Month: November 2011

Thursday, 11/24 and Friday 11/25
Thanksgiving Holiday!

Monday, 11/28

• Back from vacation!
• Old work files – I brought in the disk image of my previous work computer to access files and it worked wonderfully. Melissa helped me to use the Mac in the intern’s office and it was a snap!
• Drupal training – Finished! I still have to finish the “Online Presentation of Data” course though.
• Ravi and collaboration-sharing-videos -Ravi wanted a way for students to easily collaborate on group projects where students will be creating videos. We talked about using PASS for sharing relatively small files. Voicethread sounded like a good idea if the students already have finished products they wanted to share. Melissa mentioned YouTube and I suggested creating a group channel that could aggregate a team’s work into one area. Kaltura would be a great option, if it were working. ANGEL might be an option, but we quickly moved away from that idea because it might create course-wide issues with storage. Ravi mentioned Dropbox, but one has to be careful how you share files because it could link accounts and have a negative impact on storage quotas.
• Brenda and 64-bit woes – Brenda IM’d me about some interesting Flash issues she’s been having with her computer, especially when running an older version of IE. I wasn’t able to help too much, but I did suggest making an adjustment to a message she posts to more accurately state that either 32-bit systems, or systems running Firefox should work with her Captivate project.
• Time flies – The days are cruising on by! What will it be like when I’ll be busy with projects?

Tuesday, 11/29

• Closing out Oracle – Exported old meetings and appointments.
• Catching up on ESSIC – I just realized that I didn’t submit my hours for October! I’m going to have to think what I’m going to do for January.
• PSU Dropbox Beta – Melissa just sent info about a dropbox service that’s being tested. It looks simple to use which should make students happy.
• Drupal 6: Online Presentation of Data – Starting up a new training course.
• Voicethread – I just gave an overview of copying VT’s for future use, identities and groups to Melissa.
• Sick – left at 2 PM because I was feeling sick.

Wednesday, 11/30
Out Sick – Sat at home like a sack of potatoes.

I’m starting Week 2 today since we hold our department meetings on Thursdays.

Thursday the 17th

• SecondLife Avatar Customization – I just spent 30 min trying to customize how I look and it seemed like a waste of time. I’m now stuck with a robot, the best of the choices available. This is one of the reasons why SL is tanking. Too steep of a learning curve. Things have to be made easier and the help docs need to be improved!
  
• Drupal – Ravi walked me through the process of moving up one directory to see a complete(?) list of all of our courses in Drupal, assigning permissions if you have the ability to do so, and viewing content. Ravi mentioned a Drupal users group that seems pretty advanced, but worthy of checking out.
• PSU Password Change – I just received a warning that I needed to update my password and I did, but it didn’t seem to stick? Update… looks like it’s working, but I’ll need to find a way to change my IST password as well.
• vLab’s Google Doc – Amy started a Google Doc to capture ideas around different ways of presenting vLabs as a way of bridging the gaps with faculty.
• World Campus Faculty Convocation – Attended via ELive and the first session I saw was given by Alexa! I met Alexa about a month ago through my friend Charlotte. Alexa asked to meet to talk about instructional design. She talked about the benefits, aspects, and best practices around accessibility.

Friday the 18th

• Staff Retreat – This event was an awesome orientation to the College. It provided a great opportunity to get to know the other staff. The museum tour was pretty cool too, especially since we had specialized highlights of the lacrosse, football, fencing, and basketball sections.

Monday the 21st

• Drupal – I’ve captured my questions on my task list. Click on the “notes” icon on the far right of the task named “Drupal 6 Lynda training.” I’d really love to have admin access, but don’t know if it’s worth the time and effort since I probably won’t have admin access to the live courses I’ll be responsible for.
• Access Rules – These settings are really useful for specifying who you will and will not allow to create an account. I’ve got it configured to only allow “%psu.edu” mail addresses right now.
• Permissions – I need to fix permissions so that anonymous users don’t get an access denied warning.

Tuesday the 22nd

• Drupal – I’m definitely learning more about this version of Drupal. I can’t remember what version I used to admin, but this one definitely has some new tricks or maybe I never learned about them.
• Split summary at cursor – The way my installation is currently configured, I have to click on the “Switch to plain text editor” link to view the button. Wow, the Drupal community does rock 🙂
• Stories, pages, blogs, forums, etc. – I’m going to have to keep clear what type of node is best to use when.

Monday the 14th

• Red “RA” parking pass – Yea, now I gotta figure out where else I can use the pass and how not to get tickets around campus! I also have to figure out how HJ and Kylie can come to visit during the day.
• Unpacked – Another wohoo! It only took one cartload to move my stuff. I still want to bring in posters. No window view, but I’m not complaining. I have an office again which will take some getting used to.
• Neighbors – Started to get to know the others in my suite like Lisa across the hall and Rosalie all they way down the hall. Of course Brenda, Ravi, Melissa, and Amy are also here and they’re going to be a great team!

Tuesday the 15th

• Bagel breakfast – Wow… a huge turn-out! Something like 50-60 people swung by to say hi and have some bagels. Everyone here is so nice. There are way too many names and faces to remember, but I’ll do my best. I’m planning daily walk-thru’s of the building to say hi to people.
• Amy’s IT Support – I’m adjusting to a centrally controlled computer. So far, it’s not a big deal. Amy from out IT department has been wonderful helping me. I’m starting to feel a little bad because I’ve had two sessions with her already and need a third for new software.

Wednesday the 16th

• Email – I’m trying to ignore the temptation to organize all my old emails. That’s what they are… old. There’s limited value updating or moving those messages around. I can access them in Outlook and that’s good enough. I’m in a new job, at a new College and I’m willing to start new.
• Lynda.com – I’ve got some training to go through on Drupal 6 (Essentials and Presentation of Data) and Outlook… what a great resource!
• Do we have or need FTP and shell access to the server?
• Have others customized modules and themes?
• How does Drupal interface with ANGEL? How do our students access the courses? How are they automatically given permissions into the Drupal courses?
• Google Site vs. MT4 – I’m going to have to think about how I’m going to balance these two tools. Google Sites are great for aggregating artifacts, but it really can’t compete with MT4’s ability to perform as a blog.
• NMFS Fall 2011 in Second Life – and oddly random conversation about learning, Howard’s approach, and mindfulness and meditation