Star Wars Traceroute - #WookieHowl

Star Wars and TCP/IP what could be cooler?  I have been wanting to share this since I first came across this great network hack back in February.  This story made the rounds on all the popular tech blogs highlighting the work of Ryan Werber from Beagle Networks.  To see how he actually pulled off this great hack (including the code he used) checkout the original post on Beagle Networks. Unfortunately the original traceroute has been discontinued due to repeated denial of service attacks after the popularity of the original posting.  Thankfully, a new version (extended) has been posted that runs on IPv6.  If you want to run this fun traceroute yourself you still can, instructions can be found in the blog post Special Treat! New Star Wars Traceroute. Traceroute - is a computer network diagnostic tool used to trace the path of packets of information as they are sent from one computer to another.  The path of the packets are recorded at each node (or hop) in the network, relaying information on the time it takes to pas through each location.  This Star Wars hack is a great example of controlling internal networking tables to display host names of all the various hops as lines from the Star Wars screen scroll from the opening sequence of Episode IV A New Hope.

Below is the original IPv4 traceroute from back in February (so glad I took a screenshot of it since its no longer available)

#WookieHowl!

Award Winning Course Design

AT&T Awards CEP807

I am proud to share the news that one of the online courses I have taught and developed has been recognized with an award of excellence in instructional technology.  The course CEP807/ED870 is the capstone course for the MAET Program at Michigan State University that requires students to develop an online portfolio sharing their academic, professional achievements and essay reflections.  This course encompasses many features, but most prominently are: authentic audience, learning by doing, peer learning, and public scholarship.

For the full story and recap of the course design visit the official 2013 AT&T Award Competition in Instructional Technology site.

Emotional Map Design - Experience iTunes

 Experience to study: purchasing an album on iTunes.

Emotional Map – a visual representation of the user experience of purchasing an album through Apple’s iTunes music store.  The Map can be read by using the vertical line to represent the main timeline of the process, with the horizontal text on the left indicating the individual steps in the process.  The lettered notes are indicated within each step, then mapped in color that ranges from negative (blue) emotion to positive (red) emotional experience.

emotionmap-SML

Latent opportunities are ubiquitous: Pick an environment For this emotional experience I have established that I will study my own emotional experience of purchasing a digital music album online.

Who or what to study: For this study I will map my emotional experience of purchasing a music album from Apple iTunes from my laptop computer.

Establish a goal: My goal for this study is to identify areas of my experience that could be improved upon based on my emotional response to the various aspects of the experience.

Establishing modes and identifying touch-points:Modes:

• Anticipation: Anticipation is the first mode, where the user reflects on the idea of purchasing a new album from iTunes.  Reflecting on previous experiences of purchasing music through iTunes from various devices, and any feelings of excitement or trepidation that may shape how the interaction is approached.
• Launch (Enter): This is the second step where the user actually opens iTunes Store and gains access to the library of music, videos, podcasts, and other media available for purchase.
• Engage: This being the third step, is where most of the interaction takes place.  This step is where the user interacts with the various components of the iTunes store and contain the majority of the touch-points of the purchasing process.
• Exit: This is the step in which you have completed the transaction and leave the iTunes Store environment after your purchase is completed.
• Reflection: The final stage in which you reflect upon the recent experience of purchasing an album through iTunes and how it compares to the anticipation stage from which previous experiences were used to foreshadow how the current experience would go.

Touch-points:

1. Online: (Anticipation)
   1. browsing music online searching for something new.
   2. Finding a new band/song that is catchy and new.
   3. Looking them up to see what other works they have, and band info.
   4. Launching iTunes (Anticipation)
      1. Hoping that the artists album will be available.
      2. Looking forward to seeing if iTunes has other similar matches that would be new “discoveries”.
      3. Opening iTunes Store: (Launch/Enter)
         1. Waiting for store homepage to load.
         2. Notice the new items promoted on the homepage.
         3. Enjoying the design layout of the iTunes store.
         4. Noticing the clear separation of categorical items (music, movies, tv shows, apps, books).
         5. View Top Rated Charts (Engage)
            1. Notice the “young” music at the top.
            2. Surprised by what is downloaded most.
            3. Click on few songs that are unfamiliar by artist/name.
            4. Search for specific artist (Engage)
               1. Type in search field artist name
               2. Waiting for iTunes search to be completed
               3. notice the variety of search results showing multiple albums/tracks
               4. browse options based on price
               5. encouraged by filter options that appear on left hand side
               6. Select Album (Engage)
                  1. Click on album of interest (latest release)
                  2. see list of songs and associated popularity (rating)
                  3. preview songs (30 sec) - go through all
                  4. read band info
                  5. frustrated there are no reviews
                  6. evaluate if there are more than one song that is good
                  7. Purchase Album (Engage)
                     1. Hover over “Buy Album” button to consider the value of the album based on song preview and album price.
                     2. Click “Buy Album” button
                     3. Please there is no further “checkout process”
                     4. Wait for Download (Exit)
                        1. Downloads fast pleasing that it doesn’t take much time.
                        2. impatient for entire album to finish.
                        3. Play Music (Reflection)
                           1. play entire album and listen to each song.
                           2. burn to CD for backup
                           3. Load music on mobile devices (Reflection)
                              1. load entire album on iPhone and iPad.
                              2. Listen to as travel music on daily commute.

This project was inspired by the Experience Map created by Erik Berkman from Little Spring Designs on improving the Starbucks experience.

Online Course Award - 2012 AT&T Awards

I am proud to announce that CEP 820: Teaching K12 Students Online (a full online course) has been recognized with an honorable mention for the MSU AT&T Award of Excellence. This course has seen a long history of iteration and revision. This course is a unique example of teaching K12 teachers how to teach online, through a fully online course.  Throughout the course, best practices, and innovative uses of technology were employed to serve as an exemplar online course in which all of the concepts and practices taught were demonstrated in the course environment.  To this aim, students in the course were able to experience principles of good design and gain first-hand experiences and reflect on the usage of various online teaching tools.

See the full AT&T Awards site for more information -http://attawards.msu.edu/winners/2012/cep-820

Additional details on the course can be found in the Awards Application, submitted by Dr. Leigh Wolf.

Media Communications & Fine Art Orientation

To kick off the 2012 - 2013 academic year at Webster University Leiden each department was to present a short welcome/orientation presentation to the new incoming freshman and international transfer students.  For this presentation I created a short prezi that goes through the departmental overview.  The goal of this presentation was to showcase some of the great media and design aspects that continue to attract great students. Introduction video:

Here is the complete orientation presentation:

Webster University Media Communications & Fine Art on Prezi

Album Cover Quickfire

Activity posted for annual "Experience Webster for a day" where students come in to sit in a class offered by Webster to gain some insight into the types and style of classes offered.  

Album Cover Quickfire on Prezi

Skating on Thin Ice

The weather here in The Netherlands has been unseasonably cold lately.  Last week the snow and cold was so bad it caused many delays and cancellations in both flights and the train schedule.  Although it was cold and nasty out it didn’t stop many of the Dutch residents from taking advantage of the icy conditions to strap on a pair of ice skates and hit the canals.

I was amazed to see the volume of people over the last few days take to the canals for some recreational skating.  Personally, the ice was a little too thin for my taste, not to mention the many sections of open water that had yet to freeze.  Needless to say I was happy to watch from a bridge and take some shots of those daring skaters.  The image here was taken in Leiden Netherlands, just a few miles south of Amsterdam.

The image above was a handheld shot taken with a Nikon D300s and 35mm Nikkor f1.8 lens.

Presentation - Webster University Leiden

Below is the presentation that I gave at Webster University in Leiden Netherlands on January 31st, 2012 to the search committee for the Department Head of Media Communications & Fine Art.

Webster University - a Sean M Leahy Presentation on Prezi

I want to thank everyone from Webster University for the opportunity to come out and give this presentation.  It was a wonderful experience and a great chance to meet many new people.

Creating Infographics for research data

CEP-820-Survey-Infographic

Infographics have become a popular new trend on consuming data in a more elegant fashion than the boring tables and charts of the past.  So this year when I was working on sharing the student data collected for an online course (CEP 820) I am teaching this spring semester, I wanted to branch out into the art of infographics to share this information with students.

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 - 2011 Global Focus Photography Competition

I just learned that I have received 1st Place in the 2011 Global Focus Photography contest.  I am thrilled to have my image selected as the top winner, as well as a second image I had submitted receiving an Honorable Mention. 

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

IrelandBoatHouse-12

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

StormyWedding-12