We are pleased to announce that the eagerly anticipated Samsung update to the 10.1 LTE tablets that are part of our pilot program is now available.

This update was scheduled for release in mid November, then pushed to late December due to Verizon requirements, and then pushed back a bit more.  We spoke with our Samsung representative recently and were informed that the update just began pushing out this week.  It has been being distributed in waves over several days and is beginning to appear for our tablets.

This update provides a slightly modified user interface that replaces the standard Google Honeycomb user interface with the Samsung TouchWiz interface.  Fortunately, it appears that all data and apps previously installed on the tablets remain intact after the update.  That is good.  The other good news is that Touchwiz allows for support of the Samsung Cisco AnyConnect VPN client.  We’ve done the Samsung update and downloaded AnyConnect from the Market, and both aopear to work fine.

There are perhaps two methods to receive the Samsung update: 1) Navigate to Settings>About Tablet>System Updates>Check Now, or 2) Wait for on-screen notifications at the Home screen, and follow the 2-3 step prompts as directed.  Having checked in Settings a number of times over the last few days we never located the update via that method.  However, yesterday afternoon we did receive the Home screen notification.  Clicking through the update process was very simple, straight forward, and mostly automatic.  The whole process took perhaps 15-20 minutes via the fast ASU network.

Once you have updated to TouchWiz if you are interested in VPN functionality here are other links that may be helpful to you.

• AnyConnect in the Market: http://goo.gl/mVMj4
• ASU instructions for connecting to our VPN: http://goo.gl/8ZI2T

If you have any questions, concerns, or difficulties with the update or VPN setup please don’t hesitate to contact us.

I recently had an opportunity to test-drive Lightworks, the “new” non-linear video editing system from EditShare.  Actually, this is not a new product.  The initial release of this tool dates back to 1989, which by my count puts Lightworks at very birth of computerized digital video editing.  At that time, Lightworks was very expensive, costing in the tens of thousands of dollars, and required complex and proprietary hardware to run.  Over the course of it’s long history Lightworks has developed a strong professional following and has been used to edit a number of award winning feature films and more.  However, after many years and a number of company ownership changes, the latest iteration is now offered as a free open source product.  The current product only runs on Windows, though Linux and OSX versions are slated for release in a matter of weeks.

Lightworks is presently in beta, and available as a free download.  However, the product is scheduled to go out of beta on November 29, 2011.  At that time it will enter into a Membership Model with costs ranging from also free for the basic membership to $30/year for education and $60/year for commercial use.  Paid membership will provide deeper access to the community forums as well as offset costs for some of the additional video codecs that are to be added into Lighworks.  Codec support is presently an area that needs to be addressed.  More on that later.

By “an opportunity to test-drive” what I really mean to say is that our primary Final Cut Pro station was out of commission and I needed to complete an edit of some HD footage that had been shot using Panasonic P2 cameras.  The timeline for completing the edit was fairly flexible and the program was short.  This seemed like a good chance to kick the tires on Lightworks.  I must say, that overall it proved quite satisfactory even if it did require overcoming a bit of a learning curve that was less about being difficult and more about being unfamiliar.

Workflow
I’ve used a number of NLE systems over the years including: DigitalFX (bonus points for anybody who recognizes that one), Media100, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, and Premiere.  Prior to that I did a fair amount of “A/B roll” editing using traditional tape based systems.  We have also taught a number of simple video production workshops to faculty and staff at the university over the years.  In those classes we usually used earlier versions of iMovie, which is inexpensive (free with every Mac) and used to be easy to understand and manage.  Referencing iMovie, we would often say, “While simplified, this program is like pretty much all other digital video editing systems available.  It has a timeline, a bin, some effects, and preview windows to view your clips and your program edit.” At the time, that was more or less the case.  Not so much the case with iMovie anymore and not quite true with Lightworks either.  Yes, the basics are still there in Lightworks, much like every word processor has more or less the same essential editing tools and features of other products (there are only so many ways to skin a cat).  However, the approach, terminology, and general editing workflows are just different enough from most other products on the market that a significant burn-in time may be necessary to get familiar with how things are accomplished in Lightworks, especially if you are used to working with other common NLE tools in use today.  Additionally, the deceptively simple interface of Lightworks hides a wide array of very professional features, settings, and customization options.  Discovering all that Lightworks has to offer, and setting up the program via the many customized shortcuts, some of which are required, can be a bit challenging.

Highlights and Hiccups
The deep heritage of Lightworks shows a bit in the production workflow which at times feels more closely tied to traditional tape-based A/B roll editing than to the drag-and-drop WYSIWYG workflow of say Final Cut or Premiere.  On the other hand, the system is quick and responsive once you get accustomed to where things are located and how tasks are accomplished.  Lightworks easily handled my high definition footage stored on the internal hard drive of a 5+ year-old MacPro running Windows 7 via Bootcamp.  It never felt sluggish in any way.  On the whole, I was quite pleased using Lightworks to edit the fairly simple and short (approximately 15 minutes) multi-camera program that I used for test-driving.  I expect it would perform equally well on longer more complex edits as well, particularly with more practice and experience on my part.

That being said, there were a few hiccups in my experience.  Most of the issues I had involved Lightworks and the dark magic that is the world of modern video codecs today.  A fairly sophisticated understanding of video codecs for input and output is assumed.  As mentioned, Lightworks is a rooted in the world of professional film and video editing.  As such, it handles a number of broadcast quality video formats with ease including; DVCPRO, MXF, DVCAM, HDV, and more.  However, importing and exporting more consumer friendly formats are presently only partially supported, if at all.  In my particular case, some of the footage I was working with needed to be transcoded from the original computer recorded format into something that Lightworks could understand.  The same was true on export.  My finished edit needed additional transcoding to get it from one of the formats that Lightworks outputs into something smaller and more distribution ready.  Again, Lightworks is primarily a professional tool, so this is somewhat understandable.  However, pretty much every other modern video editing program provides easy export to non-broadcast quality formats.  I understand this is something that is high on the Lightworks development roadmap, and it likely will be addressed in the initial non-beta release due very soon.

Overall, I believe the latest chapter to the Lightworks story is quite compelling.  Despite a few rough edges, this very professional product offered to the creative community for free (or nearly free) is encouraging.  I am eager to see how it plays out, and the impact it may have, especially once the OSX and Linux versions are available as well.  Lightworks is worth a look.

However, one has to wonder about the long term viability of such plan given the evidence of digital content of all sorts so rapidly moving toward commodity status.  Some have suggested that higher education may soon experience the same sort of business model disruptions as have affected the music and movie industries in recent years. Is the focus on content as commodity a mistake?  When “open” truly means open, as in free–including the content as in the case in the growing open course movement–banking the future on selling content no matter the packaging may be questionable.  Meanwhile, some have gone so far as to criticize a number of such recent open education initiatives as “openwashing” which would seem to fall into the “a sheep in wolf’s clothing” category.

On the other hand, selling textbook chapters at 99 cents (or the comparable market equivalent) via a “just in time” online venue does seem more attractive than selling whole paper bound books through traditional bookstores for hundreds of dollars, most of which often go mostly unread.  Maybe an analogy to recent changes in the music industry spawned by the iTunes Music Store isn’t too far off.  Could it be that this is a case of a traditional publisher recognizing the writing on the walls, and is itself shifting focus from the course content to the course experience?  Perhaps.

[Photo by Flickr user Tambako]

Mitchell20 is a wonderful documentary film that tells the story of twenty teachers from a single school in the Phoenix area and their struggle to improve their craft, better the learning outcomes of their students, and raise the level of quality of their school. http://www.mitchell20.com/about/

The original objective was to follow a group of teachers in Arizona endeavoring to reach National Board Certification and spotlight the inspirational events of a journey toward quality teaching.  However, through the course of production, the documentary turned into a testimonial about the state of education in America.   The film captures the story of teachers as heroes in an urban school that serves primarily underprivileged minority students. This group of 20 elementary school teachers faced adversity every step of the way yet, they charged forward to meet the needs of their students. Mitchell 20: Teacher Quality is the Answer is a dramatic story that shows teachers are the key to improving education in America.

We were fortunate to have participated in the early stages of production on this film. This is the product of very talented, passionate, and creative individuals. Working with them was a privilege.

NeXT web server at ASU "Instruction Support"

It was one of the first two NeXT boxes delivered in the state of Arizona. I acquired the machine a few years later, perhaps in 1993? The website was part of my Master’s thesis in Educational Media here at ASU, and while only a few pages deep, it helped to launch many of the efforts we still enjoy and engage in to this day.

This box currently remains on display in our offices at ASU SkySong.

Thank you Mr. Jobs.

The series, “Journalism in the Digital Age,” contains episodes of an ongoing Cronkite speaker series in which journalism leaders discuss critical issues facing the news media. The podcast series garnered more than 44,000 plays and nearly 20,000 downloads during the week of April 10-16 alone.

The most popular episode was “Investigative Journalism in a Nonprofit Newsroom,” in which Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief, CEO and president of ProPublica, the national investigative reporting nonprofit, was interviewed by Leonard Downie Jr., Weil Family Professor of Journalism at the Cronkite School and former executive editor of The Washington Post, for the Must See Mondays speaker series in the school’s First Amendment Forum. Apple reported that 29,284 people played the podcast during the week of April 10-16 and 11,716 downloaded it – the most of any iTunes U offerings.

iTunes U is one of the many ways that the Cronkite School has embraced new networked communication strategies in the changing world of participatory journalism and social media.  They also offer popular Twitter and Facebook content and are exploring mobile delivery technologies as well through the Cronkite News Online, an outlet for the reporting done by the school’s professional immersion programs.

“We teach our students to think about new media distribution models, so it’s only fitting that the school models the same innovation,” said Liz Smith, outreach director for the Cronkite School.

Listeners can play, download and subscribe to the Cronkite podcast, as well as many others offered by ASU on iTunes U. Those who subscribe will receive updates each time new episodes become available.

Related Links

• http://itunes.asu.edu/
• http://cronkite.asu.edu/

A number of key points from his talk relevant to much of the work toward applying new media in education include: networked video, gaming mechanics, dynamic data dashboards, open access to millions of students, and more.

Also, the Kahn’s approach to “flipping the classroom” is of particular note. This notion involves assigning the video lecture as homework and then allocating class time for engaged application of assignments in a collaborative workspace, facilitated by focused instruction as needed. In a further exploration of this idea, Kahn proposes extending this model online into a global collaborative classroom where a lot of learning

BTW, we recently tweeted about the partnership between BitTorrent and The Kahn Academy via the alt^I feed. Also a good idea to distribute the burden/bandwidth required for distribution and one that makes good sense once you reach critical mass.

Photo by: Steve Jurvetson

Former State Senator and Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, John Huppenthal, was elected as Arizona’s State Superintendent of Schools in November 2010. As a senator he has championed various legislation to reform and improve Arizona schools, including offering more school choice for parents, creation of the Career Ladder Program for teachers and additional support for education of special needs children. Prior to his state legislative roles, he was also a City Councilman in Chandler. Superintendant Huppenthal earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northern Arizona University and an MBA from Arizona State University.

Angel Jannasch-Pennell, Assistant Vice President of University Technology Office and Executive Director, Applied Learning Technologies Institute (alt^I) at Arizona State University, hosted the discussion.
“ASU Education Innovation Brownbag Discussion”

For more information http://asuprep.asu.edu
Photo credit – Barnaby Wasson

“The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Arizona State University (ASU), and U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) co-convened a conference on Energy Innovation in the Southwest region of the United States that included participation by entrepreneurs, state government officials, representatives of academia, private-sector leaders, nonprofit leaders, and innovators on October 18, 2010 at SkySong Innovation Center in Scottsdale Arizona.”

One example from the series

SOUTHWEST ENERGY INNOVATION FORUM: Manufacturing and Deploying Technologies at Scale; Energy Storage Panel from ASU UTO Production-WebCast Team on Vimeo.

Photos of the event are available at the ASU Initiatives Flickr site.

More information and additional videos can be found at the Southwest Energy Innovation Forum website. Also, a Forum Summary Report is available for download in PDF.