Rubricizing, Lost a Close Friend, and Recent Wiki Articles

I've applied my rubric to two courses and have tried a third course but have had trouble finding the lesson materials. But, fear not! I have other alternatives! I started writing my report last weekend and shouldn't be a problem to complete it by Saturday.

Last night I came home, got Dakota (our half German Shepherd half knothead, and God knows what else) his dinner, went out to give him supper, and I had a stiff pup on my hands. Dakota and I had become very close, over the past 6 or 7 years especially. Kath (my wife) is always close to her pets. He was almost 14 years old. Lessee, that's somewhere in his 80s for a dog his size. He had a good life. We had a lot of good times...still doesn't make it easy. Dakota was with us since weaning as a young pup. Josh picked him out and reminded me how Dakota's mom, Gretchen-who lived next door, used to come to our back door and whine 'cuz she knew we had one of her pups. There are a lot of good memories. Kath reminded me of the time he had a cat treed and the cat wasn't gonna come down for love or money. Dakota just sat down at the foot of that tree until the cat decided to come down and promptly chased the cat into next week! He was a smart dog. We had a grey cockatiel named Mosby. Mosby got outside one day and flew away or so we thought until we heard Dakota barking from the back yard. Kath got out there and there was Dakota with his paw on Mosby gently pinning him to the ground and a smile on Dakota's face! Then there was the time he shoved the kitchen chair up against the counter, got on the counter, and drug down a bag cheese flavored chips and had a feast. Kath came in the kitchen as he munched the last of the chips and asked, "Would you like some dip with that, Dakota?" Then there was the Christmas he ate a whole box of chocolate covered cherries. And once when the fridge we had had a bad seal on the door and he nose that door open and helped himself to a whole, thawed out, uncooked chicken with a sheepish grin on his face! At least he died (we say moved) easy and we didn't have to have him put to sleep. That'd probably be worse. He had the typical German Shepherd problem of bad hips and arthritis in his front right leg. Still he was always game for a car ride and a walk along the Mississippi. Buried him in one of his many holes he dug in our back yard, right near his dog house. No other dog will ever replace Dakota...we know that...just the same we're on the lookout for a Scottish Terrier pup. May have found one out southwest of Iowa City for a very reasonable price. Kath would really like a Scottie.

Earlier yesterday a couple of articles about Wikis came to me via email...thought I'd share them here. They both came from eWeek and provide some worthwhile reading. Here's their links...
25 Tips for a Better Wiki and Wikis While You Work

A Brew of Note

A friend of mine came back to visit his fam for Thanksgiving brought me a treat. He brought a 6 pack of Bell's Oberon Ale from Comstock, Michigan. He says every time they brew this particular ale, maybe it's any brew, they have an article in the newspaper announcing it. Apparently it's a very popular brew from Bell's Brewery, an area favorite in the Kalamazoo, Michigan region. With home hot-air popped, buttered (real butter) and cheese flavored, popcorn, my Friday night was complete! One of those "priceless" moments.

3 or 4 Things

I was rearranging some elements on the left hand sidebar today and was thinkin' about gettin' rid of my tab of Netvibes IDT 516 Blogs. Then I remembered how it actually helped me out at work. Where I work there's restraints on what we can access. Blogs are one thing that is blocked from access by employees. So, Dr. West's links can't be accessed either. The strange thing is, is that I can at least see the front page of the blogs from my tab of IDT 516 blogs. Sometimes I can even navigate into it a bit but usually that just kicks a block on the page. But I've been able to retrieve some bits of information over the last week or two as a result. That's been a beneficial mistake. I think I'll leave the link up there awhile longer.

There was a quote on the in-house tv they call "Channel 9." by Conrad Hilton I've been noticin' this month, "Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit."

I've removed the Fire In The Belly pics. The band now has its own blog, fireinthebelly4.blogspot.com/
as does the duo I play in, Lost In The Weeds (links also on the left hand sidebar under Bands...watch for friends bands!)

Completed the Rubric today. It contains 72 pieces of criteria in 6 categories under Dr. West's 3 headings. It may be overkill!!!
I hope not.
The categories are:
Instructional Design
Syllabus
Content
Presentation Design
Look
Work
Interaction Design
Learner Engagement
Assessment

Completed Rubric Question Selection

Pretty well finished up the question selection for the Rube today...added some assessment related questions. One last look at the verbage and it'll be ready to apply to some courses. Maybe if I'm fortunate I'll get some of that done before Thanksgiving Day but if not Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday are the target days. Hope to have the writing completed earlier than the due date. That's the plan but life events happen and ya just never know.

Here's a new construction proposed for New Orleans.(This image comes from Worth1000.com where you can see some very creative and talented Photoshop work!)

Global Rubric 90% Complete

Spent a lot of time developing a global rubric today...have about 90% of it complete...maybe it is complete...I'll need to look at it tomorrow.

The Rubric (y'know I'm just gonna call it "The Rube" from now on...just so y'know.) has three main sections as suggested by Dr. West; Instructional Design, Presentation Design, and Interaction Design.

Instructional Design, which evaluates design elements such as; course structure, learning objectives, and strategies, of online course elements, has two main sections; Syllabus and Content. I've got 13 questions under each section.

Presentation Design evaluates how the course looks and how the course works. The two categories I call Looks has 8 questions and Works has 11 questions.

Interaction Design evaluates how well the course engages the learner. At present I have one category, Learner Engagment which has 14 questions.

The research and development of the Rube has turned into an interesting project. I've read a thesis by a South African on utilization of computer-based training in South Africa. It's an engaging thesis. One attitude that I've read in researching this topic is that a Rube, good instructional design, is or should be evaluated and implement changes when necessary. In today's high tech culture that's so important because of the rapidity of change.

There's undoubtedly more questions to add but what I've got is a good start. One of the resources stated that there is no magic number of questions or categories, rather you can add as you go along and make adjustments down the road. Kinda like adding a bit of seasoning or spices when cooking is better than putting too much.

The Last 48 hours....

Been burnin' some midnite and daytime oil gettin' this Unit 6 assignment finished up in time for the due date. It's been a kick workin' in the group I was privileged to work in. This time our group consisted of 3 individuals, Kim A., Mariann B., and myself. It's really a challenge working in asychronous mode. Thank God and Alexander Graham Bell for telephonic communication as that helps to speed up understanding and clarifies other's thought processes and approaches. At least for me it does.

A previous group project in 510 was a little cumbersome, especially after working in a Wiki. I'd have preferred using a Wiki to setup the document and implement changes. Unfortunately that wasn't available to us. So, I went outside of the WIU environment and, as I already have a Gmail account, utilized the Google technology by setting up a group and inviting Kim and Mariann to the group so we had our space for file storage, sharing, and easy access. I thought was a pretty good solution. We wrote our documents solely in Word to facilitate the process. I've used the Google document utility but Word worked the best for the end-product as well as providing some learning ezperiences using that product.

The biggest reason I set up a Google Group for us was so I could access this project from work. My employer is very supportive of training, it's required, and imperative that we constantly seek improvement in our capabilities through whatever means available. If work is slow as it has been at times, especially this past week, my boss allows me to work on course work. Because of the stringent firewall and security that we have at work, I'm unable to access my WIU coursework at work. Needless to say, Google was a saving grace in this instance as I am able to access Gmail and Google.

The great news is the project is done, delivered, and on time. We feel pretty good about the project. It's very tight and is, I believe, a quality work. We'll see if our instructor agrees! (check back to see how we did.)

Enterprise 2.0, Federal Computer Week article

Been very busy at work and my IDT 510 class. The IDT 510 class has a group project we're workin' on that's due Saturday night. Even though there's always a 3 day grace period, I like to get it down. Our group's tryin' to get it finished and submitted Friday night. Not sure we'll make that. Had a phone conversation with Dr. Harris which clarified a couple of questions as well as two of the key elements and how they need to be processed.

Today at work I came across an article in Federal Computer Week about Enterprise 2.0. The 2.0 caught my eye and sure enough it has to do Web 2.0 tools, and the application of such tools in business and government. It's an interview of Andrew McAfee, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, studies the potential uses and effects of Web 2.0 technologies. Ben Bain was the interviewer. Interesting enough I thought I'd share it here for anyone who wants to peruse it. The name of the article is
Enterprise 2.0 and you.