CEP 820 infographic of student survey

Every semester the students in CEP 820 fill out an introductory survey as the first order of business for the course.  CEP 820 is a course offered to master level students in Masters in Educational Technology program (MAET) or Masters in Education program (MAED) at Michigan State University.  CEP 820 has a course title of Teaching Students Online, and is focused around the concepts, theory and practice of developing online courses and modules for a variety of educational needs.  This survey is used to help this fully online class get a better perspective of the makeup of the study body.

This year I wanted to do something a little more contemporary with the data.  In the past the students are usually presented with a few graphs and statistics about the composition of the course.  For this year I decided to go a little out of the way and create an infographic poster.  My intent to create this poster was two fold.  First, I wanted something more contemporary and fun for the students to see and explore the data with.  Second, I wanted to create something that can easily be repurposed by any of the students or instructors of this course (eg paper/conference presentations, web portfolios, etc.).

Creating this infographic was very fun.  It allows the artist to represent data in a much more compelling way than just presenting the data as a standard chart.  Now, I’m not advocating that standard charts or data tables ever go away, it’s just nice to have an informative poster in addition that can serve as a great entryway to get people interested in the data behind research.

I look forward to developing more infographics on some research that is currently ongoing.

1st Place Image: Boat House (Maynooth Ireland – 2010)

Honorable Mention: Stormy Wedding (Saint Malo, France – 2011)

I wanted to do something a little fun for this holiday season.  Rather than sending out traditional paper “Happy Holiday” cards, we thought it would be fun to make a little video instead.  It was a lot of fun to create, and it was a perfect excuse to get to play with some cool LEGOs.

The video was created by snapping a picture every 15 seconds during the building process, then combining them in Adobe Premiere to create the video.

For the main focus I wanted to focus on the text of “Educate” since that verb is just what is happening, the students in the program are being educated, but the students themselves are the best possible educational technology advocates who take what they have learned and further educate their colleagues and students.   Secondly, since there are 3 years of the program, I wanted to create a unique design for each year trying to pull together a visual representation that was special to that year.  The posters are 16 x 24 inches at 300dpi.

Year 1: Grey Poster

This poster emphasizes the initial integration of what the Masters of Arts in Educational Technology is all about.

Year 2: Red Poster

For year 2 I wanted something slightly more “busy” as the level of technology integration increases as students start exploring and researching the integration of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK).

Year 3: Green Poster

Year 3 is a wonderful capstone to the program in which students are pushed to explore and experience many technology tools and platforms for which they can use in their own professions.  The students in year 3 will be exposed to a wide range of technologies from image editing, website development, audio and video production.

Why QR codes?

A common theme throughout the the posters in addition to the main textual theme of “Educate” is the integration of QR codes in each of the posters.  The QR codes were used to continue the theme of educational technology by enhancing the posters themselves which are printed on paper, as still being interactive when scanned with a smart phone or other device that can read QR codes, allowing me to keep the design fairly simple while still being able to provide the necessary information.

Finished Product:

The Posters came out great, the only small issue I had was with the green poster.  I could not find a print shop that could go as neon of a green as I had designed so I ended up settling for what they had.

Tee Shirt:

As an added element to the summer design, we decided to create a tee shirt based on the year 3 (green) poster.  Since the decision to make the shirts came late in the game, I only had time to get enough printed for the staff of the summer program.  I had a small run of 20 shirts run from the great folks at RetroDuck.com   The shirts were a hit, and you can be sure that next summer everyone will have a chance to order one.

I had the great pleasure of being invited to this truly amazing conference to capture the story behind the conference and research institute in a short documentary.   As a one man documentary crew I had to capture the best possible video and audio with very modest equipment and time.  This filming was my first official documentary shoot, and it was a wonderful experience in both the personal interactions with the wonderful people involved as well as the technical challenge of filming and capturing the story of this monumental conference.

The Planning:

Since I knew going into this project it would be a one man job from start to finish I had to ensure that I planned as much of the shoot ahead of time as I could.  I was able to work with conference organizers ahead of time to get an understanding of the flow of the conference and who would and would not be available for comment.  Given the platform of the conference and the unique challenge of shooting such a highly mobile documentary on a one-day-one-take type of scenario I had to carefully choose my equipment.  To meet the needs of the documentary and to also stay within my shoestring budget I had to choose very carefully the right tools for this job.  More on the exact equipment used below.  For this job I decided to go with a DSLR rig to ensure that I would get the highest quality images and sound with the maximum mobility needed for me to move from one area of the conference to another and setup quickly to capture the interviews and b-roll footage.

The Equipment:

The equipment I chose to take for this shoot was really simple, as that was one of the constraints and challenges of having barely any budget to accomplish the shoot.   For this job I used a DSLR rig setup for highly mobile video and on board audio recording and a pocket full of class 10 SDHC cards and Nikon EL3e batteries.

The camera I used was my trusty Nikon D300s with the Zacuto Z-finder and Rode Shotgun Microphone.  This setup allowed me to both hand carry and tripod mount the camera to capture an amazingly clear high def image at 720p and as well as capture high quality stereo audio without having to use wireless mics.  The Zacuto Z-finder proved to be invaluable as it allowed me to ensure tack sharp pull focusing (since the D300s does not have auto focus on video) and magnified the LCD to 3 times its native size.  The only draw back to the Z-Finder I had to deal with was one I caused myself by not ensuring I had the correct mounting bracket to work in conjunction with my battery grip, so I had to loose the battery grip while filming which turned out not to be too much of an issue but did mean that I had to carry a bunch of batteries in my pocket.  The Rode Mic performed wonderfully, I am still amazed at audio quality that mic is able to capture, even at a distance.  Being able to rely solely on a shotgun mic for audio was crucial given the  fast paced, limited time I had with each interview, setting up each person with a wireless mic was not an option, nor did I have an audio controller to monitor the audio levels.  While it would have been ideal to run a seperate audio capture the entire time with controlled audio levels etc. it was just not in the cards for this shoot, and I can’t say enough how happy I was with how the Rode Mic performed.

The Challenge:

the biggest challenge for this shoot was that I only had one shot to get it right.  Since this entire documentary was to be filmed on one day while the conference was going on live, I had to execute my filming plan without the chance to “redo” any of the shoots or interviews.  While looking back, there are about a million things I would do differently, but that always seems to be the case.  Fortunately I was able to get most of the interviews planned and I did not run into any technical difficulties.

The second biggest challenge was to edit all of the interviews I had gathered down to a reasonable 10-15 min time frame.  This of course, took many hours of red eyed editing late into the night.  After many hours and a few consults to the conference organizers I finally released the final version of the video.

I was thrilled to coordinate with the folks form Fegan Films in Ireland to supply them with a finished European version (PAL) of the video to be incorporated into a published DVD of the conference.  I am very proud to have a finished piece of film on a published DVD along with the fantastic work conducted by Fegan Films.  Hopefully this is the first of many more short subject documentaries to come.

For More information on DOCTRID conference please visit their offcial website at www.doctrid.com.

On May 2nd, 2011 MSU officially released the second coming of the Web Accessibility website which has been the central resource for MSU and the official Web Accessibility Policy since 2009.

The MSU Web Accessibility site is the forward facing public portal to the MSU Web Accessibility Policy that covers all University Web pages used to conduct core University business or academic activities.

What’s New you ask?

In this second version of the site one of the top priorities was to include an entirely new section devoted to tutorials and how-to’s on many of the most common accessibility issues when dealing with web pages, or other digital content, like pdf’s, Microsoft Word documents, and video to name a few.

More content including video tutorials and example templates are currently in the works to be added to the site in the near future.
Big Step Forward

The launch and revamp of this site is a big step forward in accessibility,  there are many issues and obstacles associated with creating accessible websites from lack of knowledge to limited resources.  The new Web Accessibility site offers a great resource for the MSU community and beyond to begin (or hopefully continue) to move towards making web content more accessible.

As one of the contributors and content authors of this site, it is a continued goal of mine to contribute valuable resources and tutorials on how to make content accessible.

I have always liked the look the Apple G4 Cube desktop computer case.  Thanks to my colleague Frank T. I was given an opportunity to recycle this once fairly iconic computer into something still useful in my office – a plant holder.  I was looking for a new little art project and this gave me the perfect little springboard to do something creative.

Frank had found this old G4 Cube and removed all the electrical components, circuit boards, cables etc.  It sat on his desk for a while and I always thought how neat it might be to re-purpose this piece of computer equipment into something more green, like a plant holder.  When Frank retired he tossed this little case my way, and well, I went right to work re-purposing it.

This was a really quick little art project, in total it only took about 15 minutes to do.  It only required simple hand tools (Phillips screwdriver, pliers and some wire). I had thought for a while how I liked the juxtaposition of the cold high-tech (well, once upon a time that is) computer case with the warm softness of a living plant growing from it.  To me, this little plant holder represents the possibilities of recycling old computer equipment into something useful again, and the reclaiming of life by nature over man-made obstructions.

Presentation Part 1 of 2.

Presentation Part 2 of 2

Here is the original presentation, feel free to explore as you like.  I used Prezi to create and share this presentation.

Recently I discovered that I have received an honorable mention in the 2010 MSU Global Focus Photography Contest this year.  It is a thrill to have any of my images recognized, and I’d like to thank all the people involved for giving one of my images the nod of honorable mention.  I would alos like to thank all the people that voted for the People’s Choice winner which was taken by Leigh Wolf

This image was taken in Tours France in July of 2010.  I traveled to Tours France with Bran and Leigh this summer as we went through parts of the French wine country.  I snapped this shot quickly as we walked through the city center and saw this street performing couple entertain a young girl while her mother watches intently in the background.

You can view the official winning image:

http://isp.msu.edu/awards/photocontest/byyear/2010/photos.php?i=11

You can also view all the other winners by vititing the contest page :

http://isp.msu.edu/awards/photocontest/byyear/2010/