Last Friday-Saturday we had 24 inches of snow here in Olney (Snowmageddon) and then on Tuesday-Wednesday we had another 12 inches of snow (The Sequel). The college has been closed all week so starting Monday we need to start catching up on an entire week of missed class times. I wonder what the policy is for distance/blended courses? Did the students "attend" class via the web, or did they also get the week off? Even though students CAN attend a distance class in the snow - I wonder if they DID?
We lost electricity a few times over the week, the longest was about 20 hours from Saturday morning to Sunday morning - it got down to about 54 degrees in our living room, but that seems mild compared to some of the stories we saw on TV. We also lost cable (and Internet) for about 30 hours (it came back just as the second half of the Super Bowl was starting - missed the Who at half-time but saw some good football).
As far as blended learning goes I made a few discoveries. Planning for the video introductions to each week I pulled out my video camera and took a few minutes of video of the snow falling outside of our living room. When I went to connect the camera to my new laptop I realized that the cables I have don't work with the new laptop. I want to use a connection called "firewire" and the cable that came with my camera went from 4 pins (very small) to six pins (about the size of a standard USB connector). My new laptop has a small connector (4 pins) and my camera has a small connector too. I've ordered a 4 pin - 4 pin firewire cable from Amazon (about $10) and it should arrive next week. In addition to hardware issues, I discovered that Adobe Premier Plus 1.5 (a very old version) does not seem to work with Windows 7. As a result I ordered an upgrade to Premier CS4 and it should arrive today sometime. With the new software and the new cable I should be all set to make some pretty dynamic welcome videos each week. If you are not familiar with video editing and the Premier software then probably Premier is overkill - but I already know how version 1.5 works so I'm looking forward to seeing how CS4 has improved and upgraded the editing process. I'll keep you posted on how the video works once I get everything installed.
Not much news on actually building the course - I spent a lot of time shoveling snow, chipping ice, and sucking up water from my living room carpet after the ceiling started leaking. I hope to spend more time on the course in about a week - I'm guessing most of the next seven days will be spent trying to get caught up with the courses being taught this semester.
Enjoy the snow, and I'll put out another update in about a week.
John
No comments:
Post a Comment