A break in July

technology180 will take a short break in July, but will return in August, ready for the fall semester! In the meantime, enjoy this article about a youngster who gave up his iPod for a week in favor of a Walkman (that’s a cassette player for you youngsters out there). It’s a nice piece and gives us, well, oldsters a different perspective.

I hope you are enjoying your summer.

reporter central

YouTube has rolled out yet another new service: YouTube Reporters’ Central. This site provides instructive pieces for the “citizen reporter” as well as links to current news. Items up front today include Katie Couric on how to conduct a good interview as well as NPR’s Scott Simon on how to tell a good story.

easy as a-b-c

Hope this makes you smile a little on this fine Friday. The King of Pop may be gone, but there are five decades of widely varying styles of music and appearances he leaves behind, and of course the technology and applications we have will preserve them all. My personal memory: 1970, bouncing up and down on the back seat of my parents’ car to this song (and when I learned the rule i before e, except after c, I always sang it to myself – you know the simple mel-o-dy):

the new chronicle

I’m just full of news today. The Chronicle of Higher Education has set up a temporary beta page in advance of their online redesign launch. Check it out.

your gov, online?

Nifty article in Wired about the Obama Administration’s look at moving information online, per the new (and first) administration CIO.

Bb and software standards

The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s Wired Campus is reporting that Blackboard is prepared to bring itself more in line with industry software standards and “reduce vendor/platform lock-in.” Good news after Bb9′s issues of this spring, eh?

twitter tutorial

Maybe you’ve seen the cover of Time Magazine or read the corresponding article, or maybe you’ve been reading about how Twitter has become a lifeline of information from Iran. Or … maybe you have a little time on your hands this summer and you’re just curious. Whatever the case, here’s a tutorial on Twitter, the micro-blogging tool getting more and more press lately. And, by the way, you can see my sporadic tweets in the right column of this blog.

an award for The Hub video

The video that TASC shot and edited for The Hub has won Best of Show at the American Library Association Library Leadership And Management Association’s Marketing and PR Awards.

This project was completed last summer after Stacey Greenwell (of WTY Library/The Hub) and I talked about the possibility of creating something visual to promote the services of The Hub to the campus community. Sounded like a good summer project, so over the course of the summer Kirk Laird of TASC and I met with Stacey, did some planning, and then Kirk completed the planning and the taping and editing as he had time. The result was great fun.

Read more about it on the UK Libraries Dean’s Update blog.

View the video on blip.tv.

(There’s also a longer version that tells the whole story.)

Great job, Kirk! And, as always, The Hub rocks!

bike tricks, old school

All Edison was missing was YouTube for sharing. Enjoy – and happy Friday.

More tips on using Bb9

If you or your students have difficulty using Blackboard 9 (including downloading files, using the Discussion Board, and more), please ensure that you (and they) are using Mozilla Firefox with the most recent version of the Java plug-in. The following information may be helpful:

1. Download Mozilla Firefox here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
2. Check to see if you have the most recent version of Java by visiting http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp and clicking the Free Java Download button (if you have the most recent version, it will just tell you instead of downloading).
3. Check your system by clicking on the “Check your computer against the system requirements” link inside the red box either on the Blackboard login page or on the My Bb tab Page.  (This is a key part so that they have the compatible browser addons or programs loaded that Blackboard needs)
4. Run only the programs that you need to run when accessing Blackboard.  (This will free up resources for Blackboard.)
5. If your connection to Blackboard seems slow,
   • Shutdown your Browser.
   • Close all other programs
   • Shutdown your computer (Powerdown, not just a restart)
   • Wait 10 seconds.
   • Power back on your computer
   • Start your Browser and login to Blackboard