I can’t wait.  It’s the first time I’m going to this thing and the first time to visit the Mission Bay Campus.  I think it will be fun.  I also got a scholarship to go — the nice people at Auttomatic heard my pleas and granted my wish to go.

I’ve really gotten into the WordPress thing quite a bit since I moved my design over from Drupal a few months back.  If anyone is looking for those posts, they’re gone.  I figure enough people know how I feel about Drupal as a CMS and there’s no need to beat a dead fish anymore…

WordPress is a legit CMS:  it keeps your information, it can change your information — basic CMS duties.  Additionally, WordPress has awesome SEO capabilities — Drupal’s SEO really kicks ass and what makes searching for me on the Internet very easy.  WordPress is comparable and has kept me in the Top 5 on Google searches since the move.

The coolest thing about WordPress for me is that is so easy to use.  Just log in and type away.  You don’t have to think about anything.  This makes the stream of consciousness writing thing very easy to do.  I don’t know about anyone else, but if I’m not motivated to write, I just won’t do it.  Anything to make it easier for me to get my thoughts down on virtual paper is terrific.

Upgrade is easy on this thing and the latest version 2.6 is the best yet.  It looks cool, easy to upgrade and just continues to expand.  I love it.

Anyways….I hope to learn a lot from this event and get a pulse on what this part of tech thinks about WordPress and what else — anything else.  It’ll just be good to be out that day hanging out with a bunch of geeks like me.

San Jose Mercury News online reported early this morning that Adobe is getting into the online photo editing/hosting business with it’s new venture Photoshop Express.

The article thinks that this may be too little too late because of the other services that already exist on the Internet and who already have many, many subscribers — Flickr, Snapfish and Kodak Gallery. The difference this time is that Photoshop is a well-known brand and will be a big draw.

I haven’t checked out the site yet but I’m hoping that a lot of the ‘coolness’ of Photoshop will be translated into the site — filtering effects more extensive image correction tools.

As it relates to instructional design, all I can say is that this is but one more step towards de-centralizing our ability to do our jobs. The task of designing digital stuff is now possible from any location — on a laptop at a park, at a cybercafe, sneaking in a couple of minutes at a public terminal at a library or school, etc…

Companies like Adobe are moving towards what many of us think is the inevitability of the de-centralized workplace; that as long as there are places for us to park our stuff, develop our stuff and distribute our stuff on the Internet, we don’t have to remain tethered to one physical location. Furthermore, the physical medium and format of how we view and manipulate digital based media is changing what with LED monitors now becoming smaller, more portable and eventually, foldable. The last time foldable monitors logged into our consciousness was with a story over 5 years ago and we have yet to see a consumer version of this. In any case, the future is extremely promising for micro-technology with respect to how we view and interact with digital data.

And this begs the ultimate question: If we can do our work digitally from ANYWHERE, and at ANYTIME, then….when…do get to sleep?

Hmmm…

… ….

1.) Course conversion is not a one to one relationship. This means that regardless of the effectiveness of your classroom material in physical form, simply cutting and pasting or scanning your material may not be appropriate for an online presentation. For example, a paper-based assignment where the student must identify states of the union by coloring it in with crayon or magic marker and then handing it to the teacher for assessment will not necessarily work as an online activity. In it’s present form, the student must print out the activity, complete it and either turn it in to the teacher at the approriate time, or scan it into digital form and email it or upload it into the server. These are both completely acceptable ways of receiving instruction, however a more effective solution would be to create an online coloring book exercise that recreates the coloring process on paper. The downside of this is that unless you find an application that works with the LMS, this may not be possible unless you develop this application yourself (or with paid developers). This alternative will cost more money and time. Evaluate the worthiness of your classroom material as an online object prior to adding it to your list of content to be moved over to the LMS.

2.) The amount of work you must do to create new materials for the online course or to simply translate them over to the new system will take a long time. Some estimates place this at roughly one semester/quarter prior to deploying the course. Add to this the instruction that you must take in order to learn how to create the materials and you are now at nearly a whole academic year for training, planning and development. Give yourself MORE THAN ADEQUATE TIME to develop your course. Careful planning will increase your chances of a successful online course with few and more manageable technical errors. Superior time management and planning skills are key to comfort level during the development stage.

3.) During the planning stage, be mindful of the audience that will receive the course and their perceived technical ability. Remember that this is an ONLINE COURSE which requires the use of a computer to access the LMS. They must have the basic ability to operate a computer and to access the world wide web in order to see your coursework. Additionally, they may need to have other skills related to computer work and this will depend on the type of course you are creating and the type of activities you will include. For example, you may want your students to create a basic web page that they can post to the Internet as a way of establishing a user profile so that everyone can become acquainted. This activity requires that they understand HTML programming and that they may be able to do this with web development package such as DreamWeaver of Homesite and others. If this type of high-level programming is what you need in the course, then you must find a way to assess the class skill in HTML, or teach them this skill. Adding this type of activity to your course will add time to your development phase.

4.) During the development stage, be mindful of the evolution of your work and have colleagues review and critique your work as often as possible. In other words, avoid working on the course in a vacuum by relying only on your own internal guidelines and compass to assess the effectiveness of your work. It is important to have someone outside yourself or your own group review and evaluate the effectiveness of your course as early in the development process as possible. As a matter of fact, this critiquing process can actually begin during the planning process and continue in development. You will find that early review of the entire process will actually make the entire endeavour go quickly because potential errors and confusion can be addressed and fixed.

Additional Resources to support Course Conversion Processes:

• Teaching with Technology Today: Volume 8, Number 6(http://www.uwsa.edu/ttt/articles/garnham2.htm) - This article reports on the most significant observations from the Hybrid Course Project and provides “Lessons Learned” about hybrid course design. Highly Recommended Reading!!
• Lessons learned from teaching online journalism (http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070612jensen/) - Commentary: A first-time instructor of online shares what he’s learned from his students this year. This article is anecdotal in nature and shows briefly what steps he took to create his online course and the results he observed with his students.
• Preparing E-Learners for Online Success (http://www.learningcircuits.org/2005/sep2005/watkins.htm) - A brief but scholarly discussion on the demands of online technology for the students and teachers and strategies to use when planning your online course.