Concerto – Open-source Online R-based Adaptive Testing Platform
On Thursday, February 27, I’ll be talking to the Faculty Learning Community on Language Learning in Online Environments here at Michigan State University. The topic is Concerto, a testing platform that I used to collect the data for my dissertation. It is made available by the Psychometrics Centre at the University of Cambridge. I’m using this […]
New theme
My site got hacked recently, so I’ve taken this as an opportunity to revamp the theme. I’ve customized the graphics, including my own business card on the lower right! Here’s what to do if your WordPress site ever gets hacked.
Dimdim vs. Elluminate, Round 2
Several people have written to ask me for a copy of the paper I allude to in Dimdim vs. Elluminate: Fight! Well, the status of that paper has been “in press” since it was accepted by TechTrends in December 2009. I was hoping to wait until it was “officially” published in TechTrends before publishing it […]
Push the BigBlueButton
When I try a web-conferencing product, I expect to find myself in a sterile demo room – alone and left to my own devices. When I tried BigBlueButton, I was momentarily confused. Many people were in the demo room. They were talking, text-chatting, pointing at slides – and one of the developers, Fred Dixon, starting […]
Ruby on Rails for a dummy (me)
I know – the above app isn’t much, but oh, the time it took me to get it working! I’ve been trying to follow a Lynda.com video tutorial on Ruby on Rails – just the part about getting started! – for a couple of weeks now. The first stumbling block is that the tutorial was […]
DCDC Monthly Feature: Google Reader
A short article (plus slideshow) that I wrote about Google Reader is currently the monthly feature on the Distance Course Design and Consulting Group website. Of course, it’s my job to write them, but you could check it out anyway. Those are my hands in the pictures, by the way – and you can see […]
Open-source Flash game show maker
I finished making my second Flash application for the DCDC! (My first is here.) My goals were as follows: Create a Jeopardy-style game that instructors could use in a synchronous environment (such as Elluminate, Dimdim, or a face-to-face classroom). Make the application accessible to instructors. This means that instructors shouldn’t need to know how to […]
The Web Laureate: I’m a new fan
I was surprised and honored to find that The Web Laureate had linked to my post about Dimdim vs. Elluminate within a lovely poem. Apparently, this is what the Web Laureate does. I’ll describe it as Web 2.0 through the eyes of a poet. But you should check it out for yourself. In tribute, here […]
Ubuntu 8.10 on the HP 2133 Mini-Note
Image via Wikipedia The tale of my HP 2133 Mini-Note is long and frustrating. I love it because it is small and light – it’s a netbook, and weighs less than 3 pounds, including the battery and AC adapter. I hate it because it is constantly breaking. I bought it in May of 2008, and […]
Open-source Flash quiz maker
Over the past several months, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to devote part of my working hours to learning to use Adobe Flash (CS4). Because I was a complete beginner, I worked through some basic Lynda.com tutorials about Flash and ActionScript 3.0 before striking out on my own. I set the following four […]