at 1080p). The sound is 5.1 stereo, giving my surround sound system a workout. Playback has been flawless.

Again, I’m doubtful that we’ll make regular use of this feature but I must admit it’s nice to have. It’s very easy to use–just be ready to jump to a computer to confirm your account the first time.

I’m still in love with Apple TV, especially the built-in podcast directory included in Take 2. But is there a way to force it to refresh, or to specify a refresh rate, or at least know how often it find new episodes of feeds? I was checking on a show (in this case, Mahalo Daily) and didn’t get an update all week. Then last night I checked and had episodes ready from Monday through Wednesday. I’ve seen this behavior in other feeds as well. What gives?

I got rid of a few old posts that really didn’t have to do with the foci I’m trying to apply to this blog. Nothing big, and I didn’t delete any of the small handful of comments I’ve received here–so, no harm, no foul? (Sorry, I’ve been watching basketball most of the day.)

I’ve been putting the Apple TV through the paces the last couple of days. This evening I queued up the music collection from my iMac in the other room, turned on shuffle mode, and streamed away. This is a great way to rediscover your music collection, and makes it easy to put some background music on while you, say, work on homework.

My favorite feature, though, is podcasts. My history with podcasts has been hit and miss. I’ve had trouble getting into them in the past because of either quality issues or, more usually, I didn’t want to be tied to a computer to view them (I do listen to some audio podcasts on my iPod, though, while mowing the lawn).

Before the Take 2 version of the Apple TV system software was released a few days ago, you had to use iTunes on a Mac or PC to download podcasts, then either sync or stream them to the Apple TV. This isn’t complicated, and would probably be the route to take if you have podcasts to listen to or view for a class or clips you want to hold onto for the long term (like, I have the entire Tiki Bar series on my iMac’s hard drive). With Take 2, though, you can browse and search iTunes’ podcast directory directly on your TV. This makes podcast consumption more like channel surfing. The upside of this is I’ve found some interesting things to watch or listen to I probably wouldn’t have found via previous channels.

My favorite so far is Play Value (you can watch online, if you want, without an Apple TV). Play Value is a show that talks about the history of the video game industry in a format similar to the I Love the 80s series on VH1. The production quality is high–the video itself is in 720p high definition, and the experts, who provide commentary on the topics such as the rise and fall of Atari or the torrid backstory behind Tetris making its way outside the Iron Curtain, are actually a little more believable as “experts” than, say, the B-list celebrities VH1 trots out for Top 100 Songs of the 90s. Definitely worth a view.

What’s this have to do with instructional technology? There’s quite a bit of content an instructor could find and assign, out there in podcast form, that the instructor could assign or make available as support material. I remember when I was a kid and films and slides (and, eventually, VHS tapes) had to be ordered in advance, a member of the AV club had to wheel in a projector on a cart, and we sat waiting for the film to snap or smolder in the intricate gears of the projector. Downloadable media such as podcasts is the AV club of the 2000s. Take a look around, you may be surprised at what you’ll find.

Apple finally released the Take 2 version of its Apple TV system software. I updated last night. The focus of the new software is downloadable movie rentals directly from your TV. In all honesty, I probably won’t use this service a whole lot–we’ve got Netflix and that works just fine for me.

Podcasts are another story. Now you can directly browse or search Apple’s podcast directory and download straight to the device. I gave a few a try. Audio-only and standard or low-definition video podcasts downloaded and played quickly. A five-minute HD file took some additional time–for these it may make more sense to download them to a PC in the background and then stream them to the Apple TV.

I want to see how this technology may apply to distance learning, especially as online video continues to take off. Can I get more from a clip if I can easily access and view it on a large screen, from the comfort of my couch or easy chair? How can educators take advantage of HD quality to present better videos? And how do instructors integrate this within the big picture?

Any thoughts?

As is well documented, I am not very good at keeping up with the whole blog thing. This morning I starting wondering if it had to do with the extra baggage of signing into WordPress’ admin section. So I’m trying out a blogging program–in this case, MarsEdit. We’ll see how it goes.

So far, I like MarsEdit’s straightforward interface–no WYSIWIG, just content and code (it does have a basic preview mode). That may be a negative for people who don’t want to look at HTML in their posts, but so far it seems like I get cleaner code from this than I do with WordPress’ built-in editor. I also like how easy it is to upload media. Also, I was just about to report that a lack of support for tags was a minus, but then I found how to include the Tags field.

I’m hoping that having the editor just a docked icon away will help me keep this a bit more current, and that when the trial period is up I’ve decided that MarsEdit is indeed worth 30 bucks.

I bought an Apple TV last week and got it hooked up over the weekend. I haven’t purchased movies through iTunes for it, and probably never will, but have been streaming the heck out of my music collection. I’m also looking forward to some of the features coming in the “Take 2″ version of the Apple TV software.

Last night I started looking at the high definition podcasts available through iTunes. There’s some neat stuff there–my favorite Tiki Bar TV is there in glorious 720p, as are about a half dozen others I’ve subscribed to but have yet to check out. This has gotten me thinking again about using podcasts in online video delivery–would people get more out of education via online video if they could sit in a comfortable chair or couch and watch it on a normal-sized television, rather than at a desk in a small window on a computer? I’ve got some work coming up involving online video and will play with this more.

Today’s a snow day–six inches fell on Lawrence overnight and KU actually closed campus. In my four-plus years as a student there they didn’t close campus once. This winter alone I think it’s been closed twice.

Anyway, so I decided to spend my time at home on a little professional development. I decided to tackle a few things in WordPress–namely, better use of CSS within it, and getting up to speed on widgets. And I give you the new-look blog.ruralocity.com.

For the most part I think I like widgets–they’re easy to set up and juggle. I downloaded an alternative Search widget (why no title bar, Automattic?) but other than that am running stock. I’ve also got a couple of plugins going, such as the AddThis options you should see at the end of every post. The Google Analytics plugin is giving me some problems–not sure why–but the nifty iPhone plugin works as advertised.

I know, it needs some tweaks–I’m not happy with line heights and a few other things–but this serves as my somewhat annual pledge to renew my own interest in this site. I’ll try.

Also, no, I haven’t looked at it in IE yet. Later.