Getting there is half the fun

Long Beach airport looks like something from American Graffitti - you actually had to go down a ladder to get to the ground. I found the SuperShuttle driver, who looked for all the world like Francis Ford Coppola, and after another half hour's delay, we were off to Costa Mesa, 20 miles away. Got to the hotel just as the restaurant was closing, but had a pretty decent burger delivered to the room. Got a good night's sleep. No jet lag to speak of. Ready for enlightenment.

From Gary Padolfi, who was at the Tuesday pre-conference

8:30 A.M.-12:00 P.M. Guidelines for Authors of Learning Objects

Rachel S. Smith, New Media Consortium

Larry Johnson, New media Consortium

http://www.nmc.org/projects/lo/index.shtml

One project of the New Media Consortium is their Learning Objects Initiative, which garnered grants to support the creating of learning objects and document some processes. Rachel S. Smith provides a document in .pdf format that you can access and use to your hearts content as long as you use it in its entirety and don't alter it in any way. Also availabe at this location are planning tables and other useful materials to use when planning to create a learning object. The particular learning object presented was quite sophisticated as it studied various environmental factors that contributed to evolutionary changes in the size of finch beaks

1:00PM-4:30 P.M. Digital Rights Management in the Academy

Though I didn't attend this pre-conference session, information on this topic can be found at the url below.

http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/DRM_MERLOT_Aug_2004.ppt

Opening session August4

Eric Duval from Belgium. Creative Commons - This talk will be posted there (As of August 18, that did not seem to be the case) . CC allows people to take slides from a participant, rework them as needed, and not worry about copyright.

"The future has arrived - it's just not evenly distributed."

ARIADNE, a self-sustained membership organization. Started in 1994. Set up a network throughout Europe, and backup all data from its members. Considered to be the "Twin" of Merlot. I've searched ARIADNE in its own site and in a federated search at MERLOT, and found it rather inscrutable so far.

Three levels of access to the data, starting from restricted to contact with author to freely available. Like Merlot, Ariadne is growing in a linear fashion, but Eric would like to see geometric or even exponential growth. See the Tipping point, a book by Gladwell. Ariadne developed the Learning Object meta data standard.

Are using federated searches with Merlot - search one and get data in the other. Electronic forms must die! Boring and soulless. Eric set up an interface between Ariadne and Blackboard.

Metadata should be used but not seen. For instance, Gracenote is the repository of music data that we get in Windows Media player. We've all used it, but didn't even know it had a name. Music lovers find it though, and send thousands of corrections in every day.

Why do computers make you save the file you're working on? If you write something on a piece of paper, it's there. You don't have to save it.

Mfish - Google for your hard drive.

Gary Pandolfi's report on the opening session:

8:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. Plenary Session: Towards a More Even Distribution of the Future: Insights from ARIADNE

Erik Duval, Executive Director, ARIADNE

ARIADNE is a learning objects repository, as opposed to a referratory such as MERLOT. It can now be accessed through MERLOT. Erik likes the idea of a culturally diverse repository of learning objects that can be available in various languages. He advocates the Creative Commons licensing agreement http://www.creativecommons.org. He talked about "rhizomic networks" by which I believe he means networks that grow and propagate new branches so that users can go anywhere and find links to quality materials. You can view his PowerPoint presetation at http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/20040804_Merlot_CostaMesa.ppt.

Citation indexes for online, interdisciplinary learning.

Purpose of citations is to acknowledge the use of others' work. A hyperlink is a www citation. Authors that cited each other have set up a socio-cognitive network.

GIS, Geographic information science, is an interdisciplinary field, which made it a good match for the study. Citations and weblinks serve as instruments of cognition. Made a study of 45 student volunteers taking a GIS course. Primary contexts were definition, explanation, illustration, and example. More students than not avoided using web links.

Traditional citations were not used at all.

Layered pyramid Model for Electronic Info Management

Found practical uses for data mining techniques. The PowerPoint lecture is becoming the primary language of scientific communication. Can be very powerful tools. They are just becoming a valid for scholarly communication. Can be more efficient in delivering concepts than dry text. Number of scholarly ejournals is growing at an exponential rate. Pyramid model devised to organize electronic scholarly publishing. SPARC is a consortial revolt against scholarly publishers cashing in on everybody. "Faculty of 1000" formed to filter out the best online information in Biology.

Pyramid scheme moves good info to the top. Forming JEL, The Journal of Electronic lectures, consisting of the best Powerpoints on web in each field. The final product will arrive when human editors examine the remaining presentations and check them for things like clear expression and scientific accuracy.

Gary Pandolfi's report

10:00 A.M. - 11:00 A.M. Building Communities of Practice

Developing Communities of Practice through Content, Coaching, and Peer Interaction
Mary Anne Mather, Education Alliance at Brown University
Martin Huntley, Education Alliance at Brown University

The title of this course suggested to me that they were building a community of practice at Brown University, but they were speaking of the larger Providence community of K-12 teaching. Still, the presentation was useful in that it recommended an informal rather than a formal approach to faculty development, and used teachers from 4 disciplines with a facilitator to explore teaching as a collaborative endeavor. Indeed there are so many possibilities for this type of rich development in which the members from various disciplines inform each other and develop online collaborative learning opportunities. The link below references their PowerPoint presentation.
Developing Communities of Practice through Content, Coaching, and Peer Interaction

CoLab- An Open Source Solution to Collaboration accross Distances
Jordan Carswell, Houston Community College-Northwest
Doris Rousey, Houston Community College-Northwest

I found Plone to be an interesting idea. It's a free open-source content management tool that allows collaboration in creating learning modules accross the state in the Community College system. It seemed to me that this tool would be useful to create learning modules accross the various disciplines and to enhance our QU series of courses. You can view their presentation at the following address: http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/CoLab_Presentation.ppt.

Herding Cats

Herding cats Canterbury Christ Church University College, a vocational university with good job-finding rates for grads - 13,000 students. School of Education has 6000 students. Taught by 280 faculty members. Wants to tap into the use of technology that kids already do - i.e., instant messaging, cell phones. Came up with a campus-wide e-learning plan that deliberately involved a combination of super-users and rank beginners. They examined the strategic plans of each department on campus and identified areas where e-learning may help. Gave laptops and some training to their students, and they started to blossom and build their own e-tools. They have the advantage of working with a government willing to fund electronic innovations to the hilt. Gary on the same program:

2:30 P.M.-3:30 P.M. Herding Cats: A faculty e-Learning Initiative Reviewed

Richard Dunnill, Canterbury Christ Church University College

This was an interesting discussion of how Mr. Dunnill was able to get everyone involved and garner funds to support technical innovations in these colleges. It sort of reminded me of how much other technology we just aren't ready for quite yet such as using Blackberry or other PDA devices to connect students and teachers at all hours and all locations. At the end of the talk he handed everyone who wanted one a CD with pdf files. The first one in the list is what he showed us in his presentation. The others are useful, British syntax notwithstanding, as they document the planning of this endeavor. The pdfs can be found at these links:

11 MERLOT Presentation.pdf
E Learning Committee remit.pdf
Faculty E Learning Strat Plan Part 1.pdf
Faculty E Learning Strat Plan Part 2.pdf
Development Planning Process.pdf
Costing Dept Dev Plans.pdf
Primy Dept Dev Plan.pdf
CELSI development plan.pdf
CELSI revised plan with action review and comments June_04.pdf
Faculty E Learning Exemplars2003.pdf
E-Learning Overview for In House Magazine v3 14.11.pdf
Remote and Mobile Working Project Overview.pdf

Digitization at Fashion Institute of Technology

Kodak just announced that they are going to stop making slide projectors and film. Big problem for FIT. Slides at the school were spread all over the departments. Were doing a lot of slide duplication. Luna insight was a possible solution but wildly expensive. Got good software for digitizing but got into problems with the various factions of the academic community. Students log in and view images associated with courses. Metadata taqs hard to do. Used MDID program. Also getting ArtStor with its 300,000 images. With all of that, there are pictures that can only be provided through digitization.

Models for developing digital collections

CLIP – Cooperative Library Instruction Project
Allen McKiel, Northeastern State University

Allen owns more than 40,000 ebooks, searchable by every word in the book (Quinnipiac has that technology for their NetLibrary etexts, but it can't be added to a qcat search). Did pages associated with every school and then every department, federated searches. CLIP-Cooperative Library Instruction Project, uses Flash to make learning objects concerning library skills. Flash is very powerful but hard to learn, and that limits the output for Allen, so he's thinking of trying Camtasia. Muse Global is the search engine that McKiel uses to search every word in ebooks. CAREO a service from Canada similar to Merlot.

During the lunch break, I had scouted the neighborhood and found that the strip mall across the street had four different restaurants for your oriental food needs, a Japanese video store, and a telescope store. Gary and I walked over to the telescope store and dreamed of winning the lottery and buying 14 inch Meade telescopes. He asked the store employees which of the restaurants was the one to try, and the clear answer was the Anjin Japanese barbeque. We followed that advice and had some really good things to eat - starting with a vegetable rice bowl with soup, and then selections of beef to cook over a hibachi in the center of the booth. It was all delicious and just the right amount of food.

Later we went to the hotel pool, and looking over the wall, I noticed that there was a huge Japanese supermarket across the other street. This is the same chain as a store that we drive to in New Jersey to pick up a month's supply of Japanese goodies, so this was a good sign.

From Gary Pandolfi

Day 2 (more commonly known as Thursday)

I was so excited by the JEL session the day before that I got up early to join a small group discussion about this where they would be giving us free breakfast. A few minutes after 7, the table was full of eager and excited people, none of whom were from the Coastal Consortium. Most of them hadn't been to yesterday's program, so we had a good discussion recapping that, and talking about what we were doing at our own institutions. Also, the food was good, and free, so it was worth the trouble.

- Plenary Session

Death by PowerPoint. Green is the founder of: Www.campuscomputing.net Studies role of IT in higher education in America

Groucho - "Whatever it is, I'm against it." Green included a generous portion of Groucho as the new college president in Horsefeathers.

20 years ago today - "user friendly DOS." College book stores started selling computers and condoms. This resonated with me because my career with microcomputers began 20 years ago this summer. 85 percent of the market is using Blackboard or WebCT. These products are 6 years old - still in their infancy. That's why service seems a bit disjointed at times.

E-portfolios are coming

Early adopters of technology are intimidating to their colleagues.

Adoption of new technologies should be integrated into faculty evaluations.

By mentioning Maslow, Groucho and the Grateful Dead, Green ensured his status as kindred spirit.

Gary Pandolfi's report on this session:

8:00 A.M.-9:00 A.M. Plenary Session

Beginning the Third Decade: From Great Aspirations to Assessment and Accountability
Kenneth C. Green, Founding Director, The Campus Computing Project

Mr. Greene's talk was entertaining and informative. His presentation included many graphs and some suggestions as to what has caused the increases or decreases the data reveal. The .pdf file at the link below doesn't do his talk justice as it leaves out quite a bit of information. Still, the graphs are useful as they serve as a measure of we are doing comparatively.

What Mr. Greene talked about at the end of his presentation was particularly interesting to me. He asked: "What if Amazon designed campus Web sites?" He talked about inviting qualities, service structured Web sites that made information readily available and easy to find. I believe he was talking about the public side of university Web sites, not the practical, behind-the-scenes repositories. I thought that it was an interesting comparison. Is our audience similar to that of Amazon.com? In what ways? How are our customers different? Are we making the best use of the Web for marketing and information service?

http://educate.emory.edu/green_thirddecade.pdf

MIT Courseware

Decided they could never make money in distance learning - decided to serve humanity by giving away their courseware over the web. They found a clause in their mission statement that gave them the okay to do this. Not an MIT education, and you are not given access to teacher. No recognition is available for using this. No cost or registration required. MIT will continue this even after grant funding runs out. Were up to 500 courses by 2003, with more added later. Nearly half of MIT’s courses now available at the website Ocw.mit.edu

Have had great success recruiting faculty because they don't need to do the adaptations. Also faculty members retain ownership of their material. Most visitors are self-learners. Educators in other countries are using this model to set up their own sites.

All this content and no place to put it.

Virginia is a very big, diverse state. Working on learning tools for their own system needs. Edu-tools is something they used to good effect. Sort of a consumer reports for educational media. Many evaluating points such as operability in Blackboard, overall ease of use, hardware requirements.

Used econferencing software and had a few tense moments waiting for it to kick in.

Faculty view from University of Georgia system. Encouraged faculty members to create content for a virtual teaching system. Set up a discussion tool so members could share experiences. Portal also included links to grant opportunities.

And, at the same time, Gary went to this program:

10:00 A.M. - 11:00 A.M. Online Instruction for Faculty

Teaching Online Faculty: Developing a Program to Effectively Prepare Faculty to Teach Online
Karen Hardin, Cameron University

Ms. Hardin started the session with a cheerleading exercise involving cups. She performed a rapid series of clapping, tapping and passing of a cup that she uses to begin her training. She has her trainees practice this until they get it. It takes about 20 minutes, but she suggests that it is a useful metaphor for learning something new that seems difficult at first.

I found it interesting that Ms. Hardin referred to Blackboard as "intuitive and easy to use" as I am often wondering why Blackboard designed particular things the way they did. What was especially useful was the idea of "course standards" an idea that QU Online has a unique ability to develop and indeed insist upon. I have been thinking that it would be useful if the deans or chairs would dictate even a minimal Blackboard presence in courses. It won't be long before students start clamoring for this kind of uniformity among their course selections. It would be useful to find out whether students find courses that are available in Blackboard an advantage to courses they can't get to that way.

Karen also mentioned compensation for on-line course development, and training on intellectual property/rights of the creators. On-line courses are certified before their deployed. I'm not sure whether this would be an advantage for on-ground courses as well. Rather than create courses that aren't used, should we only create courses that are used. Should we delete Blackboard courses that aren't made available during a semester? Would such a plan save resources/server space. Would Blackboard be more efficient with fewer unused courses cluttering up the database? The link below outlines Ms. Hardin's points.

http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/Hardin-Merlot2004.ppt

D2LLO-A Success Story of Collaboration in a Distributed Environment
Lorna Wong, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Kathy Konicek, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Patricia Fellows, University of Wisconsin-Colleges
Nicholle Stone, University of Wisconsin-Stout

This was yet another testimony to the power of collaboration, in this case to create learning objects to teach faculty the new course management system, Desire 2 Learn. D2LLO (rhymes with "jello") is an achronym for Desire 2 Learn Learning Objects. The collaborators created over 150 learning objects which were then adopted by the CMS vendor. These learning objects facilitated D2LLO adoption across the entire University of Wisconsin system of 26 institutions. They employed Macromedia's RoboDemo as a tool in learning object creation. They used the D2L course site as a testing ground for the learning objects. While we have developed a solid training process, as our training needs increase we will find this model useful, albeit on a smaller scale.

http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/D2LLO-merlot.ppt

Training future faculty to use digital library

NSF grant went to 3 midwest universities to train grad students how to make the transition to being faculty. Teaching should be treated as a form of research. This started in Madison, and will soon go to University of Michigan and Ohio State.

Encourage e-portfolios among grad students. In general, they have little or no sense of community. There is no "National Organization of Teaching Assistants."

Gary:

11:30 A.M.-12:30 P.M. Enhance Learning Through Learning Objects and Technology

How Learning Objects Improve Understanding in a Physical Oceanography Course
Louis Keiner, Coastal Carolina University
Jennifer Shinaberger, Coastal Carolina University

This was a great presentation. Even though physical oceanography is not my field, I found it useful in the process that the presenters used to enhance their course with learning objects. They mentioned the first step as searching for what has already been created and deciding whether what exists is useful. Deciding that available learning objects don't quite meet their need, they set out to create something that will. Animations that accurately portray the effect of the moon and Earth's rotation on tides, and the various kinds of flow that occur when rivers empty into oceans inform students in ways that static images can only approximate. Unfortunately, the link to this presentation on the MERLOT site was broken.

Enhancing Learning in Large Classes Using Out-of-the-Classroom Technology
Jeff Hanlon, Queens University
Jonathan Rose, Queen's University
Michelle Villeneuve, Queen's University
Andy Ledger, Queen's University

The key statement I heard at this session was the quotation "In general I want to emphasize that my interest [in learning technology]... is to get away from 'student as stenographer'-i.e. just taking notes - to 'student as learner' - involving being able to assimilate the information and then apply it." -- Alan Baer, Professor of Physiology, Queen's University. The notion of students taking notes in a lecture the way a courtroom stenographer does, mechanically, automatically, collides with the development of critical thinking that problem-based education provides. I thought of Paolo Freire's "banking concept of education" in which information is deposited into students so they can regurgitate it back to professors at will. Technology offers opportunities to make lectures into problem-based experiences that foster critical thinking and analysis. The "out of classroom experience" that is discussed here helps to extend the learning community of the classroom into the greater community of learners. It also points up that course management systems can help overcome situational factors of class size, or meeting time, and provide greater opportunities to foster the spirit of collaboration and cooperation that pervaded the entire conference.

http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/Enhancing_Learning_in_Large_Classes.ppt

NSF Digital library Libqual - evaluation site in library science. The problem is that these standards were set up for a classic library. How do you carry over concepts to a "virtual" library? Research libraries average about 23 million per year in operating expenses. In 10 years, the electronic resources budget went from 3% to 25% of their budgets. Major qualitative research study of library quality was commissioned. Involved 300,000 users. They want to be self-sufficient if possible. Adapted Servqual, an instrument devised for profit corps service quality. Presenter used overhead transparencies. I suggested that load time could be considered the equivalent of lines at the circ desk.

Again, from Gary

2:30 P.M. - 5:00 P.M. Become a MERLOT Partner: What does it Take? What Do You Get?

Gerry Hanley, MERLOT

This was a very informative session about the MERLOT mission and what partnership in MERLOT involves. I have booklets that explain the benefits and costs far better than I could here, but the most intriguing part of the presentation for me was the amount of faculty development help that MERLOT can provide along with opportunities to develop new materials that are evaluated and may be used by educators around the world.

For information about becoming a campus parther: http://taste.merlot.org/participating/partner/

For information about becoming an individual member: http://www.merlot.org/person/CreatePerson.po

General MERLOT information: http://taste.merlot.org/

Afterwards there was a "wine tasting." Not really in the normal sense because they gave you entire glasses of wine rather than tiny samples. I tried the Merlot (great, of course), and the Chardonnay (a bit sweet for my palate). After that, there was a party at the beach. It looks on the map to be a 10 minute drive to the beach, but it was rush hour and their was a funny route down, so it took nearly 45 minutes. I made a reference to an album title by the Firesign Theater that a few people got. On the way, they started with Trivia. The first question was "What is Jerry's Full name?" Well, silly me, I thought CALIFORNIA, JERRY, they must be talking about Jerry Garcia. Actually talking about the chief of MERLOT. These people have formed a real culture, not entirely like that of the DeadHeads. They follow the conference from city to city and only see each other in person once a year. Once at the beach, we got one of those sunsets over the water that looked like it belonged on a postcard. Their advice to bring an extra layer of clothing was well-founded, but it was nothing like bitter cold. Gary decided to take a swim. I thought it would be cold, but he said it was fine. I took the camera back down to the beach just in case I needed to take a final picture of Gary being swept out to sea, but fortunately, it wasn't necessary.

Friday 8:30

Growing Digital Libraries

Engineering learning objects created at U of A were retooled for use with high school and middle school students. Civil engineers build dams roads and tall buildings. Chose 3 aspects of this for creating learning objects. GROW is Geotechnical rock and water resources library. Teachers are given opportunity to use a module, adapt it using a template, and send it back so that others can use the redone version. These resources have been made available to the National Science Digital Library. Every unit in this is tied to a specific learning objective. Interactive lab activities have tests that can be reported to teachers. For instance, did you know that a drop of oil added to a still pool of water will spread to a slick that is 24 feet in diameter and 1 molecule thick? They have created 160 learning objects, which have been used in schools all over the country.

Anita Coleman - Virtual Laboratories Knowledge structures - organized systems of claims accepted as valid. Learning objects have other things attached to knowledge. Grounded in disciplinary discourse and training model. In library sci terms, how do you select learning objects? How do you assess quality? Traditional libraries don't collect "labs." If you do it, what are the selection criteria? Virtual labs have the advantage of 24/7 access and lower cost. Also, easy to use. Dublin Core has an option to describe the level of interactivity. Characteristics of interactivity - choice, immersion, play. Life cycle of object - creation,description,use.

Chief criteria

Pedagogically sound
Scientifically accurate
Interesting and motivational

From Gary

8:30 - 9:30 A.M. The Digital Poetry Project

Joseph Ugoretz, Burough of Manhattan Community College-The City University of New York

This session demonstrated that multimedia authoring can help students, even those who are not native English speakers, develop an understanding of the literature they are reading. Using PowerPoint primarily, these students add music, images and voices to their presentation of a selected poem which helps them to begin a discussion of ideas informed by the original work. Link to the presentation appears below with a link to the Visible Knowledge Project another use of multimedia to help students wrestle with the world.

http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/UGORETZ.PPT

visible knowledge project

10:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. Designing Cost Effective and Accessible Learning Modules

Closing the Circuit: Accessibility from the Ground Up
Curtis Edmonds, Georgia Institute of Technology

This PowerPoint presentation outlines the creation of a learning module that meets or exceeds federal accessibility standards. It made me curious about how we deal with accessibility issues here in terms of our use of a course management system. Is Blackboard Bobby compliant?

http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/Closing.ppt

Creating Asynchronous Modules
Corinne Hoisington, Central Virginia Community College

This session touted the advantages of using MS Producer to create learning modules that incorporate PowerPoint, audio, video and internet links that enhance online, hybrid and tradition courses. The authoring tool is free, and it seemed quite easy to use. The PowerPoint presentation offers tips on video capture and mentions additional equipment including a portble teleprompter and a 3 Point Lighting Kit although special equipment was certainly not necessary.

http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2004/presentations/videomodules2004.ppt

Bioinformatics This is a new field - a hybrid of biology, math, and computer science that grew out of dealing with information from the human genome project. At U Wisconsin LaSalle, 9 faculty member cooperated to develop applications for their various classes. Used in Biology and chemistry lower div classes. Had to be web-based, inquiry-based and integrated into the course content. Each activity was peer-reviewed by two faculty members. Then edited and presented to entire group for final disposition.

Computer lets teachers show entire proteins - not just what will fit on the page of a textbook. They needed to do this in short, intensive classes. If students just do this for an hour or two a week, too much drops off between sessions. Students gained confidence in this as they went along. They are just starting to develop textbooks for Bioinformatics. Most unsuitable for undergrads.

Bennet - using Merlot in health science.

Athletic training his field. Athletic trainers work with sprains strains and so on of physically active people. They are used more heavily in corporations and military as well as the traditional athletic organizations. 273 accredited programs in US.NATA Multimedia comm evaluates videos in the field, and sponsors contest for people to develop original product. Have been using Merlot for the last year. Did a simulation of checking for blood pressure. Auscultation program added - called "The Auscultation Assistant."

Friday plenary

Transmedia design, by Brenda Laurel

They don't want to eliminate old media like print. Use all existing media. Design research is human-centered and process-oriented. Process- Query (Laurel gives 3 seemingly unrelated words to search in Google to get ideas), research, values applied, strategy, prototype, story, action Online medium is an asset

Collaboration is process and product

Project orientation supports diverse learning goals

The project that her group did in the last year was to identify a target group of Baby Boomers who were politically active in the 1960's, but now drive around in SUVs and tune out politics. Their goal was to get them reconnected. Their work can be seen at: http://www.flipit180.org/

Google is the worlds finest online learning tool

Look for the book - Inmates are running the asylum

Look at Center for digital storytelling in Berkeley at dstory.com

Gary on this session:

Transmedia Design: New Education for a New Profession
Brenda Laurel, Chair, Graduate Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California

I certainly couldn't think of a better closer for this series. Brenda Laurel eschews the "new media" terminology in favor of "transmedia." She says that it's important to embrace all media types to create transforming works of art that address issues. She is very much interested in transforming those who encounter her projects and seems to electrify her students into a cohesive production unit. This presentation started me thinking about the possibilities of these kinds of projects in future QU General studies seminar courses. You can see examples of her work and her program by clicking the links below.

http://www2.artcenter.edu/mdp/

http://www.flipit180.org/ This link to Flipit recounts the process for her work and provides examples. The 180 Project was the complete design initiative created in response to the following challenge: Take the three phrases ("baby boomers," "entertainment media," and "social justice") and "create a complete design initiative using at least three media types (web, print, video, etc.), with a viable business capable of persisting in the marketplace." (from www.flipit180.org challenge page.)

For me, the conference enriched my experience. It was energizing to see such a spirit of collaboration and sharing among colleagues. I did find it ironic that most of the presenters employed PowerPoint slides upon which they embellished in their address. There was little interaction in most of the groups. The preliminary workshop I attended was more participatory as were a few of the presentations that engaged the audience more actively. Of course there were question and answer sessions, but the most valuable time I spent was networking with attendees about what they do at their institutions. For example, I suggested the idea of doing online critiques for art courses because they are an important part of art instruction but tend to take up lots of class time. I also mentioned the idea of using groups in a course management system to teach critiquing techniques, much the way I use group online discussions to teach face-to-face discussion skills. In any case, this Web page should provide enough preliminary information for the interested, and the MERLOT site has additional resources on the conference and their learning object referratory.

After the show, Gary and I had half a day to see something of California (suburbs like Costa Mesa are the same everywhere). After talking to several people about getting around the area, it boiled down to rent a car, or, on the other hand, rent a car. So we rented a car and drove down to Laguna Beach, which was only 20 minutes away going out (i.e., before rush hour). We ate at a brew pub, walked down to the beach, checked out some of the galleries on Highway 1, and then made our way back up the hill. We stopped at the arts festival that they keep running all summer.

I had a nice talk with a photographer about how he did a few of his better shots, and Gary had a number of deep conversations about the Meaning of Art with the artists who were still hanging around. I can now say that I have driven in Rush Hour traffic in the Los Angeles area on a Friday. Checked that off the list.

To sum up, since this is the end and that's what you do at the end, MERLOT was filled with an overwhelming synergy as idea people of all sorts got together in intensive groups and shared recipes. The 3 plenary sessions did what they were supposed to do and motivated us even more. The great MERLOT irony is that many, many presenters gave talks about super new teaching technologies while employing text-only PowerPoint slides. I came away with dozens of good ideas for making better technology available at Quinnipiac, so I am delighted with the experience.