Confessions of an
IT Poser
Tools, Tricks, and Tips
to Help Achieve Your
Distance Education Goals
Jessie Daniels
Distance MBA Productions Manager
Tennessee Tech University
Poser: (n)
How on earth did I end
up here???
Confession #1
Dear Diary,
If one train leaves Chicago at 11am
traveling at a speed of 75 mph, and
another train leaves New York at noon
traveling at a speed of 60 mph, how on
earth do I figure out how to get
accounting lectures to be just as effective
if their students are on one of those
trains rather than in the classroom?
Content Delivery
Challenges and Tips
●Challenge: AACSB Accreditation!
●Modular Delivery is key
●Don’t be swayed by every wind that
blows
●Lowest common denominator? KISS
Modes of Delivery
● Video (Studio vs. Screen Capture)
● Audio Only (audiocasts)
● Audio narrated PPT
● Docs
● Size matters
(File size, that is)
Methods of Delivery
●iLearn (D2L)
●iTunes U
●RSS feeds (requires updating of
websites or equivalent)
●The key is to find out what works for
your students! (Note: Expect
FREQUENT changes and requests)
Tools to Help
●Audacity (open source audio recording and
editing)
●Camtasia ($$ Screen capturing software:
Editable)
●Jing Project (Screen captures; image and
video)
●Zamzar (File converter)
Confession #2
Dear Diary,
Today, I explained the same thing to 14
different students and 3 professors. The
task takes five minutes to accomplish and
I spent 189 minutes explaining it over the
phone, IM, email, and in person. I am no
math wiz, but that seems like a waste of
time. There has got to be something I can
do to keep from doing that again.
Tutorials, Troubleshooting, and
Resource Management
●JIT Tutorials vs. Common
Troubleshooting
●“I know I have that...where did I put it?”
●Communication: How to get what you
have out there
Some tools to help
●del.icio.us (My Favorites or Bookmarks
wherever you go!)
●drop.io (Like a blog/wiki but more focus on
file sharing)
●Zamzar (file converter)
●Jing Project (screen capture, image and
video)
Confession #3
Dear Diary,
So a student doing an international
exchange, a finance professor, and
an HR manager from a multinational corporation walk into a
bar... if it were just that easy....
Online Collaboration and
Presentations
●People, places, and purpose
●Absolutely essential for our program
●You can’t do it all! Mention many,
support one or two
Some Communication
Tools
●Elluminate (V-Room and V-Class)
●Google Chat (Video, audio, and chat)
●Skype (Video chat)
●Oovoo (Video chat, conference options)
●Dimdim (Online meetings; phone option)
●Scriblink (Whiteboard, chat, file sharing)
●Zoho (Many options like Google)
Google: One Stop Shop
● Google Docs: Collaboration and Editing Documentation
o Presentations, Documents, Spreadsheets, Forms,
Surveys
● Google Chat
● Gmail (over 7GB of space!)
● Google Calendar
● Google Reader
● Google Scholar (Academic Search Engine)
● Partnerships with Blogger, YouTube, and Others (Picasa)
Confession #4
Dear Diary,
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter,
LinkedIn, Flickr... so where does my
professional life end and my
personal life begin?
Wait.
What personal life?
Social Networking
●Purposeful Utility: Think first
●What works for one, may not fit for
another
●Beware of mixing business with
pleasure
Some Tools
●Facebook (Groups are especially helpful)
●Twitter (Useful for networkers, JIT problem solving)
●Linked In (Groups are useful for academic and
professional discussions; jobs)
●MySpace (Personal web page and interaction)
●Flickr (Photosharing, apps available with most other
social networking sites)
Confession #5
Dear Diary,
Maybe, just maybe, I am getting
the hang of this. As long as nothing
changes, I think I’m good.
Keeping Up
●Blogs! (Just Google Educational
Technology or Instructional Technology
Blogs)
●Online groups and forums through
social networking
●Conferences and Personal Networking
Questions?
Confessions of your
own?
Resources
● Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
● Camtasia, Snagit, Jing and More:
http://www.techsmith.com/
● Zamzar: http://www.zamzar.com/
● Impatica: http://www.impatica.com/
● iSpring: http://www.ispringsolutions.com/
More Resources
● Delicious: http://delicious.com/
● Drop.io: http://drop.io/
● Elluminate: http://www.elluminate.com/
● Skype: http://skype.com/
● Oovoo: http://www.oovoo.com/
● Dimdim: http://www.dimdim.com/
● Scriblink: http://www.scriblink.com/
● Zoho: http://www.zoho.com/
Still More Resources
● Google: http://www.google.com
● Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
● MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
● Twitter: http://twitter.com
● Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com
● Flickr: http://www.flickr.com
● Some good blogs:
http://barrydahl.com/
http://www.teachbesttech.org/index.php/itu/
http://www.techlearning.com/
Contact Info
Jessie Daniels
Distance MBA Productions
Managerjdaniels@tntech.edu or
daniels.jessie@gmail.com931.372.6466
On Facebook and
Linkedinhttp://twitter.com/jessiedaniels