Preston Gralla
PC World
Wednesday, June 16, 2010; 8:19 AM
Nitro PDF Reader (free) is the most powerful free PDF reading and creation tool you can find, performing many tasks usually only available in for-pay PDF tools. As a PDF reader, it’s lighting fast. For example, it opened a 174-page graphics-heavy PDF nearly instantly–faster than any other PDF reader I’ve tried, including FoxIt Reader, Nuance PDF Reader, and Adobe’s own PDF reader, among others. It lets you search, zoom in and out, rotate pages, and more, pretty much everything that you’d expect from a PDF reader.
Among Nitro PDF Reader’s many tools is a PDF-to-text converter.
It does more as well. You can add notes, highlight text, type text into a text box, insert a signature into a PDF and much more, including commenting on other people’s notes. Nitro PDF also does a very nice job of extracting text and images from PDF files. The program will even take a form scanned in via a scanner as a PDF file and let you type directly on the PDF form.
If you’re looking for a free PDF tool, Nitro PDF Reader is the one to get.
This new web based media production tool only requires a set of photos and perhaps a small video clip and YOU can create a 30 second video message for the Orca flat screens. OTI is happy to walk through the process for you or create the first several.
BOSTON, MA – April 23, 2010 – During his opening address at the Immersive Education 2010 Summit, James A. Woods, Dean of Boston College’s Woods College of Advancing Studies, today announced that the college’s undergraduate courses will be offered as fully immersive distance learning classes through the Immersive Education Initiative. Starting with 4 classes this fall, the entire Woods College of Advancing Studies course catalog is expected to become fully immersive over the next five years. Standard Boston College credit is issued for immersive Advancing Studies courses, with no distinction made between the amount or form of credit given for traditional in-person classes. Students enrolled in immersive classes attend entirely within an online immersive learning environment, using open and freely available technologies endorsed by the Initiative, and may therefore reside anywhere in the world.
Following the announcement by Woods, Aaron E. Walsh, Director of the Immersive Education Initiative, invited Summit attendees to review the Advancing Studies undergraduate course catalog and apply to teach courses remotely using immersive education technology. Walsh stated that faculty who teach immersively will be paid a highly competitive professional rate, and will teach in short “blocks” that accommodate their otherwise busy schedules. Immersive faculty can teach part-time (for as little as 6 hours a semester), in the evening or weekends, and from wherever they reside.
During their respective opening remarks at the Summit both Woods and Walsh explained that every member of the Immersive Education Initiative is eligible to teach Advancing Studies courses immersively. Criteria for teaching immersively, and faculty application forms, can be obtained from the Director of the Initiative.
“It is with confidence that the Woods College of Advancing Studies will offer its undergraduate courses as fully immersive distance learning classes through the Immersive Education Initiative. Beginning with five classes this fall, we will work toward all of our courses becoming fully immersive. Academic credit will be given for the immersive courses with no distinction between credit for immersive and traditional in-person classes. Students enrolled in immersive classes attend entirely within an online immersive learning environment, using open and freely available technologies endorsed by the Initiative, and may therefore reside anywhere in the world. I hope that some of you will indicate your intent to become instructors in our effort,” commented Woods.
Registration for the following immersive Advancing Studies classes is now open. To register, or to obtain more information about these and other courses, visit http://bc.edu/schools/advstudies
* MT 34101 Web 2.0: New Era of Web Technology
* MT 35801 Video Games and Virtual Reality
* MT 35101 Discovering Computer Graphics
* MT 38101 Building Immersive Education Virtual Worlds
Thousands of Members Worldwide
The Immersive Education Initiative is a non-profit international collaboration of universities, colleges, research institutes, consortia and companies that are working together to define and develop open standards, best practices, platforms, and communities of support for virtual reality and game-based learning and training systems. Thousands of faculty, researchers, staff, administrators and students are members of the Immersive Education Initiative, which is growing at the rate of approximately 100 new members every month.
About Immersive Education
Immersive Education (ImmersiveEducation.org) combines interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology, virtual reality, voice chat (Voice over IP/VoIP), Web cameras (webcams) and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and classrooms. Immersive Education gives participants a sense of “being there” even when attending a class or training session in person isn’t possible, practical, or desirable, which in turn provides educators and students with the ability to connect and communicate in a way that greatly enhances the learning experience. Unlike traditional computer-based learning systems, Immersive Education is designed to immerse and engage students in the same way that today’s best video games grab and keep the attention of players. Immersive Education supports self-directed learning as well as collaborative group-based learning environments that can be delivered over the Internet or using fixed-media such as CD-ROM and DVD. Shorter mini-games and interactive lessons can be injected into larger bodies of course material to further heighten and enrich the Immersive Education experience.
About the Media Grid
The Media Grid is a public utility for digital media. Based on new and emerging distributed computational grid technologies, the Media Grid builds upon existing Internet and Web standards to create a unique network optimized for digital media delivery, storage, and processing. As an on-demand public computing utility, a range of software programs and Web sites can use the Media Grid for delivery and storage of rich media content, media processing, and computing power. The Media Grid is an open and extensible platform that enables a wide range of applications not possible with the traditional Internet alone, including: Massive Media on Demand (MMoD); Interactive digital cinema on demand; Immersive Education and distance learning; Truly immersive multiplayer games and Virtual Reality (VR); Hollywood movie and film rendering, special effects, and composition; Real-time rendering of high resolution graphics; Real-time visualization of complex weather patterns; Real-time protein modeling and drug design; Telepresence, telemedicine, and telesurgery; Vehicle and aircraft design and simulation; Visualization of scientific and medical data.
The Grid Institute leads the design and development of the global Media Grid through the MediaGrid.org open standards organization in collaboration with industry, academia, and governments from around the world.
To learn more about the Media Grid, Immersive Education or the Education Grid visit:
MediaGrid.org, ImmersiveEducation.org and TheEducationGrid.org
As we talk about using traditional and new media to transcend barriers of time and space while enhancing feelings of connection, this project stands as a great example, as street musicians from around the globe collaborate on one piece of music, playing along with the layers of sound that preceded them.
I had the opportunity to speak with our new Associate Provost for Distance Education, Goodlett McDaniel in late March of 2010. Knowing University Life’s interest in the distance effort at Mason and in helping him meet his SACS and CAS goals for delivering student services to distance learners, Goodlett was good enough to offer a brief update, one of a series of updates that you will find periodically posted to this blog. You will see in the associated video on this page that Goodlett refers to a peculiarly serendipitous alignment of factors that is catalyzing a significant growth in DE course production and attendance at Mason. The College of Science has an entire cluster of courses recently approved for development: astronomy, physics, two biology courses, and two math courses. Also new on the scene is an anatomy and physiology course being produced by Cyndi Beck from California. Cyndi is working with Ric Reo at Prince William to create an interesting distance production with distance delivery. In another cluster, Social Work, traditionally a very ground based discipline, has had such success with their 200 level courses they created that they are producing their masters courses for on line delivery.
George Mason University seems to be doubling the number of enrollments for distance courses each year, which is what recently has caught the eyes of SACS, having rightly perceived that our growth (substantive change in some programs) is significant enough to warrant recommending that Mason now build out the resource infrastructure that will support the growth of distance programs while guaranteeing all practical equanimity to students in Fairfax, Montana and beyond. Nationally, distance education is growing at 17 to 20 percent annually. Goodlett notes that if Mason growth, as predicted, matches the national pace, we will be at capacity given the resources we have now and at the ready line, and will be positioned for a new build out of resource infrastructure: more instructional designers, distance education delivery technologies, faculty trained and prepared practically and pedagogically, and a new level of communicating with and serving students at-any-distance.
In the mean time, in anticipation of the SACS presence at Mason over the coming summer, Goodlett spends the early part of his days discovering and developing the policies and procedures that need to be standardized to drive this growth process and designing the ways in which they support a quality product and meet accreditation standards. He notes that we can figure out how to measure the variety of outcomes assigned to distance courses and compare them to ground based courses, but while Mason is rolling with a rapidly growing portfolio of pilot distance courses and programs, we have allow ourselves to get our “foot caught in the bicycle wheel”, so we don’t miss opportunities for evaluation and assessment .
The roles that University Life will play in the coming months and years in Mason’s distance efforts are emerging and taking shape as conversations focus on the most recent language in the SACS and CAS guidelines. We are sure to play critical parts as we insure that our services to distance students continue to evolve as Mason meets this new and important challenge and we reach out to touch the students we serve through ever vaster reaches of time and space. We’re going global, and we like that!
Each spring Georgetown University’s Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science has staged an event designed to engage many people across the DC area in the issues of cognitive science. This year we are holding a workshop on Cognitive Science and Morality, taking up a lot of interesting recent work on a biological component to the moral capacity that humans have.
The workshop will be held on Monday, April 12 and promises to be a great event with new dimensions. We hope to see many of you there, along with your students. I am attaching the program and a flyer. Please circulate this announcement to all who may be interested.
All the best
David
–
David W. Lightfoot, PhD
Professor of Linguistics,
Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science,
Director, Communication, Culture & Technology Program,
Georgetown University,
3520 Prospect St NW #311,
Washington, DC 20057.
Tel 202-687-4804, fax 202-687-1720
Each spring Georgetown University’s Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science has staged an event designed to engage many people across the DC area in the issues of cognitive science. This year we are holding a workshop on Cognitive Science and Morality, taking up a lot of interesting recent work on a biological component to the moral capacity that humans have.
The workshop will be held on Monday, April 12 and promises to be a great event with new dimensions. We hope to see many of you there, along with your students. I am attaching the program and a flyer. Please circulate this announcement to all who may be interested.
All the best
David
–
David W. Lightfoot, PhD
Professor of Linguistics,
Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science,
Director, Communication, Culture & Technology Program,
Georgetown University,
3520 Prospect St NW #311,
Washington, DC 20057.
Tel 202-687-4804, fax 202-687-1720
many of these conversations focus on teaching and learning, (which many of you are interested it!) and often there are webinars that are right where we live:) I’ll keep tracking and highlight those that I think might be of particular interest to University Life.
Tuesday, March 9th
2pm US PST / 10pm GMT/UTC (intl): “Social Bookmarking: Can You Digg It? Web Applications for Research.” Rochelle Rodrigo hosts. http://www.learncentral.org/event/52298
4pm US PST / 12am (next day) GMT/UTC (intl): “Emerging Technology in Education.” Host Kevin Murphy leads a panel on renewable energy tech in education. http://www.learncentral.org/event/53104
5pm US PST / 1am (next day) GMT/UTC (intl): “Digital Storytelling” with Bernard R. Robin. The first in a series of MERLOT Classic Award Winning presentations. http://www.learncentral.org/event/60483
Wednesday, March 10th
12:30pm US PST / 8:30pm GMT/UTC (intl): Eric Biederbeck hosts: “Animoto and Glogster.” Part of the MSP2 series. http://www.learncentral.org/event/51985
1pm US PST / 9pm GMT/UTC (intl): Marian Heddesheimer presents “eT@alking Tuesdays: 3D-Teaching and Learning in Second Life.” Part of The Australia Series. http://www.learncentral.org/event/61556
5pm US PST / 1am GMT/UTC (intl): I interview Jim Gemmell and Gordon Bell on their fascinating new book, Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything. http://www.learncentral.org/event/60484
Thursday, March 11th
2pm US PST / 10pm GMT/UTC (intl): Jane Krauss and Suzie Boss host “Better with Practice: PBL Implementation Tips from the Field Session 3.” http://www.learncentral.org/event/50931
3pm US PST / 11pm GMT/UTC (intl): Jo Hart hosts “Edublogs Fine Focus – Elluminate White(board) Magic!” as part of The Australia Series. http://www.learncentral.org/event/59862
5pm US PST / 1am (next day) GMT/UTC (intl): (Repeat) Jane Krauss and Suzie Boss host “Better with Practice: PBL Implementation Tips from the Field Session 3.” http://www.learncentral.org/event/51457
5pm US PST / 1am (next day) GMT/UTC (intl): I interview Sharon Peters on “Teachers Without Borders” and international online collaborative projects. http://www.learncentral.org/event/60485
6pm US PST / 1am (next day) GMT/UTC (intl): Mayte Esponda presents on “Global Collaborative Student Projects: How to Create an Effective Collaborative Project to Interact Online with Schools Worldwide.” http://www.learncentral.org/event/60851
Saturday, March 13th
9am US PST / 5pm GMT/UTC (intl): The Classroom 2.0 LIVE! show. “Engaging Students with Interactive Technology” with special guest Adora Svitak. http://live.classroom20.com
9am US PST / 5pm GMT/UTC (intl): Jeff Applegate hosts “Choosing and Using Video Games in the Classroom: A Coach’s Role.” http://www.learncentral.org/event/58440
Cloud computing, green technology…Scott Carlson, a Chronicle reporter, and Warren Arborgast, a technology consultant who works with colleges , talk about the challenges and opportunities. http://chronicle.com/article/Audio-Tech-Trends-for-the/64105/