Cole W. Camplese

Faculty Projects and Engagement Awards

There was an article (subscription required) in the Chronicle today about a Harvard Law professor planning to use SL to host parts of his course -- not a novel idea, but one that shows there are people willing to jump at new opportunities. After reading it, I spent a few minutes bouncing around the professor's blog and found a great pointer to a post showing some of the work in action. It may not be novel, but it sure looks interesting and could lead to some very engaging opportunities. I smell a pilot plan for the Spring.

This leads me to expose a few thoughts we tossed around yesterday as it relates to engaging faculty. Currently we do a thing called the MTO (Multimedia Teaching Object). The idea behind the MTO is that we do a scheduled call for proposals by PSU faculty and then help those that are accepted build a teaching object -- usually a Flash piece or a series of illustrations. There is more to it -- an open sharing license comes to mind -- but for the most part it is a small program that takes some serious resources and staff time. To do something this focused well, you need a host of developers and instructional designers working at break neck pace to produce very small tangible outcomes. It has a tendency to burn people out.

We started talking about how we could take that program and expand and contract it at the same time. So if you jump out a level from a program like that and created a larger umbrella program that you could create many smaller more targeted opportunities (MTO might be one of them) we could become more strategic and agile with our faculty projects -- I started calling it the Engagement Awards. The idea is if we are researching SecondLife, then we could do a targeted Engagement Award Call related specifically to that -- the same could hold true for podcasting, blogging, wikis, and anything else we have running around in our collective heads. That would get us off the Flash treadmill and into a whole host of opportunities to work with faculty. Every project would be connected to a set of outcomes -- a "profile in success" like piece for our webspaces, a white paper, and hopefully an invitation for the faculty members to participate in our annual TLT Symposium. I am not explaining this very well, but the idea is to create targeted opportunities to engage with faculty throughout the year that are more in line with our resources, interests, and capabilities. I could see many of these targeted calls looking at emerging things that I know faculty would be interested in.

Does this make sense and who is doing this in Higher Education that I could benchmark against?

Apple.com Through the Years

This is a great find ... a photoset on Flickr by "Kernel Panic" dedicated to the changing faces of apple.com through the years. It is honestly amazing how many of these I remember. The early ones amaze me and take me way back. I was working down around Philly at Cogence Media when I first started to visit Apple's site every day (on my PowerCenter Pro) -- it was sort of funny, but I remember also having a subscription to MacWeek ... if you remember life before the instant news offerings we had to rely on those old fashioned magazines for our information.

The other thing I notice looking at this set is how much more sophisticated the layout is now ... there is a huge jump towards better design once Jobs returned. I am also a bit amazed at the longevity of the design. I really can't name five sites who have maintained their overall design philosophy for that long ... can you?

Podcast Training Session

Today we hold our first training session on the Podcasts at Penn State project. We are bringing together somewhere around 25 faculty today to get a hands-on opportunity with the new system. We've been making lots of upgrades to the Podcasts at Penn State site to be ready for the Fall. One of the big things we've done is to make it much easier to create and organize a course podcast or a podcast show. This gives us the ability to give each faculty member a structured place to create and manage their episodes and students an easy to place to find it all. Here is an example of the way things are now being structured ... still to do is to roll out the new directory and front page design that will highlight specific courses or shows. I'm hopeful that by the end of the session today we'll have 25 new podcasters.

Crazy -- Four Posts in One Day or WVU at Number 1?

I have to get a grip ... four posts in a 24 hour period? My wife jokingly called me prolific earlier today. Even with all the other stuff, I just couldn't resist pointing to this crazy bit of ink at espn.com ... WVU (preseason 5 AP and 7 USAToday) being picked in the national title hunt up there with the big boys. Actually in this piece, they is the big boy. Here's to no where to go but down.

Local WordPress on Mac OSX with MAMP

After years of foolishly working on my live blog for all types of changes I decided to take a leap of faith and install WordPress 2.x on my G5 at home to use as a development environment. I will probably do the same thing on my work MacBook Pro and abandon my local copy of MovableType since I am a WP guy. When I did the MT thing on my MBP I found some directions and ended up in the Terminal doing all sorts of things ... made me uncomfortable.

I have to give a tip of the hat to my friend and colleague, Chris Millet for introducing me to MAMP ... MAMP is this nice little app that gets MySQL, Apache, PHP, and the associated admin apps you need running on your Mac in no time -- as a matter of fact at the click of a mouse. Just download the thing, drop it in your Applications folder, double click the MAMP app (or fire up the included widget for use under 10.4) and you are but a click away from having Apache and MySQL Server fully installed and running on your machine. From there, installing WP was a dream. Here are the basic steps I used to get it running:

1. Download MAMP


2. Install MAMP by dropping the whole folder into my Applications directory


3. Double click the widget in the MAMP directory (under 10.4.x) and it auto installed


4. Flipped the widget over and set the radio button to PHP 4 -- this is done by running the mouse over the bottom of the widget to expose the little i button. Clicked Done and it flipped back over.


5. Clicked "Start Servers" and the little lights glowed green.


6. I then tried to click the "Open Start Page" button on the widget, but nothing happened ... if this happens go to the next step.


7. Back in my Applications/MAMP directory, I double clicked the MAMP application and it opened.


8. In there, I clicked the "Open Start Page" button and it opened a web page for me.

At this point MAMP is running and you are ready to install WordPress. To get WordPress running you do the following:

1. Download WordPress


2. While WordPress is downloading, go back to the start page MAMP opened for you and click the link at the top for phpMyAdmin.


3. This is where you will set up a mySQL database to run WP on.


4. In the phpMyAdmin page, under the Create new database box, type in a database name ... for this you can call it anything you want ... I named mine local_wp ... again, it can be anything.





5. Take your WordPress files and place them inside the Applications/MAMP/htdocs directory.


6. Open the wp-config-sample.php file and update it with the following (given you named your database local_wp) ... the thing that threw me for the first 20 minutes or so was adding that :8889 to the DB_HOST section.
   
   
   
   


7. Rename the wp-config-sample.php to just wp-config.php and save it back in your Applications/MAMP/htdocs directory.

At this point you just need to point your browser to http://localhost:8888/wp-admin/install.php and finish out the process ... from here it is as easy as can be.  So this should get you going in a few minutes with your own development environment on your machine.  Talk about a killer personal content management system! At this point, you could install all sorts of other open source PHP based stuff in the MAMP directory to try out and tweak.  I hope this helps!

Blogging for ... Whatever

Blogging in Higher Education has become an important part to the whole process ... one of the people I find myself linking to/talking about/wanting to hang out with is the author behind Unit Structure, Fred Stutzman. In one of his more recent posts, he discusses the perceived value of academic blogging. In my world view, blogging across the academy is as nearly important as any development to hit our shores in quite some time. I know that providing a platform for everyone in Higher Education could be a critical step towards moving our spaces forward. It is one of the things that keeps me going to work everyday. One thing I can say with confidence is that we will provide a platform that will empower a whole new set of opportunities. Fred's post is worth a read and some reaction. What do you all think?

Different Market ... Same Goal

This post sums up the importance of the FaceBook API for the rest of the connected World. Now please understand that the author, Ethan Kaplan, is the Director of Technology for Warner Bros Records and his job is to create new and unique opportunities to help sell to the demographic we call customers students. Things like this constantly remind me we should be really thinking about how we must consider our own taps into FB like spaces.

Paterno ... The Lion

I grew up in a WVU house -- both my parents are from the mountain state, my Dad played Basketball there (yes, in those days Basketball started with a capital letter at WVU), he did his doctorate there, my Mom was Miss West Virginia, and did both her undergrad and Masters there -- so Penn State was not very popular to us. Even though I grew up just 90 miles from Happy Valley in Bloomsburg, PA I disliked everything about the Lions and the University. I hated that they kicked my Moutaineers' ass every year like it was their job (other than the glorious 84 run with the Hoss and Major Harris' unreal 88 team). Since joining the University, I have come to realize that there is one man who actually made it the job of the team to do that -- Joe Paterno.

The old coach is as young as he wants to be, deserves to do whatever the hell he wants to, and in my eyes has earned the right to walk the sidelines until HE decides it is time. Here's a little insight ... three years ago I was at a Universtiy funtion and walked up to Joe and said, "congratulations on your new contract." Joe, who was surrounded by four or five big time donors, looked me square in the eye and responded, "thank you, but these guys want me gone b/c we haven't won enough the last few years." Their jaws dropped ... as did mine. I gave him a line my Dad always gave me when I wanted to see someone go, "they better be careful what they wish for." Joe then gave me a serious look and told me that within two years the Lions would compete for a ntional title. The people around him rolled their eyes .. I just looked into his. Last year the Lions were 1 second away from being undefeated and playing for a national title. Smart guy.

Since I've been a part of this place now for over eight years I actually find myself really rooting for the Lions in all ways -- from the football field to State funding. I am always amazed and impressed with the depth of this University across the board. I know Joe's influence has crossed over from the field ... the library is named after the guy for crying out loud, not the football stadium. He graduates kids, he protects kids, he is an educator first. He never lets winning get in the way of doing things right. The guy is a role model and is immortal -- a true legend in our time. Who else in sports can you point to and say they have done it right without question for so long. So even though I actually bleed Blue and Gold, I am rooting for the Lions to repeat as Big 10 champs and for JoePa to have another amazing year. A guy like Joe deserves to make a run every year.

Do Joe's feet ever really touch the ground?

That Time of the Year

Yep, it is that time of the year again ... football is in the air. As we all get ready to answer the bell, I am reminded of getting ready for the season. For me it was always the real football -- soccer ... 2 a days hurt a lot after a summer of fun, but by mid-October the work put in was well worth it. Figuring out how to create a new team that could go after a huge goal was always a challenge. Winning late in the season always made the effort disappear. I remember going into seasons with big expectations and having to work extra hard to maintain, extend, and realize those exceptions. I sort of feel like I am in the same boat now.

Given WVU's high hopes you are going to have to put up with me. Trust me, I know it is going to be a long shot, but just to have the Mountaineers in this position is amazing. Madeline has her WVU cheerleading uniform and the forthcoming Max has a jersey waiting for him. It is going to be an amazing fall, not just b/c WVU football could be good, but for a lot of reasons!

Answering the Bell

As we approach the Fall semester I am reminded of what it means to answer the school bell ... for me it conjures up quite a bit. With the exception of a couple of years after grad school when I was doing the corporate thing I have spent every fall since five getting ready for the start of a new school year. As an aside, it reminds of about three weeks after I graduated from High School in good old Bloomsburg, PA. I was invited to one of my high school teacher's wedding. As you can imagine most of the high school's faculty were there enjoying themselves -- most of them had been doing a little drinking to celebrate the occasion. I'll never forget talking to Mr. Bierschmit, my 12th grade English Literature teacher, about his decision to retire that year. He was an amazing teacher -- the kind that as you grow up you realize had a profound impact on your life. I can actually count my time in high school as B.B. (Before Bierschmit) and A.B. ... as if I would annotate situations like, "that was during my Freshman Year (1991 B.B.)." At any rate he told me the thing he would miss the most during his retirement was "answering the bell in the Fall." This time of year I really feel the excitement and anxiety of answering the bell. New challenges and lots of deliverables ...

That may be a stretch of a lead in on an interesting story over at MSNBC.com titled, "New idea to cut textbook costs — sell ads." Buying textbooks have become a huge part of getting ready for Fall in higher education for our students. Not only are they paying an extraordinary amount of money for tuition to attend our classes, but are faced with huge costs in the $6 billion college textbook industry. The article discusses a company that is looking to apply the standard web model of selling ads to free up content into the textbook market. This seems like an interesting approach and will surely challenge both the industry's thinking and higher education in general.

Sounds a lot like the music industry a few years ago ... a tightly controlled industry facing major challenges being forced to radically rethink their business model. The price of a textbook versus its perceived value, hmm sounds a lot like buying an album for one song did a few years ago. This is heating up to be a a very interesting space. Something to think about as we head towards Fall. Is that an alarm clock bell going off in the background trying to wake up another sleeping industry?