Tag: TLC

Personalizing the Web: A Sandbox Summary

Last Friday, some of the staff gathered at the TLC for a Friday sandbox session on personalizing the web.  This was a rich conversation about using tools such as nevibes or igoogle to organize your information streams.  There is just too much information out there on the web – using tools to organize it and put it in one place will save us time.  For more information about how sites like these work or for a simple explanation of RSS Feeds, check out this video.

To help start the process, Kristen Byers put together a public netvibes page filled with the RSS feeds/widgets related to MIIS.  If you sign up for a free netvibes account, you can simple click on share button on the MIIS widgets and directly add them to your netvibes page – no mess, no stress.  Creating your own page will allow you to keep up to date on the happenings at MIIS as well as your favorite non-MIIS sites.  One place for all your web needs.  You can even add goldfish or cartoons!  The other nice thing is that you can log into this site from any computer.

A snapshot of Lynn's Netvibes page
A snapshot of Lynn's Netvibes page

Stay tuned for more Friday Sandbox sessions to keep playing and experimenting with technology & innovation.  The DMC is also offering a number of interactive workshops for learning digital media and communication tools.  As always, feel free to stop by Kade anytime for development conversations and exploration of possibilities.

Faculty Research in the Spotlight

Spotlight 1

There’s a grassroots effort taking shape to highlight faculty voices through conversations about current professional interests and research.  The vision of the “Faculty Research Spotlight,” is create a venue for faculty to speak candidly about their field work and research beyond the classroom.  More conversation than lecture, the series, which will be recorded for podcast and hosted on the Institute’s new iTunes U site, offers faculty a unique opportunity to share their expertise with a larger audience.

The spotlight conversations will experiment with a format that will include an Opening Big Idea Pecha Kucha Talk, followed by a moderated question and answer session.  Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-cha-kcha in Japanese) is a presentation format that has gained a following recently because it places a constraint on the presenter, limiting them to twenty PowerPoint slides and only twenty seconds per slide.  The total time comes to 6 minutes and 40 seconds.  While we could just record a regular lecture, we feel that this special format would allow presenters to be creative in how they choose to frame and introduce us to their topics.

A handful of faculty have stepped up to the plate to kick the series off:

Fernando de Paolis and Bob McCleery: Development and Connectivity
March 12, 12:15 – 1:45
McCone Boardroom

Jason Scorse:  Multinationals and anti-sweatshop activism- evidence from Indonesia in the 1990s
March 17, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101

Lyuba Zarsky:  Climate Resilient Development: Models for Government and Business
March 19, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101

The Spotlight series is being recorded for podcast on iTunes U with assistance from the Digital Media Commons staff and participants in the Digital Media for Change workshop.

TLC Friday Sandbox Review: The BLOGosphere and YOU

http://mariamusic.blogspirit.com/images/medium_blog-cartoon.jpgOn the afternoon of Friday, September 12, a group of 15 staff, faculty, and students joined the TLC for its weekly Sandboxing session.  During these informal ‘play and learn’ dates, we talk, question, tinker, and snack.

In the sandbox that week was the timely topic of campus communications and the developing role of the web-blog, or ‘blog.’

You’ve heard of blogs, maybe you read one or two, and just maybe you have your own.  During this session, we heard from Ann Flower, renegade reference librarian and blogger at MIIS, Amy McGill, Associate Vice President for Planning and Special Projects who is coordinating the MIIS@Work blog and others on campus who have begun to explore blogging as a platform for communication, collaboration, archiving and expression at work.

Our discussion was streamed live using Ustream.tv.  Click: Ustream Archive of our Blogging Discussion

Helpful Materials We Looked At

Common Craft YouTube Video: Blogging in Plain English
Common Craft YouTube Video: RSS in Plain English

Establishing a Middlebury WordPress Blog
1. Activate your faculty or staff Exchange account at http://go.middlebury.edu/activate If you have an activated e-mail exchange account you should okay here.
2. Login with your Exchange username and password to activate your WordPress account.
3. E-mail [dmc at miis dot edu] to come and talk to us about customizing your blog.