Mark's Blog

I’m officially done with my Master’s degree in Instructional Technology. My degree posted June 2010.  It was a long haul, but it was worth it.

Date: June 6, 2009 from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Hours:  4  (other 4 hours pure research)

Activities:

1. Replaced entire shopping cart theme
2. Found public domain Web 2.0 icons for category pictures
3. Found public domain Bible pictures, major score, from website with scanned pictures from late 19th/early 20th century
4. Created Terms of Service for shop
5. Created Newsletter–tested a newsletter blast to client and myself
6. Created account at MediaFire to see if attachments could be linked in newsletter to there–think it will work (have to speak with client)
7. Changed front registering module to more robust module–checks availability of username on the fly
8. Replaced shopping cart module to show customer account information and download area

New Shiny Categories

More Pleasing Item List

New List Display

Date:  June 5, 2009 from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Hours: 10

Activities:

1. Add Facebook app; tested it and had to move shopping cart of screens as it conflicted with thumbnail generated
2. Cleaned up random glitches with display
3. Met with client and showed shopping cart features
4. Explained categories, product listing, how to enable downloads, and shopping cart/Virtuemart features
5. Enabled Instant Payment Notification in client’s PayPal account–did this without having to upgrade to PayPal Pro!  NO $30 a month fee
6. First live run was failure–wrong email associated with account
7. More live runs of shopping cart with PayPal–failure as only worked 2 out of 3 times
8. Removed notify.php from administrator area and copied it to root with a link inside to administrator–folder permissions might have been messing with IPN communication
9. Success!
10. Uploaded several more lessons–client did as I did scaffolded instruction
11. Spoke about content needed to be added
12. Spoke about Google Ad words for him to put ads on Google with specific key words
13. Looked at competitor’s sites and spoke about difference in business model between his own and theirs
14. Showed client how to use PrintScreen and GIMP with smudge tool, to blur out identifying information and make directions for cart checkout–PayPal module is somewhat confusing–might need to formal tutorial on how to do this as I don’t think client will remember

Okay, I’ve got to call it a day as my eyes are hurting.

Date:  June 4, 2009 from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Hours: 10

Activities:

1. Worked on logo, and reworked changing font based on client request
2. Set up database on server
3. Uploaded Joomla and ran configuration
4. Created sections and categories based on client’s needs
5. Created dummy articles and made menus
6. Added Facebook module and removed all modules not needed by client (preinstalled as sample data–more work to do this)
7. Created extra super administrator user for client
8. Configured all settings, I think, to interact with server and client’s use
9. Called server technicians to increase PHP upload size
10. Installed custom php.ini file on server to increase size of maximum upload via the backend of Joomla
11. Installed reCaptcha extension for contact page

It's looking good

1. Uploaded Virtuemart, the online shopping cart, to take orders–didn’t work and how to manually install by placing file in a tmp directory
2. Configured Virtuemart with sample lesson plan, added categories, menu links, and installed modules and plugins
3. Tested Virtuemart with Paypal–no go as the order still must manually be confirmed
4. Tried manual confirmation and ability to download order was a success–email was sent with download instructions.  Yes!
5. Figured out Paypal must be upgraded to $30 a month Pro account to have IPN server-to-server communications; basically, have to pay if you don’t want to manually set each order to confirmed and want it done automatically like it should be for a downloadable product
6. Tested download with a $0 price tag–success.  Download was available immediately
7. Spoke with client about pay issue with PayPal and possibility of using GoogleCheckout–undecided still

Shopping Cart and Instant Download Nirvana

June 3, 2009 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Hours: 6

Activities:

1. Signed up for web hosting and pointed his DNS servers to web host
2. Spoke about business model of website:  a site to sell Sunday School lessons with the ability to pay for lessons and receive instant download (hopefully)
3. Spoke about ability to use public domain Bible pictures and turn them into coloring book activities–need to follow up and make a tutorial on how to do this for him
4. Showed off GIMP as viable method of doing number 3
5. Spoke about logo design, went to Shutterstock and purchased a Roman shield–need to take image, add name, and polish it to make it a logo
6. Showed off Vista Print for making business cards and letterheads
7. Spoke about basics of using a CMS–decided to go with Joomla
8. Found, and purchased, Joomla theme to use as a starting place to build site on
9. Created an email account with new domain name
10. Showed how to have his existing Gmail account check his new email account and send mail as that email name
11. Showed how to apply labels to mail within Gmail
12. Spoke about ability to have a newsletter–need to find Joomla extension for this
13. Created a PayPal account, to hopefully, accept funds–need to find out about IPN usage
14. Spoke about menu system and what divisions he wants–suppose to email me a list
15. Spoke about integrating forums for more user interaction—decided against it as too much moderation responsibility

To Do:

1. Make logo
2. Upload Joomla to server
3. Tweak theme
4. Customize the whole experience–basically build the site!
5. Test payment options
6. Complete Gimp tutorial for coloring book
7. Find public domain picture resources
8. Show client how to use Joomla backend–adding content and such
9. Fix bugs/problem areas
10. ????

Okay, I submitted my IRB application to Dr. Newberry this week; hopefully, I filled it out correctly as I couldn’t get past the 10 minute marker in the video.  I wrote about this in Kenny’s blog.  I feel that my project, being a design and development type project, really doesn’t fall into the research-centric protections of the IRB proposal, but I could be wrong.  We’ll see.

I also listened to the informative interview with Barb Kouba, which made me think of my previous line of work prior to teaching.  Her tenet that assistive technologies need to be more integrated into all education classes, not to mention special education, is an insightful examination into the apparent lack of understanding of these technologies by most teachers/professors.  When I first moved to Chicago, I worked at a summer camp, and continued this work for three years, for adults with Cerebral Palsy.  This work, and my later work with Autism and mental retardation, really opened my eyes to the lack of technologies geared specifically for these individuals.  At the camp, many of the individuals couldn’t speak and communicated through speech boards where they pressed a picture and the board said the word; yet, these boards seemed archaic and so extremely limited.  After all, these Fisher-Price looking boards only had maybe twenty words on them.  These men and women I worked with wanted to converse but were often impeded by the technology to have fluent conversations, which amounted to great perceived frustration on their parts.  While I’m sure there was even more advanced technology available in the early 90′s when I worked at the camp, I also know that the technologies were probably cost prohibitive for these individuals as many of them lived in nursing homes and other state-assisted living environments.  In fact, I clearly remember wanting to build low cost devices to help these individuals communicate more efficiently as I was frustrated with their “toy” type devices they had.  This notion is still in the back of my mind as I have ventured farther into the open source world.  On a side note, I wish Barb’s website would load as I would love to explore more about her thesis and results from that thesis.

Well, I guess back to trying to get together my prototype for this class.

Okay, I have watched the three videos for the IRB and completed all my CITI modules. I’m not quite sure about the two hour time on this as the movie took one and half hours to watch and the CITI modules took quite a bit more than two hours.  Now, I need to complete the IRB application, which sounds like I will qualify for exempt status due to the nature of my project.  I’m glad you could retake those CITI modules to get to the 100% .  I also completed my Master’s Proposal, as Kenny pointed out on his blog, “relying heavily on the sample provided.”

It feels good to actually be done before Sunday, but I had no choice since I will gone this weekend due to it being Memorial weekend.  However, I’m hoping the actual IRB application is due next weekend, but if not, I will try to get that done before I head out.

Master Proposal in Word

First off, it was great matching faces with names at the meeting the other night.  For those who couldn’t make it, I hope to see you another time in the future.

Okay, for this week, I watched the Protecting Human Subjects triad of videos.  I wasn’t sure if I was suppose to watch all three videos in one shot or try to complete the CITI modules at the same time.  I chose to watch the whole set of videos first.  I registered at the CITI website choosing Group 2: Social Behavioral Research Investigators and Key Personnel.  Is this correct anyone?  I went ahead and completed three modules but only one quiz so far.  I’m hoping to complete the whole section this week and then fill out the IRB form.

After countless hours and days of reading, annotating, and writing, liters of caffeinated beverages mixed with sedative beverages by the end of the days, entire forests cleared of their life giving stoic individuals, and probably permanent eye strain, I have completed my literature review.  To boot, one day ahead of schedule; albeit, a sick *cough* day might have helped this endeavour.  While I hope I did my literature review “right” and that it is comprehensible, I am extremely happy it is done.  Trying to distill so much information and synthesize something meaningful from it is truly a formidable task.

That being said, I did find a way to try to use technology to my advantage.  Initially, I was printing every single article and annotating the hardcopy.  However, I seriously almost went through a ream of paper.  I decided there must be a better way.  While there is no real way to get out of printing these articles, you don’t always need the entire article.  Consequently, I saved the .pdf’s to my folder and then opened them with my Adobe Acrobat Pro software.  Then, I read the articles and highlighted, using the built in highlighter, the sections that were applicable.  After that, I only printed the pages with highlights, so I could further annotate them on paper.  While I still usually printed almost the whole article, I did cumulatively save a ton of paper and ink.  Anyway, I thought I would share this for anyone fretting the fading of the ink cartridges.  Although, I’m sure most of you will be done with your reviews by the time you read this.

You can peruse my literature review by clicking the link at the top, aptly named Literature Review, or by clicking here.

Well, we are starting to hit the middle of the quarter with the literature review looming ahead; although, it looks as though some people are basically done with this section.  I have a good number of articles stockpiled, but I still need several more.  So far, it seems as though my four topic areas–Benefits of Open Source Technology in Education for Teachers and Districts, Benefits of Web Based Learning for Students, Benefits of Online Learning for the Subject, and Specific Benefits of Moodle–are shaping up to work for this thesis; albeit, I might be placing the specific benefits of Moodle under a subheading of Benefits of Open Source.  I’m not sure yet.  I’m still knee deep in actual tagging and reading of sources, so I’ll have more of an idea of what is working and not working once I actually start putting the prose together.

Update:  Okay, I think it was Barbara who introduced me to Wordle–thank you.  I’m actually thinking of how to use this with my students.  Below is my Wordle of my Pre-Thesis

Pre-Thesis