Legal Protection

I had an epiphany this week regarding Copyright and Fair Use. It seems there is one potential vulnerability relative to Fair Use in the pedagogy I use. When my students prepare class presentations, I have them post the presentations to Wikispaces. The wiki is a natural fit for such a function, however, the real vulnerability, relative to copyright, is that Wikispaces is completely public. The epiphany this week was that Google Docs, while providing the functionality and benefits of the wiki, also affords a level of privacy within the learning domain. Only when the presentations are shared can they be seen by others. They may be seen by the public, but only after "publishing" and then the published URL must then be forwarded to potential viewers outside the learning domain.

Sometimes One Needs to Get Their Attention First

You gotta love those adolescents. They sometimes are just so irresponsible. They want to be in charge of themselves but only if it means they get to choose how to spend their free time and what is free time and when is free time.

This week I used both the email feature along with the Announcements document to remind the students that they needed to bring some money for some tests. They all agreed that they all would take the test and pay the $15. One week passed, two weeks passed, the dead line approaches and still no money. Using email along with the Announcements document, four students finally brought their money.

Maybe it was just the deadline approaching that was the motivation but I was getting a little anxious. It was nice to be able to use two different communications tools to provide a reminder if not the motivation.

Pervasive Communication

Google's chat feature was most helpful this week. The quarter is drawing to a close so a large final exam was scheduled for Friday. As I was working on another class Thursday night, a student initiated a chat with me regarding the final for which he was evidently studying. I gave him some direction regarding study tips and he fears were relieved.

Earlier in the week, a student who was out of town reminded me that she would be gone and that I needed to cover an assignment she had accepted for a student leadership role.

I also had the opportunity to utilize the Revisions tab in Google Docs where I keep a running document called Announcements with the daily white board information. A student approached me indicating that he did not know that an assignment was expected to be turned in that day. Even though I had removed that particular line from the Announcements document, I was able to go back through the Revisions tab and show the student that in fact he should have been aware that the assignment was due.

Living On-Line

The on-line assignment from last week was a success. All students responded and completed the assignment as directed. On Two occasions, while I was on-line, students contacted me through Google Talk with specific questions relative to assignments and homework.

One student had the assignment to present to a large group, four classes meeting together. He prepared and presented his assignment in Google Docs Presentations. The documents are not real full featured, such as PowerPoint, but if one can learn to create within their parameters, the benefits of on-line accessibility and storage are fantastic.

The presentation I was scheduled to give last Friday got pre-empted. The opening presenter took an hour and 45 minutes when he was scheduled for 30 minutes; too bad.

Real World Distance Education

As I sat in my EdNet class of InsT 6870(Current Issues), I thought I would quickly check my Blackboard discussion posts for my InsT 5240 (Producing Distance Ed Resources)class. Yikes! There was a billion new posts. The buzz was caused by an assignment coming up soon.

The assignment was to develop and implement a distance ed project using Instructional Architect. The develop part was no problem, the implement part was a big problem. A reflection on the implementation is due Friday. Here's the big problem, I'm presenting at a state conference Thursday; Thursday and Friday nights I am a chaparone for a student leadership conference in Park City. PANIC!

No problem, I'll use Google Apps to make the assignment including some feedback from the students on their impressions of the Instructional Architect project assignment. I'll have them turn in their assignment by sharing a Google Doc with me and I won't even need to talk to the class face to face. I guess that is real world distance education.

I'm Watching

I had a unique experience this week with Google Talk. I had to take a sick day on Thursday. I was on-line to tie up some loose ends when one of my students sent a Google talk instant message asking if I was there today. I did respond that I was home sick and asked if the substitute was there. He responded that they were. A second student expressed his sympathies and wished me well. It was an odd feeling, kind of like I was watching with a surveillance camera or some such tool.

Captivating

I finally received the copy of Captivate that I ordered in June. I guess part of the problem was a version change about the time I ordered it, as well as Macromedia being purchased by Adobe.

I have been doing the tutorials and visiting the developer's site to collect some tips and tricks. The plan remains the same in that I want to use Captivate to create a lesson on the binary number system.

I usually spend at least a period or two at the beginning of each school year on binary numbering and number systems in general. The Hexadecimal numbering system is also covered in the curriculum and used extensively in computer science. I talk about numbering systems in general to scaffold up to the concepts of hexadecimal.

I make a big deal about zero and how it has a special function as a place holder. Zero is a "magic" symbol that makes all number systems work. I try to make a real distinction between numbers and quantities. I drive home the point that several symbols together represent a quantity. For example, when we see the symbols 10, we think of the quantity ten, but in fact, using different numbering system it could mean quantity two, three, four, or sixteen.

Next, I let numbers or symbols that represent a specific quantity represent something else. I use an example from US history, the story of Paul Revere. Most US students can complete the phrase, "One if by land, ____ ____ ____ ____." (two if by sea) This illustrates that quantities can represent something else if it is decided before hand what those numbers will represent. I then ask how much more information could have been communicated if they had used more than two lanterns. Perhaps we could communicate that the British were coming by land to the North, or by sea to the South. The students then pickup on the point that, if determined ahead of time, anything can be represented if we have enough "lanterns."

These are the concepts that I'd like to develop with Captivate.

Facilitated Feedback

The students finished an assignment in Google Presentations. The students submitted the assignment by "sharing" them with me as a collaborator. I went through each slide of the presentation and then provided feedback to the students via a new slide. The feed back included the advantages of including graphics in the presentation and requirement of citing sources.

The student attitudes were very positive. After receiving feedback. some students made corrections and insisted that I view the presentation again.

The Calendar

I love the concept of a single source to manage multiple calendars which Google Apps does. I have experienced some frustration in that the transition from one month to the next is abrupt, I can only see the days of the next month which share a week with the current month. The calendar offers different views like day, week, month, next 7 days, and agenda. One would guess the agenda would allow you to span months but it does not, it only shows the current month. Perhaps in future versions.

Formative Evaluation

Google Docs continues to be a focus of development. Today I tried a real-time collaborative research project with twelve students editing the same document at the same time. The end product was achieved but the means was not what I expected. The students, all editing the same spreadsheet at the same time, recognized very quickly that if they did not edit a particular cell first, their work was replaced with what ever was saved first. The students then began to save early and often. This worked for a short time but I saw several students simply allow others to do the work. In a future exercise, I would create a template and then have the students modify their own section of the template to produce the end results.

HTML on Google Docs pages

I was creating a list of students when I said to myself, "I know there is a way to create tables in HTML and I see this tab on the Doc page that indicates I can edit this page in HTML." It took just a minute to find a reference to the table tags and shortly I had a table with the student names spread out horizontally across the page rather than a list straight down. I see some real potential with Google Docs by implementing the features of HTML.

Chat with the Students

As the students were diligently working on their assigned presentations, the room was filled with the sound of keyboards clacking away. All students were intent on their own screens. Suddenly I get a popup on my screen, "Mason says: Mr Booth, this link is not responding." I reply, "Close all windows and restart your browser." Soon, I notice Mason is back at work.

The other night I was working on some home work when I get this popup, "Nick says: Mr Booth, is that you?" I reply, "Yes, it's me." "Nick says: I may be late to class tomorrow, I have a dentist appointment." I say, "That's fine, you will need to make up the chapter final."

In reality, Nick could have taken the chapter final anywhere on the internet. I prefer to proctor chapter finals but I have allowed students to take them from home. What a day we're livin' in.

New Tools at Google Docs

I am so excited about the latest tools at Google Docs...Google Presentations! I have used student presentations as part of my pedagogy for years. Of course, MS PowerPoint was the application of choice. Now, with Google Presentations, the students have sufficient tools to create presentations which they can save on the web and edit from home. Another positive feature, it does not have all the bells and whistles, which were often a distraction for students. This simplicity encourages more focus on content than on showy fluff.

The initial introduction was received very positively. Before I had an opportunity to get into any specifics of the application, students had already created two or three slides and were on their way to becoming proficient with Google Presentations. The hardest part was dividing up the learning objectives and that was done with Google Spreadsheet.

An Aside from Design Journal

I volunteered to serve as an adviser to a student council. The first item of business at our first meeting was to determine who had a gMail account and who did not. I have realized that Google docs is such an ideal tool for group collaboration, that I insisted that all council members create an account if they did not have one. I showed the council how they work and they all responded favorably.

Design Journal Entry

I believe the type of instructional design I am currently using is called "Rapid Prototyping." I design as I implement. I am confident the end product will be excellent but the process of getting to that point is a little ragged

Design Journal Entry

Since the latest post, I have implemented a shared document called "Announcements" with the news of the day and any assignments expected that day. Response has been favorable. Just 3 out of 23 students over looked the new shared document.

I also implemented Google Talk in one of two classes. The students thought it was a lot of fun. They quickly caught on and were creating groups and chatting with one another. The next morning, one student commented that so-and-so was on-line last night and Mr Booth was too.

Conceivably I could provide real time assistance with students working on their homework if they needed it.

Design Journal

September 6, 2007

I should have been doing this all along, silly me.

To review the design process to this point:

• Performance analysis - new students struggle to master copious requirements at the start of the school year.
• Problem could be solved with instruction, an instructional tool that compiles all resources and requirements in a central location, in this cases an electronic repository.
• Needs assessment - a check list has been used in the past that formed the basis of the needs assessment. As we worked through the check list this year, I monitored the process for weak and missing needs. I determined that additional incentive may produce more favorable results. 1000 points were offered upon completion of all the items on the check list. Results to this point have been good. The deadline is Fri. 9/7. At that time I will analyze percentages completed. This will provide a basis for comparison in the future.
• Goal 1 - students will locate the central repository (CR)
  
• Goal 2 - students will work though self paced tutorials explaining features of the CR
• Goal 3 - students will complete the check list called "First Week Homework"

I researched the delivery system options including: Moodle, Wikispaces. com, an HTML web server, GMail, iGoogle, and Google Apps. All of these are free or very inexpensive in the campus where I currently teach.

Moodle - I have had some exposure to Moodle in the past and our center has two moodle servers available currently. I chose not to use Moodle because of the time required to set up and maintain the system, classes, courses. It is quite feature rich on one hand but the learning curve is pretty steep on the other.

Wikispaces - I have used Wikispaces in the past and find it the best of several I have tried. It offers free wikis to K12 and the interface is very easy. For what it does, it is a robust wiki solution. I may still use it in the course but is not capable of serving as the CR.

HTML web server - I use a web server to deliver most of the curriculum which comes pre-built from Cisco System and Hewlett Packard. The performance is marginal and it is my intention to upgrade the hardware and to switch to Linux in an effort to increase performance. This server will be a big part of the course but will not act as the CR.

GMail - At the summer workshop, we explored GMail and Google Docs and Google Talk. I thought this could be the foundation of the CR. I started to explore in detail how the product would fit into the classroom solution as the CR. It can do so.

iGoogle - I then stumbled across iGoogle which offers a calendar along with other Google stuff on a convenient Start Page. I was feeling pretty excited that I had arrived at a viable solution. I shared this with a colleague who suggested I look into Google Apps.

Google Apps - Google Apps is a solution offered by Google that supports a private domain. For instance, the domain pcnet.jatc-sandy.org. Google Apps is iGoogle in a managed domain. It offers all the features of iGoogle in a more controlled environment. I allows email accounts using the domain name, ie; user.name@pcnet.jatc-sandy.org. It allows a shared Google Calendar, Google Documents, Google Talk, GMail. This looks like the solution.

Implementation and Setup of Google Apps

To fully take advantage of Google Apps, it required an application to Google and the we the participants must have a working domain. In our case it was: jatc-sandy.org. There was some DNS administration tasks that had to occur which were managed by an associate.

I knew just enough jargon to ask the right questions and he agreed to help. He was, by-the-way, the colleague who recommended that I look into Google Apps.

The application was approved, the administration task accomplished and I was set up as the domain administrator. I added the users first thing and then set up the Start Page that everyone sees when they login. I created a calendar and shared that with all domain members.

I have created a couple of shared documents to this point, the class roster in a spreadsheet and a list of important web links in a text document.

After the "back-end" configuration happened, the

Final Paper Reflection - post submission

As I finished up my submission for my final paper for the summer workshop, I felt it appropriate to reflect on my latest thoughts. I was thinking during the class that perhaps I could use the same Web 2.0 tools that Sandie did for my class this coming year. I think instead I will use some of them but I am still not sure how to use all of them.

The tools Sandie used that may prove useful are: Gmail and chat, Google Documents. I can't see where we would use MySpace, Skype or MSMessenger. I would ask each of the students to use or create a Gmail account. I can see where I might use the chat feature to ask a student to get stay on task or ask for an update. I don't see where a group chat feature adds much to a class that is local (I know this is a DE class, please forgive). I may use the calendar feature also. Google documents will be an easy place to post information that will roll off the calendar shortly.

The other tools we talked about that we did not use include the following:

I have used DreamWeaver to manage one previous web site but did so under the close direction of an associate. In this research a found a great article that is a great primer to DreamWeaver and I learned a bunch.

Captivate is going to be a great tool. I need to get up to speed with it before classes start.

Scholarly Research Distance Education

Besides DE, I'm looking into the optimum time for a presentation. One study called "Broken Lecture" took the traditional one hour lecture, broke it into three fifteen minute mini lectures with fifteen minutes of "self-directed learning session," presumably five minutes after each mini lecture. Intriguing??

DE

Best Practices:
Implement a community of learning, institutional peer review, rigor in learning outcomes
http://www.neasc.org/cihe/best_practices_electronically_offered_degree.htm

Captivate Notes

As I work through the learning curve of Captivate, I want to keep notes.

I am working with a template inserting the material from the Wiki training module. I inserted a question slide and it appears to be quite robust. I allows T/F Multiple choice/ Multiple response, survey, scale type questions with branching per response. We'll see how this works!!!

Captivate also inserted a second slide with the results of the question slide.

The Quiz Manager seems to be pretty narrow. There are a number of Adobe products that can work with the data, (Connect, Authorware, other). I need to find out more about SCORM. Here's a quick definition.

Now I need to find out if the other products are SCORM compliant.

Captivate Notes

As I am working through the learning curve of Captivate, I want to keep notes.

I am working with a template inserting the material from the Wiki training module. I inserted a question slide and it appears to be quite robust. I allows T/F Multiple choice/ Multiple response, survey, scale type questions with branching per response. We'll see how this works!!!

Summer Workshop Overall Reflection

Sandie is expecting each of us to grow substantially as we produce our final product of a distance education tool. Being the more experienced kid on the block, she is expecting a lot more from me. I can see why but at the same time am somewhat frustrated with her heightened expectations. For one thing, she is expecting to gauge the worthiness of the product by hours spent in production. This is a valid method of measure but Sandie does not understand how I operate. Case in point, the journal. If I enter 100 journal entries, there is 100 hours right there. I have not made a journal entry yet of less than an hour, close to two for some. I can see this project going to 300 hours or more. I hope to produce something that will apply to my teaching, not just be an academic exercise. To this end I envision a website portal that will serve as a central location for finding all learning materials as well as a repository for newly created learning modules. I am working out the concept with enough detail to secure Sandie's approval.

Summer Workshop Reflections Day 4

I know any reflection is much more accurate and effective when it is compiled immediately following the occasion upon which one is reflecting. This one will be done more from memory four days after the fact. These four days have not been with out fruit however, I have had several good ideas; I just need to remember them.

We condensed the schedule from day four and what would have been day five into a long morning.

We started with a quick exposure to Captivate, an Adobe product that creates Flash training modules using screen capture, notation, and audio. On of the real strengths, was the capability to branch to different slides based on user interaction. I had downloaded and done the demos and tutorials the night before, so I had already seen Sandie's presentation. I tried to find some training on UEN's site but did not. I guess this will be a situation of self learning. I did order the product from the bookstore.

Next, we did an activity where two teams of two were given a flag to recreate using crayons. One team had one person draw while the other referred to the image at will. The other team was given the image for a time and then it was withdrawn and the team had to recreate the image from memory. We discussed the benefits of each approach and realized there were strengths and weaknesses in each. Some observations were:
1) collaboration involves resources as well as people and individuals have strengths and weaknesses.
2) collaboration is more effective in some situations
3) feedback along the process was important

We then did two puzzles in teams of two. The "rules" were different for each team. One team could talk and work at the same time, the other could not talk and had to trade off every 30 seconds. The talking team was first to finish, while the other pronounced early that there were pieces missing (they were not). When the first team finished, Sandie left the room and then the rules were broken. The finished team went to help the non-talkers and recognized that some pieces were misplaced, giving the impression that pieces were missing. In the end the puzzle was finished and Sandie returned to discuss when we had decided to break the rules, this being the point of the exercise; that sometimes we accelerate the design process if we use untried practices.

Several notable quotes came up. Steve said, "It is better to shoot for the moon and only hit the mountain top than is is to shoot for the top of the manure pile and hit it." He shared one of his favorites, "Dream no small dreams as they have no magic to stir men's soul."

We then looked at some mash ups which are entertaining but hard for me to see any educational value in applied technology outside multimedia.

We then did a sorting activity to arrive at our "credo" in the form of a bumper sticker. Each of us produced three responses to, "Distance Education is ________." We then elected systematically which we liked the best as a group and created a virtual bumper sticker.

We then dismissed with pleasantries.

Summer Workshop Reflections Day 3

Another busy day with a number of new concepts and tools to ponder. Our initial discussion compared the motivation for the implementation of technology. Could versus should; just because the technology is cool and neat and we could use it to do ______, should we? We need to ask ourself if the implementation is bringing significant value to the learning experience. Steve mentioned having spent hours creating a cool new module that really brought very little benefit to the course. He caught himself wanting to use the tool exclusively or excessively. I know I have been guilty of the same. Remember, "Could vs. Should" when considering using a technology tool.

We discussed a couple of digital libraries and contrasted them with digital repositories. Sandie suggested that for our purposes, they are pretty much the same. Some examples mentioned were: Galileo, the Gutenberg Project, NSDL, Instructional Architect, Pioneer Library, Family Search and Ancestry.com.

We talked about RSS; how an aggregater will act as you web news article browser. Sandie explained that she no longer uses RSS. I have to agree with that. It takes me at least 20-40 minutes to go through and parse out desired information when I do it. I found myself un-subscribing to many feeds. Perhaps a leaner more focused approach would be better.

We the talked about copyright issues. We determined early in the discussion that it was not only illegal in a lot of cases, but also immoral in many cases to use material from the web. We talked about "Fair Use" and we found that most educators have their own definition of what percent is allowable in Fair Use. The range was from 10% to 50%. I shared how I include on my Wiki opening page a statement about Fair Use and the link to the section of code at the U.S. Copyright Office. This led into a discussion of Creative Commons.

I had heard of Creative Commons somewhere previously. The concept is to allow differing levels of use or reproduction and assigning an appropriate symbol. From their web site:

• Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."
  
  We're a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free.

Sandie pointed out that as an employee, your created material may be the the copyright property of the employer and that the non-disclosure agreement of the employer would clarify the issue.

An interesting sidebar was the idea of personal pride or ego as opposed to the common good. My take is, "Life is too short and you can't take it with you." But of course I have never created anything of much value so that's easy for me to say.

Sandie instructed us to use original work on our project for the most part and to site sources and use links to web resources rather than copy the material.

Sandie asked us to reference the proposal template for the 6460 course and to gear our final paper as a transition to that end. The literature review should function as background information and justification for our design. I had a thought relative to optimal time spent on an activity.

In our recent class, I can't remember which, a discussion thread emerged about the optimum time that should be spent on any one learning activity. The feed back that surprised me was that this particular teacher felt like 15 minutes was about right for high school seniors. I have always gone by the old adage the mind can only absorb that which the butt can endure, or about 45 minutes. This got me thinking and doing some informal research including some verbal surveys of my students; I must say that I am leaning more toward an optimal time of 30 minutes. This will be one of the areas of research, literature review I plan to conduct. I've already done some comparison of LMS systems. I need to do more there. Perhaps identify the common components of various LMS products and determine which would fit my situation.

What ever final project I decide upon, I want to use it in my class which is not a DE situation. Much of what we do is web based and I have used a wiki extensively with success. There are several components that I know I want to implement and some that are out of my control, mandated by the school or district such as grade reporting and attendance recording.

Sandie shared something that I found intellectually intriguing. Her doctoral work deals with a topic new to me: Notational Systems. She recognized early in her involvement with Instructional technology that there were terms that ambiguous within the discipline or across associated fields. Don't I know how that is. Information technology is awash with duonyms, (my own word). She pointed out that historically, any study or discipline has accelerated rapidly once a method of notation was defined and implemented. The case she used to illustrate the point was the study of music and how it took off once a system of notation was invoked. Music contrasted with dance also made the point that once the notational system was in place, the "science" (or art) took off.

We had some fun with Skype. This could prove very useful in an on-line course. We could even do video with the phone; not very useful for a F2F class.

After Skype, we set up a MySpace account and reviewed Sandie's space. I think parents would not approve of this in the classroom in addition to the fact that some districts block the site.

Sandie asked all to research Open Course Ware, ARCS, and CSBs. She also assigned us to research Captivate by Adobe.

Summer Workshop Reflections

Day 2

The team building activity to start the day was a follow-up from yesterday's Celebrity Interview where we wrote a headline summarizing significant aspects of the interview. It was a good activity to get to know the others better and have some fun at the same time.

After a quick review of yesterday's activities, we launched into a discussion of Learning communities. The assignment was to join a formal learning community which I missed somehow. Some of the thoughts shared were how most of us already are a part of a learning community. I suggested that NAF would qualify. Sandie challenged Jennifer and I to join a more formal community.

We determined that a learning community would have something in-common, a purpose or objective. We contrasted a community of practice which would be more like the open source community. In the end, they are pretty much the same thing except on rare occasions.

I expressed my sense of anxiety having one more thing to check off the to-do list. I can see the benefit of a blog and discussion groups. This is my third endeavor into blogging. I commit that I will be diligent all week at this design journal.

We did an activity dealing with a math trick that illustrated the importance of collaboration in distance learning. In teams of one, we were given one of four steps to complete the math trick. Steve had step one which meant he did not have enough information to anything more than fill out a few cells in the answer sheet. Jennifer was given the second step and she was able to complete all of one column and some of the final answer column while I had step three and readily completed the answer column and most of the problem column. Marilyn had all steps and finished all work.

We then collaborated to fill in the missing steps. Interestingly enough, I did not pay close enough attention to step two so when I tried to demonstrate the trick to my daughter and son-in-law, I got some bad answers. Only then did I get the significance of step two.

We also discussed the importance of formative evaluation in the design process. All of us related experiences with Yanghee's class and how enlightening the process was. We determined that as SME's we too often make assumptions that others have an understanding where they do not. Also, we realized there was a point where the steps become too simple and that learners sometimes expect some result to be manifest where none should.

We then did an interesting exercise using MSN Instant Messenger. We discussed Simulations using chat. The main points were that a simulation is not real, entirely. The consequences of mistakes in a simulation are controlled so they are save and inexpensive. The benefit of repetition as a learning tool was mentioned and that it may be a simulated scenario such as a mock business or process. I liked the idea of simulation as a scaffolding tool. The simulation may include the real thing in a controlled environment.

I expressed my frustration, Sandie called it off-balance, with not having a firm grip on how I could use simulation other than those already used in the CBT programs I use in class. Jennifer pointed out the scenario type of simulation where the classroom is operated like a business. I like the concept but will have to work this out in my mind for my particular situation.

We then wrapped up the day talking about the Final paper due July 9th. Up to 6 pages that will describe what we want to accomplish with out final project to be completed over the fall and spring semesters. Sandie suggested looking at the Proposal template for the 6460 course. We need to review the latest literature and check available resources, methodologies, an use project management tools.

Summer Workshop Reflections

Day 1

I felt like a real dummy today. At 8:25 I made my way to the Education building for my class. I knew the date. I remembered the teacher. I was pretty sure it was face to face on USU campus The staff in the Instructional Technology office finally found a minute to give me attention between important social interchanges; I felt stupid because I thought they should know that Sandie was teaching this week. Big surprise! After trying to call Sandie, they point me to room 230.

It was locked and dark so I found an open computer lab to check the web CT site one last time. The response was the same, "Class not activated." No new email, humph. I check banner to see if anything is listed there. Oh yeh, the class number is InsT 5520, section SLW. How stupid could I be? SLW must mean it is in Salt Lake.

90 minutes later, the receptionist at the Murray extension is the first smile I've seen all day. He checks for 5520, no, nothing here. "Let me call someone," he politely offers. "Thank you," I reply. "The person is away right now, I'll try again in a few minutes," he suggests. Finally he determines that the class is in Logan and that they can link the EdNet classroom with an open room in Murray. We spend the next hour together, virtually, via the miracle of technology. We determine that I could travel back to Logan over lunch to see a former student's final project.

90 minutes later, the presentation is underway and I find an open seat I had seen earlier from 80 miles away. Tom Davidson, a high school science teacher at Box Elder HS, presented his final project. It was well done. It appeared very professional, clean, detailed, and well organized. Tom admitted he had spent as much as 200 hours, confessing it was a little "over the top." The objective however was to expose us to a good final project. It does look like a lot of work but it is in fact "doable." Tom's email is tomrdavidson@gmail.com

We move then to the computer lab, room 230!!! where we create a gmail account and a blogger account. We will use Blogger as a "Design Log" to document the design process of our final project. We will use the documents feature of Google to create a Wiki. This was a surprise to me, I had heard of Google documents but did not realize they are a Wiki, duh. They are not the full featured version like some hosted Wikis but it works for a quick shared document, awesome.

When I get back to my accommodations, I log into the Web CT one more time to see if anything has changed with the InsT 5520 class. I get the same error message. Then I read the fine print, If you get this error message your instructor may have chosen to deliver the class by some other method. I feel stupid all over again.

The Journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step.

So it begins, the Distance Learning and Teaching sojourn.