Month: March 2010

MT4 and Google Analytics

Been talking with Mike Brooks about using GAnalytics in our ePortfolios here. I’m definitely getting data on individual blog entries as well as on my “static” pages.Disclaimer: I’m very new to GAnalytics and I might very do more damage than…

Been talking with Mike Brooks about using GAnalytics in our ePortfolios here. I’m definitely getting data on individual blog entries as well as on my “static” pages.

Disclaimer: I’m very new to GAnalytics and I might very do more damage than good. Things seem to be working for me, but proceed with some caution.

UPDATE: Mike just found a potentially better way to implement your code:

  1. Go to your Dashboard
  2. Enter your ePortfolio blog if you have more than one blog
  3. Design menu
  4. Templates menu item
  5. Select the Footer template module
  6. Paste your code before the “</body>” tag
  7. Save your changes and that’s it (we hope)!

Based on work I did in an earlier entry (3/16/10)…
Adding the code into the static pages was easy enough:

  1. Go to your Dashboard
  2. Enter your ePortfolio blog if you have more than one blog
  3. Manage tab
  4. Pages menu item
  5. Select the page you want to track
  6. Switch viewing modes to edit HTML
  7. Paste your Analytics script at the bottom of the page (example of my code-do not use this code in your blog!)
  8. Click on Save

Adding the code so that I could track individual entries was a little trickier:

  1. Go to your Dashboard
  2. Enter your ePortfolio blog if you have more than one blog
  3. Design menu
  4. Templates menu item
  5. Click on the link for the template “Blog Index”
  6. Paste your code before the line “<$mt:Include module=”Footer”$>”
  7. Click on Save

I’m starting to get some data, but I’ll probably need some help interpreting all of the charts and graphs from GAnalytics 🙁
ePortfolio_GAnalytics_Data.jpg

Nursing Online CE Updates

I’ve notified SON and CAPE about the new version of ANGEL’s Assessments broken GOTO advanced actions (the resulting page is blank). We’ll have to resort to alerts to assist students along the course process. I was also considering using Presenter’s…

I’ve notified SON and CAPE about the new version of ANGEL’s Assessments broken GOTO advanced actions (the resulting page is blank). We’ll have to resort to alerts to assist students along the course process. I was also considering using Presenter’s built-in quizzing features as an alternative.

Madeline had me change some colors in PPT because they wouldn’t print in B&W. I just checked and we shouldn’t have to worry about that since that seems to occur when participants are printing directly from PPT. Students only have PDF’s to print from and as long as they look good, then participants will get good prints. Looking at the printing more carefully, I began to wonder if we should offer B&W versions. The problem there is that the Penn State Mark and “SON” do not appear at the bottom of each slide.
6008_slide10_bw.png
6008_slide10_color.pngI was also wondering if we should include full-sized references, but began to think that is going too far for a .1CEU non-credit course. The information is available online and the students can copy that info if they really want to.

Tagging: MT4 compared to Blogger.com and ThoughtFarmer

I just made a screencast to show the differences between tagging in MT4, the Blogs@PSU tool, Blogger.com and ThoughtFarmer. All three platforms handle tagging in different ways. Frankly, the Blogger.com tool is my favorite because it allows me to easily…

I just made a screencast to show the differences between tagging in MT4, the Blogs@PSU tool, Blogger.com and ThoughtFarmer. All three platforms handle tagging in different ways. Frankly, the Blogger.com tool is my favorite because it allows me to easily see all of my tags at once and still create new ones very easily.

This screencast was created using my favorite screencasting software, ScreenFlow. This screencast took 2 hr and 21 min to create. I recorded my actions first, edited that footage, recorded a narration, and then edited the audio and video together. I’m still working on how best to create screencasts that are a balance between a well produced piece and something that doesn’t take too long to record.

Getting Started with Google Forms | Online Technology Help Center

http://www.juniata.edu/wiki/?q=node/156Purpose Learn to use Google Forms to create and distribute simple electronic surveys, then use a Google Spreadsheet to view the collected data. Download the PDF version of this tutorial by clicking the link at the bottom of the page….

http://www.juniata.edu/wiki/?q=node/156

Purpose Learn to use Google Forms to create and distribute simple electronic surveys, then use a Google Spreadsheet to view the collected data. Download the PDF version of this tutorial by clicking the link at the bottom of the page. Disclaimer: Google applications are updated regularly with no prior announcements. As a result, tools and functions can change without warning and may appear differently than represented in this document. In this workshop you will learn how to: * Work with Google Docs * Create a New Form * Name the Form and Complete the Description * Add questions to your survey * Preview your Survey * Edit your Survey * Change the Theme of your Survey * Email the Survey * View Results * Use the More Actions menu options * See Responses * Access your survey from the Google Docs screen * Come back to your Survey * Share your Results

Our old friend Yvonne Clark just shared a link with the PSU Learning Designers community on Google Forms. This is a great resource covering all the basics, even if you don’t have a Google Account.

I’ve used GForms only a couple of times. The last time was was on a project related to the Outreach RESET 2020 Research Team on the Education Sector. I used it to create a survey for PA teachers about their professional development experiences. I like the tool. It was flexible enough for my purposes and allowed me to do more than I could with the free version of SurveyMonkey. Having said that, I would definitely recommend playing around with the tool before working on a medium or high-stakes survey/form. I also wish the summary information was a little more flexible and export-friendly.

World Campus Learning Design ePortfolio Pilot Workshop

Attending a workshop today that is a primer to ePortfolios here at Learning Design. Here are some notes from the meeting:Had beginnings when Ken Udas was here – Personalized Learning SubcommitteeFixing/improving the SRDP process – this isn’t a replacement to…

Attending a workshop today that is a primer to ePortfolios here at Learning Design. Here are some notes from the meeting:

  • Had beginnings when Ken Udas was here – Personalized Learning Subcommittee
  • Fixing/improving the SRDP process – this isn’t a replacement to the formal SRDP process
  • Jamie: this will help establish a better “conversation” or “relationship” between you and your supervisor
  • used to reflect on prof and personal growth; serve as online storage container; assist w/ performance assessment
  • consider the privacy vs. public nature of the ePortfolio
  • Jamie showed this blog as an example and this one by Carla
  • How are we going to assess this pilot? (a good question for other pilots as well… hint: 8171A)
  • ePortfolios at Penn State Website

Here are some components I want to add to my blog:

  • a section on your experience
  • a warmer welcome message and photo on the main page – build an identity
  • awards and honors
  • conferences?
  • customize my banner
  • possibly delete my “About” page
  • profession development – add as individual entries
  • put a link/message from my Tiddlywiki to this blog

Test link to search for “faculty development” tags – looks like I can use these types of links to make it easier for users to find content on my blogs

Some good people to talk with: Dean and Jamie have both been using Blogs@PSU for a while and Jamie mentioned working with another member to work out little problems.

Back from Paternity Leave

I was out the last week for the birth of my little girl, Kylie. It was a wonderful experience. For the first few days, I’ll only be here half the day. It’ll give me a chance to catch up and…

I was out the last week for the birth of my little girl, Kylie. It was a wonderful experience. For the first few days, I’ll only be here half the day. It’ll give me a chance to catch up and get back into the swing of things. I caught up with Linas a little about the last week and he said there weren’t any major issues.

  • Emails
  • Phone Messages
  • Pressing Issues
  • Projects
    • NURS Courses for the Spring
    • CE Faculty Portal
    • Google Apps for Education

Recording Audio for the WC

I’m looking back for documentation on what my recording process for the ADTED 531 course back on Jan 20, 2010. I don’t have any notes so I’ll keep track of what I’m doing now:Reserve 217 OBHardware: MacBook Pro, internal micSoftware:…

I’m looking back for documentation on what my recording process for the ADTED 531 course back on Jan 20, 2010. I don’t have any notes so I’ll keep track of what I’m doing now:

  1. Reserve 217 OB
  2. Hardware: MacBook Pro, internal mic
  3. Software: Audacity?
  4. Record AIFF – 16 bit Integer (Big Endian), Mono, 44.1 kH, about 700 kbits/s

WCLD ePortfolio Pilot

I just spoke with Patty about joining the pilot after getting the nod from El and Rick. I don’t have all my notes with me right now, but from what I recall, the pilot is a year-long project to get…

I just spoke with Patty about joining the pilot after getting the nod from El and Rick. I don’t have all my notes with me right now, but from what I recall, the pilot is a year-long project to get users comfortable using Blogs@PSU as a supplement to PSU’s Staff Review and Development Plan (SRDP) process.

I’m really excited to be apart of the pilot. I even created a root-level page that lists the other [awesome] participants in this pilot. I’m kind of joining the game a little late and might miss some of the kick-off events, but I’ll work hard to catch up.

I mentioned a few things about the pilot to Patty based on my limited knowledge of MT4 and blogging in general.

  1. MT4 doesn’t have a way of displaying a user’s list of tags at once – I found this a very useful feature in other blogging tools; what I do is literally hit every single letter in the alphabet and see which tags apply for any given post
  2. Web Analytics – I’m using Google Analytics to check the traffic on my blog, it’s a great way to justify or plan work I’m doing in my blog… once I get some visitors that is
  3. When to blog – just had a minor comment that we some users may chose to work on a pretty flexible schedule while others will like an hour or two each week to focus on blogging
  4. ePortfolios to replace SRDP’s – yea! but that’ll never happen 🙁

There’s a lot to MT4 I still don’t know. I would like to learn about best practices regarding:

  1. Categories – what the heck are they?
  2. Trackbacks – see above…
  3. Keywords – how are these different in use from tags?
  4. Widgets – what the heck are these?
  5. Preferences – anything in particular we should or shouldn’t be doing?
  6. Publishing related to aggregating post contents – Is it better to create a new post or update an old one? If one updates an old one, does that mean we should change the publish date? If we change the publish date, then we have to be careful of changing the URL. So, does that then mean we go back to previous posts and just add links to newer, related links?
  7. Importing/Exporting – when might we use it?
  8. What to put on my front page?

Thing I still want to do with my blog:

  1. Customize my blog’s appearance
  2. Possible to post audio? Think blogs + RSS + atoms = podcasting!

var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”); document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”)); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-15285145-1”); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Google Analytics

I attended a Brown Bag Lunch seminar on Web Analytics this afternoon. The discussion covered the forming an next steps of this new community. Lots of their initial information can be found at the Google Analytics/Web Analytics User Community wiki….

I attended a Brown Bag Lunch seminar on Web Analytics this afternoon. The discussion covered the forming an next steps of this new community. Lots of their initial information can be found at the Google Analytics/Web Analytics User Community wiki. There is a website on Webstandards, Accessibility, and Usability at Penn State that the community wants to use for expanding on the topic of analytics. I have been wanting to try out analytics and took this opportunity to install analytics on my Tiddlywiki and this blog. I tried to do the same at Our.Outreach and the Fac Dev NING, but those sites kept stripping out the script necessary to track page visits. I still don’t have much of an idea of what I’m doing so I’ll have to train on the subject more from Google’s website.

This is the code for this blog:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-15285145-1”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”); document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”)); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-15285145-1”); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

NURS 6009 “Living with a Life Threatening Illness” Mediasite Live

Spoke to Heather Stover, School of Nursing, today and she said that she’ll talk with their IT Specialist, Colin Dangler today to request the materials and software we’ll need to edit Cheryl’s presentation for 6009: “Living with a Life Threatening…

Spoke to Heather Stover, School of Nursing, today and she said that she’ll talk with their IT Specialist, Colin Dangler today to request the materials and software we’ll need to edit Cheryl’s presentation for 6009: “Living with a Life Threatening Illness.” I had emailed Colin Fri 3/5 about the materials and software, but haven’t heard anything from him.

I’m under the impression that there is a possibility that we (Learning Design) won’t be able to get a copy of the Mediasite Live editing software. This could be a potential hurdle for getting the 6009 course launched by the start of the Summer… when SON would like the course to go live. I’m confident that if we get the materials and software soon (within the next week or so), we’d be able to get the course ready by the summer.

Course Development Goals: Take a pre-existing Mediasite Live presentation and swap out the PowerPoint for a different version. Then publish the presentation and incorporate it into a new 6009 course that is a part of the Nursing Online CE program. Due date to go live: start of Summer ’10. Will work on other aspects of the course until the content is ready: Welcome Page, Resources, Quiz, Evaluation, Certificate, etc.

More updates to come.