The Coffee Break begins with introductions of the new Moodle Minute podcast from ITS and the department's new instructional technologist, Jason Alley, followed by announcements about upcoming network services disruptions. In Tech News, hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley talk about Linden Labs' decision to delete Woodbury University's virtual campus from Second Life, and look at some innovative science videos now available on YouTube. Finally, help news has a list of upcoming workshops as well as announcements of new email documentation.
Getting the Podcast
There are several ways to get the podcast:
- Download the MP3 directly
- Subscribe to the Soapbox podcast rss feed using an aggregator (you only need to do this once; subsequent shows should download automatically)
- Subscribe to the Soapbox feed via iTunes
Show Notes
ITS News
- New Podcast: The Moodle Minute
- Monday-through-Friday 60-second podcasts introducing Moodle and its components.
- Check out the Moodle Minute.
- Network services disruptions week of July 16
- ITS has scheduled work associated with the network upgrade project for three evenings the week of July 16. Each evening's work will result in some disruption to network services.
Tech News
- Linden Labs deletes one Second Life campus
- From Liberal Education Today: "Linden Labs, the owners of Second Life, deleted a university campus from the world based on alleged misbehavior by avatars in that campus' space. The university was held responsible for what was being done on their land, or “sim.” Some users formed a group with the university's name, apparently independently of any official university sanction."
- Second Life Herald story on the deletion.
- Wired Campus: Blogosphere Weighs in on Death of Woodbury U.
- Wired: YouTube Does Science, From Fruit-Fly Fight Clubs to Stem Cell Extractions
- From Wired: "Years behind the lab bench taught Moshe Pritsker that the trickiest part of any science experiment isn't the hypothesis, it's the method. The former Harvard researcher learned this lesson back in his student days, after carefully following the instructions on a specialized kit for isolating DNA. “Surprise,” Pritsker says, “no DNA!” A colleague finally showed him how to make the kit work. And that gave Pritsker an idea: methodology porn. The Web site he cofounded, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, launched last October. "
- Experiments include:
- Culture of Mouse Neural Stem Cell Precursors
- Studying Aggression in Drosophila
- Testing Visual Sensitivity to the Speed and Direction of Motion in Lizards
Help News
- Upcoming Workshops
- Moodle Quickstart, Wednesday, July 18, 2007
- Web Design Day, Thursday, July 19, 2007
- Moodle: Developing Your Course, Tuesday, July 24, 2007
- Moodle Quickstart, Thursday, July 26, 2007
- Moodle Quickstart, Tuesday, July 31, 2007
- Full Calendar: http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~its/pages/calendar
- Register: http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~its/help/workshop/registration
- New Help Documents
- LVAIC Technology in the Classroom Symposium,
- Wednesday, August 1, 2007
- http://lvaicclasstech.org