Jared Stein – Education, Technology, Culture, and the Internet

I’m working on a concept map assessment for my web development students as a means of evidencing an understanding of the properties and relationships of contemporary web languages.

Here’s the first draft of the criterion map (more…)

I just had the wacky idea that I could force users in an experimental situation to engage in movements that help track their reading behavior in a web browser. This method would employ Javascript and CSS–in short, the script would obscure text outside of the foveal vision area–the readable foveal vision area would be centered near the cursor, requiring the user to move the cursor with her fixations. Combine this with coordinate-based Javascript mouse tracking and user input that reports to a server via AJAX a la UsaProxy, and you’ve got an interesting, albeit limited, method of tracking eye movements (more…)

I was in diagramming mode this afternoon, thinking through different aspects of the processes and interactions of reading. One sketch led me to the following simple visualization of printed vs. digital media. This draft excludes forms and modes, and may only be useful as a component of my own understanding:

Alright, so maybe “war” is overstating it, but as I argued earlier this year Apple is very much posturing itself against the idea of the open web and for the closed consumption environment controlled by its Apps. I stumbled on a couple follow-up posts that follow-up and nuance this debate (more…)

Today I received an e-mail from a former student asking a common question: how do I know what to charge clients for web design/development? (more…)

The My Moodle feature in Moodle 1.9x displays a list of registered courses to a user after logging in. The nice thing about the list is that each course link is followed by a listing of any recent news or events in the course. Unfortunately in highly active courses this list becomes quite lengthy, and ultimately obnoxious as the length obstructs quick access to other courses in one’s view.

To remedy this I have, for quite some time, maintained a custom bit of very basic Javascript and CSS that sets the default view of news items to hidden, with a clickable link to show the entire list from the My Moodle page (more…)

The UVU Blackboard server now allows designers to require Respondus Lockdown Browser (LDB) on assessments. This means that if an assessment is set to use LDB, the end-user (test-taker) computer must have the free LDB software installed (Bb should prompt the user to install it before the assessment can be accessed). UVU’s Testing Center has installed LDB on all its computers and is testing it before next semester. We presume this is pointless unless the Bb assessment has LDB selected, but are looking into it. In any case where LDB is used to take an assessment, “lock down” happens according to Respondus’s descriptions–even if the exam itself is not triggered to require Lockdown. I asked Respondus to clarify the “switch” in Bb, and they responded this afternoon (more…)

There’s so much buzz about the iPad you can taste it! And it ain’t all minty! I got my paws on one Tuesday afternoon, and found it not revolutionary as Apple prophesied, but rather as many have described: a big iPod Touch (which is essentially a phone-less iPhone).

Now like the iPhone/Touch the iPad can use thousands of “apps”– miniature applications developed solely for use on iPhone/iTouch/iPad, and sold through the Apple store. What’s always been disconcerting about the app development process is that (more…)

The CSS max-width property has long been a favorite of mine, most often used to restrict the flow of content depending on the user’s browser, such as we see in elastic layouts. Since I began making WordPress themes a couple years ago I’ve used max-width as a staple rule for media in my stylesheet, starting with images that might appear in a post (e.g. .post) (more…)

Not unexpectedly, Jon Mott‘s blog post, “Outsourcing Our Memory to Google” set my mind thinking in productively curious directions–even if I’ve ended up with no conclusions, and, indeed, more questions than I began with.

I’ve finally gotten around to reading through Ong’s “Orality and Literacy” (more…)