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 ($$ Screen capturing software: Editable) ● Jing Project (Screen captures; image and video) ● Zamzar (File converter) ● Impatica ($$ PPT compressor/converter) ● iSpring (PPT 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, , 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) ● An Organizational PLAN!

Confession #3 Dear Diary, So a student doing an international exchange, a finance professor, and an HR manager from a multi- national 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: ● Camtasia, Snagit, Jing and More: ● Zamzar: ● Impatica: ● iSpring:

More Resources ● Delicious: ● Drop.io: ● Elluminate: ● Skype: ● Oovoo: ● Dimdim: ● Scriblink: ● Zoho:

Still More Resources ● Google: ● Facebook: ● MySpace: ● Twitter: ● Linkedin: ● Flickr: ● Some good blogs:

Contact Info Jessie Daniels Distance MBA Productions or On Facebook and Linkedinhttp://twitter.com/jessiedaniels