Unetbootin on Mac (Updated)

Update: Here's my screenshot walkthrough

Although Unetbootin (or PenDriveLinux.com's the USB Universal Installer, which is great) isn't available on Mac, this article with tips on how to use DD to achieve a similar effect--including an overview of Unetbootin and other utilities--is great! Here's an overview of Unetbootin from the article cited above:

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list.

Using Diskutil (Mac OS X only)

1. Download the desired .img file

2. Open a Terminal (under Utilities)

3. Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices

4. Insert your flash media

5. Run diskutil list again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)

6. Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN

7. Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/diskN bs=1m

8. Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes

I've also written about Unetbootin here with related posts also available. Two of my own posts I keep coming back to are DD and FSARCHIVER.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

5 Steps to Digitizing the Writing Workshop #edchat #writing

Note: I wrote the following as part of my participation in the Abydos Learning Writing Institute. I'm grateful to the feedback from folks during "clocking" exercises.  As you will see, it is my first attempt to address the cognitive tension that exists between paper-oriented publishing approaches to writing workshop and the digital possibilities.

Acknowledgements: Special thanks to Diana Benner for her collaboration on the Digitizing the Writing Workshop and the Abydos Learning Writing Institute that inspired this article.

Short Link/URL: http://bit.ly/5stepstodigitizewriting  

Update (07/28/2010): This article accepted for publication in MassCUE. Thanks Jean Tower!

"If you can write what people will read by choice," shares Vicki Spandel, author of Six Traits Writing, "the world is your's" (Source: http://bit.ly/bRwHIs). Over 400 million bloggers experience the truth of this statement daily. If their writing fails to engage, no one reads their work. Yet other bloggers experience that the world is their's every time they publish a piece online.  As human beings writing about our passions, many of us have a deep desire to be heard and recognized...in the past, the experience required the rigamarole of having an editor read your work. Now, like everything else, the Internet enables us to skip the intermediaries and go straight to the audience. Of course, if what you write doesn't sparkle in the eye of your readers, you will lack for readers.

Expecting students to write in our classrooms for hit-or-miss praise is criminal. Their nimble fingers can text an entire piece of writing via their mobile device to a relevant audience online at the same time they publish to a worldwide network. For them, the pay is in the joy of publication, in the act of making their work known, and of partaking of the work of others. 

Gretchen Bernabei, speaking to a teacher audience participating at a 2010 Summer Writing Academy, shares the following observation:

If students leave the writing workshop feeling famous, then I have done my job right. Sharing your writing, being enlarged by others' writing is what makes you feel famous.

Source: Gretchen Bernabei, 2010 Summer Writing Academy, San Antonio ISD, San Antonio, Texas

As a writing workshop facilitator, you have a multitude of online spaces where students can publish their writing for the world to see. Those include school district or teacher-managed blogs, wikis, Moodle-based virtual classrooms (find out more about Moodle), external web sites such as Kidpub.com and many others.  Check Sidebar 1: Student Publishing Online for a partial listing. 

In 2008, my daughter, Rosalie (pen name: Solana), published her writing online via Kidpub.com.  Only 14 years old at the time, she had access to a multitude of publishing choices. She did not publish in print until 2010 via Lulu.com, one of many web sites that allow you to publish your own book. She became famous in her small circle of friends and family, having shared her work online and, later, in print. At no time did she share her work with a teacher, and had published 18 chapters of her writing (a total of 50 pages) online before her parents found out.

Another pair of children--home-schooled in a log cabin in Tennessee using an old laptop computer with MS Paint and Moviemaker--converted the first 3 chapters into videos shared on YouTube.com. The parents of the children had no idea their children had done this until after the first two videos had been created.

While publishing student writing online fundamentally hooks students as writers, as teachers, we can take advantage of available tools to make our jobs easier. Just as our students have new digital tools, so do we as their teachers. 

This article is about 5 steps you can take, as a writing teacher, to digitize your writing workshop. There are many more, though, so "stay tuned" for future articles!

1. Embrace open web tools
2. Focus on the Facilitator
3. Create an Online Writing Space
4. Facilitate Online Conversations about Student Writing
5. Offer feedback in audio or video, rather than written, format

Please recall that digital citizenship--including cybersafety--principles must be kept in mind. Also be sure to adhere to your school district's responsible/acceptable use policy. 

#1 - EMBRACE OPEN WEB TOOLS

"My son has dysgraphia and dyslexia," pointed out a teacher in a summer writing academy, "His school never met his needs, putting him on skill-n-drill software." In contrast, another mother and teacher shared, "My child learned to use a computer in third grade and has used it since then...he's fifteen years old now." The red-haired teacher pauses for a moment. "He's now out of Special Education and in Gifted Talented Program.

"Computer software now allows young children to write and illustrate their own stories before their fine motor skills are developed enough to allow them to do so by hand" (Source: National School Boards Association, http://bit.ly/9Cwbz9). Student writers can publish their work, not only in print, but in a variety of media. Text, audio, and images combine when students use blogs, wikis, podcasts and digital storytelling. Students may find it easier to collaborate on a piece of writing when using collaborative word processors. Neither teachers or students can afford to ignore freely available technologies. These digital tools on the "open web" allow you to create a variety of media, much of which begin with text. Some of my favorites include the ones listed online at http://bit.ly/digitizethismedia. 

Within this context of writers with its focus on the recursive, writing process, a wide variety of technology tools are available. Note that writing can find expression in a variety of media formats, as well as be developed singly or in collaboration with others. Take advantage of over 20 digital tools for students (Sidebar #2 - Digital Tools for Students). Learning to use open web tools--like social bookmarking site Diigo.com which allows students to annotate web sites, make notes and keeps it all in one location--eliminate the "Oh, I left my writing journal at home/work and now I'm stuck." You can easily transition from notes and highlights kept in Diigo.com social bookmarking tool to a written piece that appropriately cites content. Check Sidebar #3 for Electronic Citation Resources.

#2 - FOCUS ON THE FACILITATOR

Our job as writing workshop facilitators can be pretty harrowing. Even a paper-centric writing workshop involves juggling colored sheets to create books, setting up writing centers, helping students deal with the daily struggle of journals and journal responses, and, crafting mini-lessons that engage and endure. The focus is always on student writing. As workshop facilitator, you can work to find the answer to the question, "How can technologies we now have make the HOW of writing workshop easier for the teacher?" 

One possibility is to reflect on the teacher's role in the writing workshop, and the technology available to organize the writing workshop. The work Diana Benner and I focused on centered around writing workshop components, including the following: 1) The Mini-Lesson; 2) The Status of the Class; 3) Write/Confer; and 4) Group Share. There are many more components and activities, but these present a starting point. Consider taking just one of these--such as the mini-lesson--and building an online writing space that allows you to share and archive your mini-lessons. Here are some simple ways you can use available free technology online:

1. Create a Self-Editing checklist that is actually a GoogleForm or the Questionnaire Module in Moodle so you can quickly see class progress in graphs. Students complete this information via a web-based form that allows you to quantitatively track progress in class.
2. Create a bank of online mini-lessons that students can watch and listen to again and again in an archive. Build that in your GoogleSites Wiki or Moodle.
3. Facilitate sharing using recording tools in a discussion forum or Sites wiki. When doing the Group Share during a Writing Workshop, you can either play the students' presentation of the audio (which they recorded when they were ready) or record the feedback students get so that it can be added to the written piece/recording shared. That way, students can come back and reflect on the advice provided by their peers.

While some of the ideas above are elaborated in this article, consider how technology, rather than complicating your life, can make it easier for you and your students over the long run of a writing workshop, eliminating the constant paper chase.

#3 - CREATE AN ONLINE WRITING SPACE

Often, writing folders serve as the central repository in a classroom in the throes of a writing workshop. As a writing workshop facilitator, my efforts involved storage of students' writing folders in crates and/or file cabinet, depending on what was available. All writing resided on pieces of paper. Specific areas of writing workshop can be moved online. If your students are publishing online--whether via a blog, wiki, collaborative word processor, Moodle forum--then an online space to bring all the artifacts together is critical. A staple of the mini-lesson includes the mini-lesson.

"In the mini-lesson," my mentor teacher explained to me, "someone--usually the teacher, but it can be a student or a guest speaker--introduces a new concept to writers. The mini-lesson, lasting 10-20 minutes, can also be focused on meeting the needs identified in students' writing. The mini-lesson facilitator models the approach introduced, writing alongside the students." Using a Moodle or wiki, you can create a reference point that can house your mini-lesson content, including audio and/or video recordings. Moodle allows you to group content around topics, or week of study.

Several solutions are available to the problem of creating an online writing space, such as:

• Blogger.com
• Edublogs.org
• Moodle's built-in blog and/or wiki components

Once you know where you are going to put your writing workshop content--where you can share anything, everything you and your students will need for writing workshop--decide what format you will put that information online in. Here are three types of tools--with specific suggestions--that you can use:

1. Create Digital Content viewable by Students using Digital Storytelling Tools
• MS Photostory (Windows only) - Enables teacher to create an enhanced podcast--pictures and sound--about the MiniLesson content.
• ShowBeyond.com - Enables teachers to create an enhanced podcast about the MiniLesson content.
• VoiceThread.com - Enables teachers to create an enhanced podcast about the MiniLesson content, but also allow students to contribute audio, text, or video content as comments. This enables many to many interactions. 
2. Create an electronic slideshow using Online Presentation Tools - Teachers can create presentations and make them easily accessible online, embedding the code of the presentation. This relieves students from the requirement of having MS Office installed on their computers.
• GoogleDocs Presentation Tool - Enables teachers to create a slideshow that students can participate in chat, as well as contribute slides to.
• ZohoShow.com - Enables easy uploading of your Powerpoint presentation.
3. Share your MS Office/OpenOffice created documents as PDFs.
• Scribd.com - Allows you to print up a long document as a PDF and place it online for easy viewing on-screen. No downloading (getting) of large Word documents. Instead, you simply paste "embed code" that allows you to directly include content on a web page you have created. Students simply view the content online.
4. Add audio introductions to writing workshop mini-lessons:
1. Audioboo.com - This allows you to use your mobile phone to record and share audio content. You call it in and the content appears magically online and accessible for students to access.
2. Drop.io - This is another phenomenal, easy to use tool that you can use with your students to collect feedback on a piece of writing (audio or text) in one place. Setup is free.

#4 - FACILITATE ONLINE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE WRITING

"Eddie, if you write about parts of yourself, I bet your reader will have some of those parts, too. I guess that's a small answer to the big question you asked." In this excerpt from  Louis Borden's book, The Day Eddie met the Author, we read the tale of Eddie, a third grader. Eddie who, when his favorite author visits, finds that he is not able to ask his question of the author. Fortunately, the author sees him and reads the yellow paper where Eddie had written his question. You may intuit the question from the answer the author gave Eddie.

When I first started facilitating writing workshops, one of the best sources of insights for students came from the students themselves. Facilitating large group share provides students a place for them to find out what others think of their ideas. That said, students tend to focus on different aspects of a person's writing. Each of us, while listening to a writer, may find that the writing connects with a part of us. 

As wonderful as a writing workshop teacher may be, s/he cannot offer the feedback that ALL students may need. However, online discussion forums through Moodle, attached to wikis, or with blog postings and comments CAN facilitate student to student interaction independent of the teacher. While many fear these kinds of interactions, in online learning, these interactions make or break an online course...or a face to face one. Moodle allows teachers to create a rich, safe environment with ample "brain food" for learners.

Collaborative word processors can also serve as a way for students in groups to interact with ONE text online. Imagine having a piece that needs editing. Paste the text of that piece into a collaborative word processor, then engage in group "ratiocination." Ratiocination, a term encountered in an article by Joyce Armstrong Carroll, involves using codes that symbolize specific modifications that can be made to a text. Students can learn to decode clues, as Carroll (Source: Acts of Teaching, http://amzn.to/9I0NAs) says, and "figure out words and meanings to solve the mystery of their written drafts." 

For example, some common clues include circling all "to be" verbs, making a wavy line under repeated words, etc. Some of this work--with adjustment from the paper to electronic codes for clues--can be done in a collaborative word processor.

In a classroom using a collaborative word processor, assign different groups of students different clues to code and then turning them loose on a writing assignment. The written piece undergoes a virtual transformation online in full view of the students. This modeling of the approach can then be repeated with students' own writing with a peer. 

Educator "Mr. Warner" shares that learning conversation about writing can also involve offline work that finds expression online. He writes:

"In just over twenty minutes, the Class had gathered nearly 80 different ideas / persuasive phrases for use in our future lessons. These documents were on display on our interactive whiteboard, so we could see what everyone in the class was doing as the lesson progressed. They are also stored online, allowing us to access them during our future lessons." 

(Source: Etherpad in the Classroom Blog, http://www.mrwarner.com/2009/03/etherpad-in-the-classroom, Available: April, 2010 now offline).

In addition to posting written texts and commenting, you can also add audio or video.

#5 - OFFER WRITING FEEDBACK IN A VARIETY OF MEDIA FORMATS

Shelly Blake-Pollock, the teacher and author of the TeachPaperless blog (http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com), encourages his students to publish online. Beyond that step, though, he offers feedback on their writing online as well via screencasts, or video recording of his computer screen. Screencasts, or "JingCrits," that he creates are short, less than 5-minute video clips where he highlights student work on screen and offers feedback (View an example - http://bit.ly/bsgVQQ).

Blake-Pollock sends each student a link to their own feedback. The response, Shelly says, has been positive:

 So far, the reaction to Jing comments has been overwhelmingly in favor. In fact, both students and parents have been pushing me to produce as many JingCrits as my time allows.

This kind of feedback can connect with auditory learners who may prefer to get their feedback in another format besides cryptic comments on a post-it attached to their piece of writing. The teacher reviews student writing online, offering specific feedback, recording the feedback as a video recording. The teacher reports taking only 5-8 minutes to record feedback that would normally take 20 or more minutes to write out as feedback.

JingCrits get their name from The Jing Project, a free screen-recording tool available at http://jingproject.com that enables you to post videos online. Using screen-recording tools to offer feedback--whether from teacher to student, student to teacher, student to student--can offer tremendous benefits to students. This kind of video/audio feedback contribute to the demise of one writing myth--"it takes longer to grade writing." As Shelly's JingCrit demonstrates, writing workshop facilitators can grade for discrete skills. The focus on the lead of a paper is helpful. 

Writing Workshop facilitators may be familiar with the Carroll/Wilson Analystic Scale for Classroom Use. The scale enables teachers to assess quickly and effectively what they have taught their students. Developed collaboratively with students, the scale embodies intelligent writing assessment. Simply, you only get graded on what you were taught. Imagine having students and teacher develop a Carroll/Wilson Analytic Scale for Classroom Use--centered around what has recently been taught in class--then offering video feedback on a piece of writing using that scale. The video of the Analytic Scale, shared online with students, serves as a perpetual "model" of how to provide feedback.

Shelly has found a quick way to offer feedback his student writers need using screencasting. Some free web-based services that do not require you to install anything on your computer include ScreenToaster.com, ScreenCastle.com, and/or Screencast-o-matic.com. Online tutorials are available for each, but you should be able to get going fairly quickly with 15 minutes of exploration.

If video is not for you, you can also take advantage of digital audio tools. A variety of tools are useful in this category. From inexpensive digital audio recorders, a USB microphone connected to a computer running Audacity audio recording/editing program (free) to online free web-based recording sites like Vocaroo.com and Drop.io, you and your students can easily record audio.

• Digital Audio Recorder - Teacher can record the mini-lesson and post it on class web site (e.g. blog, wiki). This is an ideal tool for field trips or "on the go" recordings where a mobile phone is not desirable.
• Vocaroo.com - Students can record a reading of their written piece then email it to the teacher or to other students. 
• Drop.io - This web site allows easy recording of audio, whether by sending a locally recorded audio file on a computer, emailed from a mobile device, or "phoned in." 
• AudioBoo.com - This web site allows phone recording of content and publishing online.

These are only some of the technology tools available. Be judicious in which tools you decide to infuse into the writing workshop.

CONCLUSION
Remember that the technologies you can use to digitize your writing workshop are easily adaptable to multiple uses. If you find you want to scaffold student writing--or your own teaching of writing--by using tools differently, then do so.  Learning to use new technologies to transform how we approach writing workshop, while a matter of choice for teachers, is a life-skills requirement for our children.

Make the right choice, share back and let me know what you’ve done.

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SideBar 1 - Students Publishing Online

1. Amphitheater List - http://bit.ly/IOq1F - features over 20 web sites where student work can be published online.
2. Education World article on Encourage Student Writing - http://bit.ly/1IjwJx - Offers additional suggestions.

SideBar 2 - Digital Tools for Students

Stage of the Writing Process	Technology Tools Available
Pre-Writing	Storyboarding Documents Blank Storyboard Sample Storyboard Storyboarding Websites Storyboard Pro Concept Mapping bubbl.us Gliffy Mindmeister Playing with Words Wordle.net WordItOut.com
Writing	Digital Storytelling Software Microsoft Photostory 3 Windows Movie Maker iMovie Digital Storytelling Websites Voicethread ShowBeyond.com Digital Posters Edu.Glogster.com Comic Strips BitStrip.com GoAnimate.com SuperLame.com Strip Generator Podcasting AudioBoo Aviary.com/Tools Drop.io
Revision	Word Processing Microsoft Word OpenOffice Collaborative Word Processing Google Docs iEtherpad.com PrimaryPad.com
Editing	Word Processing Microsoft Word OpenOffice Collaborative Word Processing Google Docs iEtherpad.com PrimaryPad.com
Publishing	Digital Storytelling Software Microsoft Photostory 3 Windows Movie Maker Digital Storytelling Websites Voicethread ShowBeyond.com

Sidebar #3 - Electronic Citation Resources

· Bibme: This resource creates citations and pulls reference content.
· EasyBib:  Bibliography and citation maker--featuring GoogleDocs integration--for books, newspapers, web sites and more.
· Son of Citation Maker:  David Warlick’s MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian citation guide.
· OttoBib:  Enter the ISBN number of a book and it will prepare the citation for you.

Copyright Notice: This article is shared under Creative Commons ShareAlike-Noncommercial-Attribution Copyright. I would love to have a publication like TCEA TechEdge or MassCUE publish it to their readership, which I have found is often a different audience than those served by my blog.

Update (07/28/2010): This article accepted for publication in MassCUE. Thanks Jean Tower!

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Abydos Graduation (New Jersey Writing Project)

My certificate for completion of Abydos Learning

What a thrill to graduate from the Abydos Learning Writing Institute! Although there is a lot to "unpack" in terms of ideas and concepts, especially when reconceptualizing with technology, the experience of the Institute itself was pretty wonderful! Kudos to the organizers!

Here are a few photos...the one immediately below features the Reading/ELA Senior Coordinator and I posing for a picture with the Abydos Learning Trained Teacher sign. What a lot of fun to participate and be welcomed to a community of writers like the teachers that I had the good fortune to read and share writing with!

Here's the little sign teachers will post outside their door (my apologies for its blurriness):

Here I am (left) with Senior Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction (right)

And, finally, a class picture:

Viewing the picture, I appear 2-3 people left of center

In the future, I'll be posting a few more reflections on Abydos, but for now, you can read what I have.

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Changes - Guest Blogger: Jennifer Emerson

Note from Miguel Guhlin: This is a guest blog post by author Jennifer Emerson. My thanks to Jennifer for her willingness to publish her writing here.  You can get back to this blog entry by using a short URL of http://bit.ly/jemerson_changes . Follow Plurks here, and Twitter traffic about this post here (please use hashtag of "#jechanges" without quotes).

CHANGES


by Jennifer Emerson (jennyluv1972@yahoo.com)

Looking at myself in the mirror, I try to see those wrinkles, lines, and spots that are suddenly erupting.  My fingers pull and poke at the skin around my eyes, and I think, “Do I look like a Grandma?”  You see, four months ago, my seventeen-year-old daughter informed me that, yes indeed; I was going to be a grandma.

When she told me, I was at a workshop to learn about read alouds.  During the course of this workshop, I had received nine buzzing text messages from her.  Thinking that this was one of her “fake emergencies”, you know the kind that start with, “OMG!   I need twenty dollars Mom, now because I chipped a nail,” I went into the hallway to call her back.

Nothing prepares you for the, “Mom, I’m prego, don’t be mad” call.  As soon as she answered, I said, “What is the emergency?”  All I heard was sniffling and the unmistakable sound of my daughter crying.  Immediately, I ask, “Oh my God, are you hurt, are you ok?”  All I hear is, “Mom, don’t be mad.”  At that very moment, everything stopped:  my breathing, my thoughts, my life.  As her Mom, I instinctively knew, I just knew, she was pregnant. 

I couldn’t reply because I was so stunned, you know, struck speechless in a way that at that moment I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, and the wind was knocked out of me.  Finally, I very calmly said, “We’ll talk about it when I get home.”

All I was thinking was I have to go back into this workshop and sit for another thirty minutes.  Well, needless to say, the presenter sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher.  All I heard was, “Waa, wa, wa…”

After the initial shock of the g-ma news, I was MAD!  I can remember stomping to my car as I was leaving the workshop.  I kept thinking, “How could this happen?”  Getting into my car, I immediately grabbed my cell phone.  Dialing her number, I felt like a mama volcano fixing to erupt!  When she answered, I could tell she was still crying.  For the next thirty minutes, all I think I did was yes, scream, and cry at her.  I remember the last words I told her before I hung up were, “Just wait until I tell your Dad!”

I tried composing myself as I pulled into the driveway.  My husband’s truck was already in its spot, and I couldn’t wait to get inside and tell him what our daughter had done.  Well, his reaction was priceless Dad material.  “Oh, s@#$!  How did that happen?”  I looked at him like, Are you nuts?  How do you think it happened?

Our daughter had been hiding in her room the whole time my husband and I were talking.  I’m sure she was feeling scared and anxious.  As I went to knock on her door, I told myself, Don’t kill her. Very calmly, I knocked on her door and told her to join us at the kitchen table.  Looking at her, all I could see was that curly-headed, blue-eyed two-year-old that would ask me, “You yove me, Mama?”

I don’t think that any mother, father, son, or daughter wants to have the discussion we were about to have.  The first words out of my husband’s mouth were, “There’s nothing to be ashamed of, sweetie, your mother and I are not disappointed.”  As I was staring at the bowl of fruit sitting on the kitchen table, I thought, I just want to ding both him and her in the head with an apple. 

Well, guess what?  I was feeling disappointed and feeling somewhat ashamed.  I didn’t say those words to her, but boy did I feel them.  Didn’t she know that I had all these dreams for her?  She was supposed to travel the world, have fun, and eventually become that hot, sexy, beautiful international lawyer!  But, oh no, she had to go and get pregnant at seventeen.  How were we going to get through this?  Up until this point, she had been the typical self-absorbed, it’s all about me teenager.  How in the world was she going to raise a baby?

My husband was still doing the talking.  Our daughter just sat there with pools of tears in her eyes.  In her eyes, I could see her hopes and dreams washing away.  I don’t know what he was saying to her, because I had shut down.  I did not want to be a grandma!  I wanted her to conquer this world and then get married, have some kids, and live in a great house.  As I watched my husband and daughter hug, I felt like a robot, devoid of feelings.  To be honest, I didn’t even want to hug her; so I didn’t.  Looking at her, I could see the supreme hurt in her eyes.  The look that says, you don’t love me anymore.  All I could do was turn and walk away.

Lying in bed that night, I couldn’t sleep.  A million thoughts raced around inside my head.  I remembered when she was a baby.  How fiercely and wholly I loved her from the start.  How each year that has gone by, she has taken my breath away with how beautiful and smart she has become.  Now, my baby was going to have a baby, and, yes indeed, I was going to be a grandma. 

I don’t know what time I finally fell asleep, but I think that there was the tiniest bit of a smile forming in my heart for this new life. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jennifer Emerson is a mother of two teenage children.  She is an elementary school teacher in an urban school district and enjoys reading, writing, and running in her spare time. 

Please offer comments and/or remarks to her via the comment section on this blog entry, or for more direct remarks, via email at "jennyluv1972@yahoo.com".

Copyright Notice 

This particular work, unlike the items usually shared on this blog, are shared under Copyright 06/27/2010 Jennifer Emerson with permission granted to share via the Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org blog; please reprint this copyright notice when sharing with others.

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Change in Copyright Law - DMCA

Wow, what a stunner of a change! From CrunchGear with profound implications for educators:

The six “classes” now exempt from prosecution under the DMCA are:

1. Defeating a lawfully obtained DVD’s encryption for the sole purpose of short, fair use in an educational setting or for criticism

2. Computer programs that allow you to run lawfully obtained software on your phone that you otherwise would not be able to run aka Jailbreaking to use Google Voice on your iPhone

3. Computer programs that allow you to use your phone on a different network aka Jailbreaking to use your iPhone on T-Mobile

4. Circumventing video game encryption (DRM) for the purposes of legitimate security testing or investigation

5. Cracking computer programs protected by dongles when the dongles become obsolete or are no longer being manufactured

6. Having an ebook be read aloud (ie for the blind) even if that book has controls built into it to prevent that sort of thing.

Great changes. Source

via Plurker mweisburg

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MyNotes - Virtuals Teams in eLearning

Interesting points considering the value of virtual teams in online learning environments.

JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching

• 
  

  Understanding Students’ Online Learning Experiences in Virtual Teams

• 
  
  Jennifer Loh

  
  

  School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences

  
  

  The University of New England, Australia

  
  

  Armidale, NSW AU

  
  

  mloh4@une.edu.au

  
  

  
  

  Robyn Smyth

  
  

  
  

  
  

  School of Rural Medicine

  
  

  The University of New England, Australia

  
  

  Armidale, NSW AU

  
  

  rsmyth@une.edu.au

• 
  

  Proponents of group work contend that students can learn valuable lessons such as communication and problem solving skills which are transferable to the real work environment (Becker & Dwyer, 1998, Black, 2002, Haythornthwaite, 2006).

• 
  

  Social facilitation is the tendency that people often perform better in the presence of others than alone (Cook, 2001)

• 
  

  A virtual team is a group of individuals who used information technologies to work across time, space, and organisational boundaries to achieve organisational goals.

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  Virtual teams are fast becoming a business-critical imperative for many organisations because of the popularity of the internet, intranet, instant messaging, online discussion boards, video, audio conferencing and other tools which have made it easier to communicate and coordinate people at a distance (Herman, 2001; Lewis, Shea, & Daley, 2005; Martins, Gilson, & Maynard, 2004; Townsend, DeMarie, & Hendrickson, 1996)

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  developing learners’ ability to work effectively in a virtual team setting may be considered to be an important pedagogical goal for many higher education institutions.

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  Many of the challenges associated with group work such as increased time, social loafing and free riding are not limited to face to face groups but may be exacerbated among virtual group members (Becker & Dwyer, 1998; Roberts & McInnerney, 2007).

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  Perceived equity issues.

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  students

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  Social exchange.

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  According to Warkentin, Sayeed, & Hightower (1997), the difficulty in exchanging information, unlike in face to face interaction, has led virtual teams to concentrate more on task-oriented rather than socio-emotional information. This means virtual teams may require more time to develop relational links among members in order for the team as a whole to develop healthily (Chidambaram, 1996).

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  one way to improve this would be to enhance student to student interaction at the beginning of the semester. To achieve this, the instructor redesigned the second online assignment into a team development exercise. The first part of the assignment asked students to introduce themselves and to post at least 2 questions they might have about each of their group member. The second assignment then asked students to describe what their personalities are like, what their abilities are and how they can use both of these traits to help the group. These exercises aimed to facilitate information sharing, communication among team members and help establish team norms/rules.

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  Less active or missing in action team members.

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  Group members were encouraged to contact these “less active or missing in action” members and to motivate them to contribute, they were instructed to inform these members that their contribution or lack of contribution would be clearly visible to other team members and the instructor. If all these attempts fail, group members were instructed to proceed without the absent member.

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  getting long distance education students to work in a virtual team is a difficult task for the instructor.

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  this article is useful in providing some strategies for instructors new to online group teaching especially given the demand for online learning in recent years. The ability for students to use emerging technologies effectively contributes to the values they would bring to employers and their communities. This trend is indicative of the new reality that being able to work effectively as part of a virtual team is becoming just as important as being able to work effectively in face to face team. Indeed, the increased reliance on information technology and the emphasis on virtual teamwork have led many prominent researchers in this area to proclaim the importance of information technology and its ability to, “transform the educational process in the 21st century” (Jones, Cramton, Gauvin, & Scott, 1999, p.3). In addition, global forces have also meant that organisations around the world are more likely to increase the use of multinational teams which include individuals from different countries. These realities have created the opportunity for the increased popularity of virtual teams which enable individuals from different locations and time zone to come together and work together (Bergiel, Bergiel, & Balsmeier, 2008). Therefore, higher educational institutions should prepare students with the requisite skills to function effectively in an increasingly virtual environment.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin's blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure