Millennium Teacher

Tony Hursh — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:15:47 +0000

I’ve moved everything over to my own server. Assuming I still have any readers left after my lengthy hiatus (long story there), please change your bookmarks to the new blog. I won’t be updating this blog any more.

Thanks!

Transitioning

Tony Hursh — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:30:08 +0000

I’m in the process of moving all the Millennium Teacher stuff (including this blog) to my Linode server, because I’ll be needing to install some example software for later chapters. Some of this stuff requires running custom servers from the shell, so my Hosting Matters web host won’t do the job (as great they are for standard web hosting).

As a result, things may go pear-shaped for brief intervals during the transition. Apologies in advance.

Progress report

Tony Hursh — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:59:43 +0000

I’ve incorporated most of the suggested changes that people have made, and have also made some more progress on chapter two (not quite as much as I’d have liked; I’ve been down with a rotten cold this week, plus I’m on deadline for a conference presentation).

Current status: 97 pages.

Illinois weather

Tony Hursh — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:20:03 +0000

(click for full size).

We had a cold front move through on Wednesday, bringing a temperature drop of more than 50 degrees F.

It also produced a variety of “exciting” weather across the state, as you can see from the graphic. Something for everybody!

Links from Chapter One

Tony Hursh — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:21:15 +0000

Here’s a set of links to the resources in Chapter One.

Bill Kerr
D’Arcy Norman
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
Greenbush Labs Blog
Mark Guzdial’s Amazon Blog
Learn Online
Iterating Toward Openness
Online Learning Update
infoisland.org
Wormtalk and Slugspeak
Blogger
WordPress
LiveJournal
OPML 1.0 Specification
Clay Shirky: A Group is its Own Worst Enemy
Bloglines
My Yahoo!
Google Reader
NewsGator Technologies
National Weather Service
Google News
Brief add-on for Firefox
Lankshear & Knobel, “New” Literacies: Research and Social Practice
Will Richardson: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms

Chapter 1 draft is posted

Tony Hursh — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:29:01 +0000

Here’s Chapter 1. Comments welcome!

Some notes about the current status:

I’ve been collecting a lot of references (thanks, Zotero!) and now believe the reference list is more or less complete (the current reference list is included with the chapter, feedback is welcome on that as well).

Several of the other chapters are partially written, but aren’t really close to being ready for posting.

The PDF is formatted for a 6″x9″ book, so it won’t be particularly kind to trees if you print it out on standard-sized paper (I guess you could shrink it to fit two pages on one physical sheet, but then the diagrams might not look very good).

I’m planning to have the book printed by CreateSpace and listed for sale on Amazon.com (this is free, by the way). I thought about submitting the book to a commercial publisher, but after learning about the generally abusive state of academic publishing in a seminar last semester, I’m not willing to do that (in particular, I’m not going to give up my right to distribute copies of my own work as I see fit).

The material is licensed under Creative Commons, so you’re free to share. However, I’d prefer that you link back to this post rather than distributing the PDF (mainly because this is a draft, and could well contain errors at this stage).

Current status: 86 pages written since December 24, 2007, roughly three chapters worth of material. I should be able to finish by April or so at this rate.

I hope it’s useful to some of you!

Non-Progress Report, Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Tony Hursh — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:16:24 +0000

Nothing much happening, book-wise; there’s too much beginning-of-semester prep and previous-semester post mortem going on. I should be able to get back to it next week.

I do have a cover mockup finished.

covermockup.pdf

As with everything else, subject to change without notice. Note that this is a low-res version. The full image file is close to 150 megs.

Progress Report, Wednesday, January 9 7:55 AM

Tony Hursh — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:57:15 +0000

80 pages.

Chapter 1 is essentially done, other than a final edit. Draft coming soon!

Progress Report, Sunday, January 6 5:52 PM

Tony Hursh — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:53:43 +0000

72 pages.

I’ve been skipping around a lot, but now I’m going to concentrate on getting chapter one finished so I can post a draft.

Book in Progress

Tony Hursh — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 09:35:38 +0000

I’m writing a book (working title: Millennium Teacher: New Media, Free Culture, and Classroom Practice). To keep myself honest, I’m going to post my progress in this blog.

I’m writing the book using the LyX document processor and the Zotero citation tool (both of which are free and excellent).

Status as of January 6, 2008: 64 pages. The book outline is below (note that this is subject to change).

1 Blogs and web feeds
- 1.1 What is a blog?
- 1.2 Blogs in the classroom
- 1.3 Some representative edublogs
- 1.4 Starting a blog
  - Blogrolls, Comments and Trackbacks
- 1.5 What are web feeds? (RSS and Atom)
  - Feeds
  - Feed readers (aggregators)
- 1.6 Other uses of web feeds
- 1.7 Web feeds in the classroom
- 1.8 Setting up a feed reader
2 Wikis
- 2.1 What is a wiki?
- 2.2 Wikis in the classroom
- 2.3 Using a wiki
  - Editing wiki pages
  - Tracking wiki changes
- 2.4 Some representative wikis
  - Wikipedia
  - WikEd
  - LISWiki
  - LyXWiki
- 2.5 Setting up your own wiki
3 Social Networks
- 3.1 What is social networking software?
- 3.2 Social networks in the classroom
- 3.3 Some representative social networking platforms
  - Facebook
  - MySpace
  - Mahara
  - LinkedIn
4 Content Management Systems
- 4.1 What is a CMS?
- 4.2 Content management systems in the classroom
- 4.3 Some representative CMS packages
  - Learning Management Systems
    - Moodle
    - Claroline
    - Atutor
    - Sakai
  - General Purpose CMS
    - Joomla
    - Drupal
  - Mashup Sites
    - Pageflakes
    - NetVibes
    - Ning
5 New Media, New Literacies
- 5.1 What do we mean by “new media”?
- 5.2 New media in the classroom
- 5.3 Some representative new media applications
  - Video
    - YouTube
    - TeacherTube
  - Slide Shows
    - Instructables
    - SlideShare
    - SCORM, et. al.
      - eXe
      - Reload Editor
  - Audio
    - Audacity
    - Podcasting
      - Odeo
      - Educational podcasting
    - Live Radio
      - Shoutcast
      - Live365
  - Animation
    - Scratch
    - Alice
    - Machinima
6 Multi-user Virtual Environments (MUVEs)
- 6.1 What are MUVEs?
- 6.2 MUVEs in the classroom
- 6.3 MUVE platforms
  - Second Life
  - Open Croquet
  - Project Wonderland
7 Server Installation and Administration
- 7.1 Server basics
  - Hosting options
  - Domain setup
  - Database configuration
- 7.2 Installing software
  - Fantastico
  - Moodle
  - WordPress
  - Mediawiki
  - Mahara