NMC Conference Day 2
So my time in education technology has taken me to many conferences over the years, but never have I been to a conference where so many people were using laptops, cameras, pda's, etc. Not to sound too much like a dork, but I loved it. It feels really good to finally be in the majority when busting out my MacBook.
I originally considered going to see the "The Online Tutorial: Supporting Students’ Transition from Traditional to Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD)" session. I was intrigued because I wanted to see how Ohio State University and Adobe was working with the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations to maximize the use of Adobe and the PDF format. However, I'm also curious about what ITAC was doing with Pachyderm, and about the Pachyderm project overall.
Pachyderm 2.0 - A Learning Object Authoring Application
Pachyderm is an authoring application that allows content experts to create visually attractive, pedagogically sound learning objects without any expertise in software or design. The original tool was created by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to aid curators in building online Flash-based exhibits. Through a thirteen-institution partnership, Pachyderm was rewritten to have a more user-friendly interface, multi-platform installation packages and an extensible code base. It is now being offered free and Open Source for all educational institutions. This presentation will demonstrate the application and discuss its potential use cases.
First up was our own Jared Bendis. Despite some network troubles (probably from the dozens of laptops eating up bandwidth), and with the help of about 4 tech support staff, we were able to see a project that Jared had created using Pachyderm. He took a paper he had written and moved it to this learning object format, which he stated gave it more detail, more color, made it more dynamic by taking it out of the linear format. You can check it out here.
Megan Linos from Instructional Technology and Academic Computing (ITAC) department was up next. She demonstrated a couple projects that she developed with staff on campus. You can see each of these items here. What struck me about this presentation was the use of multi-media in the Windows Media format. Being a Mac user, I have a strong interest in multimedia to be multi-platform. I was anxious to get back to my office and check it out (as I didn't want to contribute to slowing down the session connection). It turns out that the media does work fine on the discontinued Windows Media Player (Flip4Mac isn't available on Intel Mac's yet). However, there was another stream portion using the Anystream Apreso platform. One difference I noticed here was that I was only able to hear the presentation and see the slides, missing out on the actually video of the professor. Being a "Microsoft Gold Partner" and having no mention of any other platforms in their system requirements section, I doubt they would ever add this functionality for non-Windows users.
Holly Witchey, who's in charge of the New Media Department at the Cleveland Museum of Art demonstrated her project. One area that she discussed was how to integrate Pachyderm with the CMA's website. It was discussed giving these learning objects the look and feel of the environment in which they reside, but also giving credit to Pachyderm, and driving traffic back to their site through a clickable link. Someone mentioned about bringing in Quicktime's 360 degree views. It appears that it's possible, but Holly wanted to distinguish using Pachyderm as a venue for showing deep, rich content about an object or concept and to get away from the idea of it being a repository for different types of media. To look at it more from a pedagogical standpoint than from a technology standpoint.
Peter Samis and Tim Svenonius from SFMOMA presented probably the most visually stunning example of a Pachyderm learning object. Skin of the Nation. This piece had some superficial alterations to the look to the piece, which really made it flow well within their website and less like use of a template.
Joshua Archer, who is the lead (and pretty much only) developer on the project spoke next, giving some ideas of what's to come with the next version of Pachyderm. Unfortunately, I got caught up passing down "pachy pins" and missed out on what he mentioned (so it must have been brief). He also pleaded for help with this project. It's open source and it's located on Sourceforge.net. One of the most interesting things I gleaned from his talk was how different plug-ins could be written to connect to your own repositories. I think this makes Pachyderm much more appealing.
Overall I have to say that I was very impressed with the project and the people involved. They were affable and open to ideas and assistance.
Pachyderm Blog / http://nmc.typepad.com/pachyblog/
Pachyderm Wiki / http://dev.pachyderm.org/wiki/
My next session was hearing about the Commons that were developed at the University of Tennessee Library.
Circle of Service: The Commons at the University of Tennessee
Barbara Dewey / Dean of Libraries
Julie K. Little / Executive Director Educational Technology and Interim Assistant CIO
http://www.utk.edu/libraries/
The Commons is a collaborative partnership between the University of Tennessee Office of Information Technology and the University Libraries to connect students and faculty with tools and information to be successful learners and teachers in the 21st century. A true partnership and next generation facility, the Commons
This session was decent, but nothing earth shattering. What I was most curious about, was to see how the Library and the IT staff of the University came together to repurpose a space into a "Commons" area that offered 24 hour access to computers and book pickup, as well IT services such as laptop repair and software installation (a free service paid for by a technology fee that students pay). They discussed tensions between the two groups, but seemed to get them all worked out. They noted how their patrons are "one stop shoppers" (i. e. Amazon / WalMart / etc...) so the library wanted to work with IT to allow access to everything in one place, both Library & Tech Services.
They also focused on the physical space. They showed how students wanted the ability to work individually or in groups, and how the layout of the room and the furniture needed to accommodate that. They showed plans of a proposed mixed-use environment where everything was mobile as well as use of non-traditional furniture designs (soft, curved benches that could be for sitting or laying).
Between these two areas, it really seemed like the University of Tennessee was on it's way to something cool... (though I wouldn't want to be the staff member working the late shift).
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