Classmate Websites

Congrats to everyone on their final projects. Team Navy...you've inspired me to stop and take a picture every hour for a day to see all those things that seem to go unnoticed.

I thought there were some great animations on the class websites. A few of my favorites were:

• Christina's Wings: https://files.nyu.edu/cdb319/public/ani.html

• Kelly's Landscape:https://files.nyu.edu/kmj284/public/animatedgif.html

• Geneva's Fairy: https://files.nyu.edu/gm1154/public/gif.html

Allison's Literacy Page has some really interesting links. There's a link to a software program called Body Works that I'm going to really look into once classes are officially over. I hope to one day work art into the standard academic curriculum and programs like this show that you can use dance to teach students about science and anatomy. Thanks Allison!

• Check it out: https://files.nyu.edu/adn236/public/literacy.html
  

If you haven't yet, read Denys's blog. He a great writer with interesting observations about the world.

• Technology for the Performing Artist: http://denysdrozdyuk.blogspot.com/

Browsers

I never though about browsers much before this class. I pretty much stick with Firefox. However, I started using Opera recently and really like the interface and widgets they provide. I started setting up my "speed dial" on Opera with my frequently visited web pages. I like the notes feature, the thumbnail quick view when you scroll over your open tabs, and the fact that you can easily re-open recently closed tabs. 

Then I started noticing some flaws. The first thing I noticed was that Opera has no "auto fill/memory" feature for forms. You can designate your name, email, etc, and it will fill it our for you, but it uses the same information on every site. For example, when I'm filling out a form, depending on what it is, I will sometimes use my NYU email and other times my personal. Which one I use is pretty consistent with the pages I am regularly on. In Firefox, it knew how I'd filled out a particular form before and uses that information. Opera dosen't do this, so I have to type my information into every form I fill out.

The second observation was that Opera cannot open NYUHome emails. I can log onto NYUHome, but if I click to open my email, the page will say "loading" indefinitely. It cannot open NYU email - this is a major problem for me.

The latest observation is how Opera displays audio/movie content. When you open a page with embedded video or sound (and for some reason fill-in enabled forms) it opens with an icon - a grey circle with a "play" symbol - in place of the actual image or control bar. This became really irritating when I was trying to view my animation page. The animation will begin playing instatly, but I have to click on the "play" icon and wait for my auto-play sound to start playing, so I couldn't properly time the animation with the sound on Opera.

I hope that Opera works out its kinks because it has the potential to be a great browser, but for now I'll stick with Firefox.

Blackboard

I think Blackboard is a good tool for sharing files in a closed network. I've used Blackboard both as a student and an administrator. 

As a student, I find it extremely valuable for class powerpoints or articles that are posted - cause I can't loose them! It has some features where you can give tests and quizzes, but otherwise, I don't find it to be very interactive. I'm sure there are better platforms out there for this kind of thing.

I manage an administrative Blackboard site for the Communicative Sciences department. I find it a useful for giving students access to forms they frequently request as well as listing resources available to them in the department. By having sections like "Graduation Information" and "Advisement and Registration," I can direct them to the information on the site rather than answering the same questions over and over. I can also link them to other sites with information on certification, etc.

The main benefit to Blackboard is that it is an online resource that can only be accessed by a defined list of users, so all you information does not need to be made available to the public. However, as a teacher, I'd probably look into other platforms such as cloud computing that may provide more tools and flexibility for communicating with students.