Author Archives: Jason

Online Discussion Rubric

I know there are a number of professors who use rubrics to help them grade more subjective assignments like discussion forum participation. These rubrics also help students to better know the expectations set for them. My wife, Marybeth Alley, created a pared down version of an online discussion forum rubric that I thought some might [...]
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Another way to WordPress

WordPress on campus has been a godsend and I anticipate it will continue to be throughout this academic year. I love showing it to anyone on campus willing to listen because almost without fail they are impressed by its ease of use. Some people are downright excited, which includes me for sure. But, tonight I’m even [...]
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"Mad Men" and a mad quote for education

Donald Draper, the main character in the tragically smoky drama “Mad Men,” has a way with words to which I sometimes aspire. While talking with his partner about a client that thinks they want younger copywriters on their project, Draper senses the clients simply want what their competition is doing. To which Draper responds: Success is [...]
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Be kind.

Here we are in Wildwood, NJ. Our friends, Rachael, Brian, and their daughter Sophie, and me along with my beautiful wife and just as beautiful daughter Annabeth are here for an entire week Today the kids played in the surf and rode the waves on their boogie boards. They dug holes in the sand that [...]
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Day 11 with the Samsung Omnia

First, just to get this out of the way and off my chest, I want an iPhone. It’s superior in almost every comparison. However, my carrier is Verizon Wireless and I get a pretty sweet deal on my family plan because I have a family member who works for Verizon Wireless. That’s the dilemma. Pay [...]
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Opinio Invitation reminders

I got a call today from one of our most esteemed Opinio users (don’t worry, she knows who she is) wanting to know if she added a reminder message to an already sent invitation would those who have completed the survey also receive the reminder. We ran a quick little replication of this on a [...]
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iPhoto revived

On Friday we returned from a great night of watching the Iron Pigs, the Phillies AAA affiliate, when to my disappointment iPhoto decided to stop opening. After many hours of research I found no answers. Most everything I found said to delete the plist file in my Library. That didn’t work. I moved the iPhoto library [...]
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YouTube EDU

To help make finding university video content on YouTube easier to find, a higher education-only channel, YouTube EDU, was recently created by the folks at YouTube. This channel, which requires universities to apply for membership, has very few features, but helps to aggregate higher ed video content using a few simple methods: Most viewed videos among [...]
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New name. New header. For now.

I’ve been changing my blog name and header almost as frequently as I change my underwear. Well, almost as frequently. Seriously though, in the last two weeks I haven’t stopped trying to think of a clever name or even something remotely more clever than “Blog” or any of the other ridiculous names I’ve used recently [...]
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No more free phone-in on GCast

GCast.com is a free podcasting service that allows account holders to upload audio content. It then produces an RSS feed, which can be cataloged in podcasting repositories such as iTunes. The thing I really liked about GCast though is that an account holder could register a phone number with their account. Then they could magically call [...]
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