A biweekly discussion of how digital media and technology are affecting learning, teaching, and scholarship at colleges, universities, libraries, and museums.

Episode 33 – Classroom Action Settlement

The big news this week was the announcement that a settlement had been reached between Google and authors and publishers over Google’s controversial Book Search program, which has scanned over seven million volumes, including many books that are still copyrighted. The Digital Campus team takes a first pass at the agreement and tries to understand how it might affect higher ed. Other news from a busy week include the release of the first phone based on Google’s Android operating system, and Microsoft’s conversion to “cloud” computing. Picks for this podcast include a new report on teenagers and videogames, a new version of Linux for the masses, and a program to help you focus on the Mac.

Links mentioned on the podcast:
Google Book Search Settlement Agreement
Open Library
Ubuntu
Think for the Mac
Android
Microsoft Azure
Pew report on teens and videogames

Running time: 49:29
Download the . mp3

Use TweetWheel to find out which of your Twitter friends know each other. Enter your Twitter username and a wheel of your users will appear. Hover on a user to see how many friends they have in common and click on their name to view their Twitter profile.

Curious?  Try looking at Leo LaPorte’s circle of friends.  Hint: it’s bigger than mine.

Cleaning Up Word Files

• The character codes used in your word documents are not necessarily the same as those used on the web. If you want to use the contents of a word document use the Paste from Word button rather than cutting and pasting directly

• To the left of the Flash icon (white circle with the letter “F” on it) in the post toolbar is a button that looks like paint sample cards (similar to the type you would get from a hardware store) turned sideways.  This button is called “the kitchen sink”
• When you hover over the “kitchen sink button” you will see the message “Open Kitchen Sink.” Click the button until you see a second row on your formatting toolbar.
• Click the button of a clipboard with a Word icon superimposed on it (from the second row).  It is called the “Paste from Word” button.  Click the “Paste from Word” button to paste your content in from your Word document.
• This method should clean up any gobbly gook or weird formatting you may have.

Uploading Office Documents, Images, Audio Files

• 10mb storage space

Linking to Shared Media Websites

• Ghastly Beast (image/Flickr) – www.flickr.com
• Delicious Word Document (document sharing on scribd.com – http://www.scribd.com/
• scribd.com accepts most document file formats, including Microsoft Office (doc, docx, ppt, pptx, pps, xls, xlsx), PDF, Text, and Images (jpg, png, gif, tiff)

If you want to Embed the Image

• select html tab
• type <img src=”paste your image link here” alt=”image description here”>
• What it looks like after you do this

If you want to Embed Audio or Video Files (link to an mp3, mov, Google, YouTube”)

• Use the Yellow Embed a Media File Button
• An anthropological introduction to YouTube (video – YouTube)

• MP3’s (streamed audio files from the web – The College of Charleston’s Language Resource Center is using stream.cofc.edu to host course audio files for enrolled students.

Listen to Introduction to Con Fantasia

Download Title NerdTV MP3 Podcast

The Alliance for Planet Earth Proudly Presents: GREEN WEEK: Fall 2008!

• What: A week of action for the students of College of Charleston to speak out against environmental injustice!!
• Where: From George Street to Pamplico, SC!
• When: October 20-25th, 2008

Schedule of Events:

• Monday, October 20th: Come join the Alliance for Planet Earth out on Cougar Mall from 10am-2pm to talk about and take action on various issues in the community.
• Tuesday, October 21st: We’ll be out at Cougar Mall again raising awareness! Send a friend for some friends, fun, and action! Busy with class all day? You can still come on down to Ed Center 116 at 7pm for a screening ofthe documentary “Trashed” followed by discussion on waste in the lowcountry.
• Wednesday, October 22nd: We’ll be out on Cougar Mall one last day. Now is your chance to petition, call, and make your voice heard!
• Thursday, October 23rd: Come join the Alliance for Planet Earth, Coastal Conservation League, and over 200 other students from across the state to attend a press conference and DHEC hearing for the proposed coal plant on the Pee Dee River in Pamplico (transportation will be provided). Meet behind the library at 3:30pm, will return by 10pm.
• Friday, October 24th: BioTour will make their way to the College of Charleston, set up at George Street from 10am-3pm. Come by and get a tour of their bus and see what else you can do to stop climate change! 2pm: World renowned scientist Dr. James Hansen will be at a press conference on the Cistern. Hear your fellow students speak out on climate change and how Dr. Hansen suggest we make our voices heard! (Rain location: Physician’s Auditorium)
• Saturday, October 25th: Join the Alliance for Planet Earth at Dash for Trash (put on by the CHEC Center) at Liberty Square 8:30am and then head out to the Habitat for Humanity Green Build (put on by the Coastal Conservation League-transportation provided) from 1-4pm.

LET’S JOIN TO MAKE CHANGES TODAY TO BENEFIT TOMORROW!

If you have any questions or want to help you can contact us at: allianceforplanetearth@gmail.com or call Alessandra Castillo at (860)985-0330

October 23, 2008 | McKinley Auditorium, Avery research Center | 7:00pm

Joan Morgan is an award-winning journalist and author and a provocative cultural critic. A self-confessed hip-hop junkie, she began her professional writing career freelancing for The Village Voice before having her work published by Vibe, Madison, Interview, MS, More, Spin, and numerous others. Formerly the executive editor of Essence, she is the author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, a fresh, witty, and irreverent collection that marks the literary debut of one of the most original, perceptive, and engaging young social commentators in America today. Her work appears in numerous college texts, as well as books on feminism, music, and African-American culture. The campus bookstore has copies of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost available, and a book signing will following the talk.

For more information on this and other AAST events, please visit our website: http://www.cofc.edu/~aast.

Conseula Francis, PhD Associate Professor Director, The African American Studies Program Coordinator, Graduate Concentration in African American Literature Department of English College of Charleston

843-953-7738
francisc@cofc.edu
http://www.cofc.edu/~francisc

Theory, Charts,& Tips

There are a variety of methods. The International English Keyboard is preferred by those who know the qwerty keyboard, while the specific language keyboards are useful to those who are familiar with them.

Word 2007 has excellent features which one can reach by choosing the Insert Tab and then going to the symbols section of the “ribbon”.

In Word 2003, many non-English characters, as well as icons for food, holidays, activities, signs, math, and much more, are found in the Insert menu, then select Symbol. Within this Symbol Window, the font Lucida Sans Unicode provides many accented and other characters for numerous languages.

Platforms, software applications, operating systems, versions, and user preferences influence how one works with accent and other marks.

The ALT key codes or the Character Map can save the day when nothing else works.

For More information and printable charts visit http://www.starr.net/is/type/kbh.html

Reference for EVERY Character Key on a Mac

Ever wanted to type the copyright icon, or do an accent over an A without having to resort to some character palette?

Liquidicity has put together a series of help sheets that reference all of the characters that aren’t listed on your keyboard, along with their shortcut keys to make your life easier.

For more information visit http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/172

Visit http://pascalsc.org/content/view/173/1/ for more information.

Send comments to the College of Charleston Libraries Suggestion Box!

What is Going On?

The SC Legislature reduced funding for PASCAL’s programs by 90% for Fiscal Year 2008-9.  As a consequence many of the high value information resources that we have been able to provide universally to all students and faculty in South Carolina are being lost.  Already, PASCAL has eliminated several science and law databases, and in January we will be forced to cancel subscriptions to Science Online, Nature and most of our recently acquired nursing resources.  We have also been forced to reduce PASCAL Delivers by 40%.  Book deliveries will now only be made three days each week.  In July 2009, we will need to make even deeper cuts if funding is not restored.

Loss of universal access to the knowledge we provide South Carolina’s students will have a devastating impact on the state in many ways, but it also adversely affects individual students and teachers in the classrooms of our colleges and universities.

We are working with many of your  libraries to salvage some of the resources formerly funded by the legislature, but many will be lost.  At many of our smaller rural schools, knowledge will simply vanish.  At larger institutions, cuts may be masked somewhat, but even there our state’s information base will still decline as libraries make hard trade-offs and their direct costs rise.

Things you can do to help

Librarians

• Continue to promote our services – for now, they’re still extremely valuable!
• Let your users in on the facts — both what we’ve accomplished and what we are losing…
  • show them how it affects them directly on your website, and through your promotional and training programs.
  • Help us make connections with key student and faculty groups (e.g. student government, important programs, etc.)
  • Encourage them to provide feedback via our web form
  • Identify those who might be willing to write letters, particpate in events, when called upon…
• Be prepared to help us inform others, especially after November 2008.

Students and Faculty

• Tell us your stories via our web form
• Let others in your academic community know about this crisis.
• Tell folks who can help that this is an important part of your education.

Resources

• Information about PASCAL
• Links
  • Locating Legislators
  • Executive Branch
  • South Carolina Media and News Outlets

All Faculty and Staff are invited to the next Thurs@3@Addlestone session.  We’ve enjoyed your presence at our first sessions, and would love to see more of you there at these twice-monthly sessions.

From collaborators Jared Seay, Jerry Spiller, The Center for Faculty Development and Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem comes this description of our next informational session on blogs and blogging:

A blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent “post” (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.

(from What is a blog? )

Since this definition tells you absolutely nothing useful about blogs, you should register for the next Addlestone Thursday @3 session and find out the answers to these tantalizing questions:

• What is a blog? (this very page is one)
• How can I get one?
• How can I make one (with the new CofC blog thing)?
• Why would I want to?
• How can it help me teach, learn and communicate?
• How come everybody at the College has a blog (on the CofC blog thing) except me?

Register by sending an email to thurs3@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to register, especially for this one – so we can request that the webmaster have your blog account ready beforehand!)

Information about the Addlestone Thursday @ 3 sessions including resources, sites, and a calendar can be found at: http://library.cofc.edu/thurs3/

Addlestone Thursday @ 3 Session: Blog, blog, blog, blog!
Thursday, October 9 at 3pm – 4:30pm
Addlestone 120

We’d love to see you there!