Archive for Training

Kay | April 17, 2013
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Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO)

SAWBOThe fact that 70% of cell phone subscribers are in the developing world has not been lost on global health innovators. A case in point is that of the creators of SAWBO, or Scientific Animations Without Borders (http://sawbo-illinois.org/main.htm), under the auspices of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This project aims to bridge the gap between evidence-based global health interventions and those who need this knowledge the most. Unfortunately, those most in need of these interventions are often unable to access the information or understand it if they can access it due to literacy or language considerations. The SAWBO project team, in collaboration with local health, development and agricultural education agencies around the world, creates brief – about 2 minutes each – animated videos focusing on such local health issues as How to Remove Poison from Cassava Flour or Construction of a Solar Oven Using Simple Materials. These animated educational vignettes are available in multiple languages (using local accents where possible) and available for download to cell phones using Bluetooth technology. This initiative is cost-effective, scalable, and searchable using the affiliated SusDeViKi database available at http://susdeviki.illinois.edu/. Much of the work is done by volunteers, but the project receives some funding from the University, private foundations and individuals. For more information, contact the organizers at http://sawbo-illinois.org/contactus.htm.

The author wishes to thank SAWBO Director, Dr. Barry Pittendrigh, for his input for this blog entry.

Category: Mobile, Training | Tags: ,
Gabe | March 10, 2013
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Much Ado About MOOCs

The term MOOC was coined in 2008 but over the past year, MOOCs have become all the rage. So what are MOOCs and why all the hype?

What is a MOOC?

In the simplest terms, MOOCs are Massive Open Online Courses. University faculty from leading universities (Harvard, MIT, Yale, McGill, Australian National, etc.) around the world teach MOOCs and they are open to anyone with Internet access. MOOCs have a start date and an end date similar to a real in-person class. Some have weekly assignments, tests for comprehension, and offer credit or certificates for completion. I should mention there are different opinions of what truly constitutes a MOOC among the MOOC-faithful so here is a video from one of the MOOC concept creators, David Cormier:

If you want to read about the different type of MOOCs (xMOOCs and cMOOCs), see this blog post.

MOOCs offer instruction from a wide range of disciplines including Computer Science, Engineering, Business, Humanities, Science, Mathematics, and Health & Medicine. Here are some specific examples of course topics:

Here is a Ted Video clip featuring Peter Norvig on his MOOC teaching experience: The 100,000-student classroom.

How do I find one?

You can go directly to some of the providers such as edX, Coursera, Udacity, or you can use a MOOC aggregator like Class Central.

Challenges for MOOCs

I would be remiss if I did not make at least a passing mention of some of the challenges for MOOCs. MOOCs are still very new, experimental, and prone to failure. Educators are still trying to find ways to measure success and effectiveness of MOOCs. The attrition rate for MOOCs has garnered some negative attention with some examples citing that as little as 10-15% of enrolled students actually completing a class. MOOCs are a different type of educational tool so applying traditional metrics DOES NOT make sense. The question is what metrics should be applied to determine success or failure of a course; or more broadly, the MOOC concept?

My two cents

The jury is still out on whether MOOCs are an effective education tool, but I think it depends on why YOU decide to register for a MOOC. If your goal is to get exposure to a topic of interest, continue education, or just examine course content, I think it is a worthwhile tool with minimal investment. If you are looking to get college credit, I would encourage take a critical look at partnerships such as MOOC2Degree.

Category: Free, Training | Tags:
Gabe | August 13, 2012
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Tell Me Your Story… But Make it Fast!

Everyone has a story to tell. But telling a story in a concise manner is difficult for many of us. Some of us tend to ramble and eventually get to the point but maybe lose some of our audience in the process.

In 2006, Brady Forrest from O’Reilly Media and Bre Pettis from Makerbot.com, formerly of MAKE Magazine, hosted an event called Ignite to help presenters share their personal and professional passions. The “geek event” was meant to bring together people from a community to “ignite” awareness and thought on the subjects presented. The format was successful and has been used in cities all over the world.

Ignite format talks are a style of presenting where people speak on a subject of their choice for five minutes accompanied by 20 PowerPoint slides. The slides are automatically advanced every 15 seconds. At the end of five minutes, the Ignite talk is over!

Here is an Ignite presentation from O’Reilly author Scott Berkun on “How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk”

Talks in this format could be a great benefit in the classroom, clinic, or lab. In the classroom, Ignite can serve as a teaching and learning tool for students to talk about projects in a structured format. Clinicians naturally have to be brief in the practice setting. Training residents and trainees to adopt a concise presentation format for case presentation will benefit them later in their careers. Researchers can also benefit from using this format to discuss their latest findings and identify potential collaborators. The Ignite format can be intimidating, but with a little bit of practice you will be golden. Stay tuned for some teaching sessions on How to Give an Ignite presentation or contact Gabe at grios-at-uab-dot-edu. Here are some resources to help you put together your first Ignite presentation:

I have personally attended Ignite events at my national professional conferences and we had the privilege of co-hosting the very first Ignite Birmingham here at the Lister Hill Library in 2010. The Lister Hill Library is collaborating with the Edge of Chaos and Ignite Birmingham to host an Ignite event here in the Edge of Chaos (the fourth floor of the Lister Hill Library) on September 20, 2012. Check out the Ignite Birmingham webpage for more information about this event and videos of past events. Dust off your PowerPoint skills and get ready to IGNITE others with your passions!

Category: Research, Training |
Cara | August 3, 2012
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Raspberry Pi, Anyone?

Want to buy a computer for $35?  Look no further than the Raspberry Pi.  No, I’m not a salesperson for the the Raspberry Pi.  It’s is a credit card-sized computer created by Cambridge University educators in the UK to provide an affordable platform for children to gain computer programming skills.  What does that have to do with me?  Not a lot. As someone who likes technology but doesn’t consider herself a “techie” (especially when it comes to hardware and operating systems), I thought it would be fun to experiment with at such an affordable price.

When I first learned about the RPi, I was put on a waiting list because of the high demand for the little sucker.  Once I paid for it, it still took about six weeks to arrive.  So if you’re in a hurry, the RPi is not for you.  Be aware that the RPi will need standard computer accessories, such as cables, power, mouse, keyboard etc.  It looks like this:

As you can see, it comes without a case.  This is something I didn’t consider when I ordered mine. There are a few DIY case-making options in the Raspberry Pi discussion archives.  I elected to order a case and am waiting for it to be back in stock. In the meantime, I’m storing it in the box it came in when not in use.

To get the RPi up and running, you will also need and SD card loaded with an operating system.  I ordered one pre-loaded from them directly, but you can buy your own and download the Linux OS here for free.  I hooked my RPi up to my television using an HDMI cable. So far, I’ve only surfed the web a bit with it, but the potential applications are numerous, including standard word processing, spreadsheets, games, and programming.  To get started, check out RPi Beginners Wiki. PC Magazine has a review of RPi here.

Does this sound interesting to anyone else?  I may post a follow-up once I’ve had a chance to get to know my RPi better.

Category: Fun, Training | Tags:
Lisa | January 13, 2012
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Learning to be a Web Geek

So you want to learn to do web development stuff but don’t have access to real web server. No problem! All the programs you need to create a web server are available free. There are even tools that will install the programs you need in one package. Two of the most popular are WAMP and XAMPP.  I’m a Windows person so I’m going to be referring to Windows installs but you can get versions of these kinds of packages for just about any OS.

First, let’s look at WAMP, which stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Installing WAMP couldn’t be easier. Just point your browser to http://www.wampserver.com/en/ and scroll down to the download section and download the version you need for your OS. The first thing you will see is the Welcome to the WampServer setup. This box tells you the software and versions you will be installing.

WAMP Install Screen

Once installed you get a nifty little control panel for your system tray. Here you can configure everything you need to run your development environment.

WAMP Task Bar

XAMPP works much the same way. On their home page http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html download the version for your OS and you are off and running.  Watch out for their site though.  The top of the screen has a big download button and you don’t want that. You want to scroll down until you see Download XAMPP and it jumps you down a bit and you want to pick the link that says installer.

XAMPP Install Screen

You get a control panel for XAMPP too.

XAMPP Control Panel

The main difference in the two other than interface is that XAMPP includes Perl so if you need Perl go with XAMPP otherwise I am not sure it matters which you choose.

Basically once you have one of these installed you can start playing with things like Joomla!, Drupal, or other software that runs on LAMP on your local machine. Open a web browser and type in http://localhost to see what you’ve done. Here is a WAMP example:

WAMP Localhost.

 

It is an easy way to learn without having to pay for web space or fear of embarrassing yourself!

Caveats: While both installers are released under GNU always take a look at the licenses for each piece of the install. The PHP license may be a little different than the Apache license. You just want to make sure you aren’t breaking any rules. Second, the default settings aren’t always the best option or the configuration that will work with what you are trying to do. Make sure you take the time to configure everything properly. Third, double check what versions are being installed with what program you want to install. In other words make sure the programs you are installing with WAMP/XAMPP match the versions needed by Joomla, Drupal, etc. Fourth, if you actually plan to upload what you create to another web server make sure the program version you have on your machine match what is on the web server you are transferring those file to.

Category: Free, Fun, Training |
Lisa | December 5, 2011
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Learning to Program is Cool Even if I’m No Good at It

Being in IT I’ve always felt like I should be able to program at least a little. I’ve come to realize that ‘programming a very little’ is most likely as good as I will get. After all I did choose my undergraduate school based on my ability to engineer my degree so as to take absolutely NO MATH. But with that said knowing about programming has helped me immensely in my job and with technology in general. If you are interested in learning to program or just learning about how programming works there is a regular cornucopia of free stuff to help you.

One of my absolutely favorite resources is Harvard Professor David J. Malan’s Introduction to Computer Science I. This course is for non-computer science majors as well as the students that have already declared computer science.  First, the guy is a fantastic instructor and speaker. Second, you have access to everything the actual student experienced. It is like taking the course yourself. The course is a great broad overview of computer science and programming.  Take a look at This is CS 50 which appears to be updated for Fall 2011.

If you work at UAB there are a number of really good programming courses offered by Training & Development .  But even if you can’t take the courses there are still tons of things online. For instance, the Programming Basics classes uses Java and materials from Central Connecticut State University Professor Bradely Kjell’ Introduction to Computer Science using Java website. You can go through the chapters, quizzes and exercises on this site to get some experience.

If you are into web development stuff w3schools is one of the best resources out there. These free tutorials cover a multitude of topics as well as quizzes and they even have a certificate program.

But don’t stop there. You can download just about any programming environment you want. For the Programming Basics we used Netbeans. It was super easy to install and use. The screenshot below is from my Netbeans install with the little programs we used in the class. The actual Java Tutorials are pretty good too.

But if you aren’t going to actually program for money why bother you ask? Well, for me at least it does several things. One of the most important things it does is help me communicate with real programmers better and gives me a much broader understanding of IT in general. I also supervise someone that does some programming so it helps me help him and understand his work better. It also really makes me use my brain in ways that I don’t usually. I have to really work at it and using your brain especially as you age has all sorts of positive benefits. Meeting new people that may actually become programmers is another benefit.  Another really important thing for me is I can’t write code from scratch but I can read it and I can fix written code a good bit of the time too.

But it is scary to go into something you know nothing about and you are afraid you will feel silly or embarrassed you say? Well my first bit of advice is to get over that right now. Let yourself be ok with knowing nothing and learning at your own pace.  Some other advice includes picking a language and sticking with it until you are very comfortable with that one language. At one point I had picked introductory books on four different languages. This wasn’t good for my sanity or frustration level. Pick something you like and run with it. Once you get the fundamentals and basics down you can more easily learn another language.  If you have ever wondered how programming works or if you have a knack for it there is absolutely no excuse for not checking out these resources or any of the thousands of others.

Category: Free, Training |
Fitts | November 17, 2011
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FoxyUtils/Merge PDF (www.mergepdf.net)

FoxyUtils is an online service that allow tasks manipulating PDF files that typically would have to be done through fairly expensive software to be done instead though a web application absolutely free. While there are basically 4 services that FoxyUtils provides: I will focus today on the application that I recently found myself needed which was Merge PDF.

It of course as it’s name suggests, Merge PDF is online webapp that allows its users to combine multiple PDF files together in any desired order. Not only does this make for one less shareware on your desktop, it is as simple as can be.

Best of all the service is absolutely free of charge and is accessible right away, anytime, anywhere. To take advantage of this useful tool simply point your browser to www.mergepdf.net

Once there you will select “browse” button in the “step 1″ box to select the PDF files that you’d like to combine. For example:

Then hold down the “crtl” button and click on the desired files in the order that you’d like them to appear in the combined document. Afterwhich click on the “open” button and you’ll see a download status box appear with the selected files

Then click on the “merge PDF” button where it indicates step 2. A box will appear alerting you that your merge was successful and instructing you to hit the “download” button and then “close” to go back.

You are given an option to “retain uploaded files” in case you want to further manipulate them. After you’re finished you may choose to simply “remove all files”.

I found this to be an awesome free tool but it does have a few limitations including:

What type of user may want to consider this option as opposed to a paid program?
If your work involves merging PDF files all the time, downloading a dedicated program might be a better option. However, if you only require occasional merging of PDF files or you are not always using the same computer, you might get the job done quicker with our service. And if you are just finishing a final report at the library, it can be handy to merge in the cover page without downloading any program. In addition, your computer will be cleaner, with one less software installed on your computer. I highly recommend this program to anyone!

Category: Free, MAC, Productivity, Training, Uncategorized, Windows | Tags: , , , , , ,
Lisa | October 24, 2011
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Affordable IT Training with Lynda.com

It seems like getting IT training is always very expensive so I am always looking for affordable ways to keep current and learn new things. Last year when we redesigned our library Web site using the Joomla! content management system someone recommended I take a look at Joomla! 1.5 Essential Training at Lynda.com. I was very skeptical. I don’t generally like training that is totally online plus I’ve found it hard to find quality online training at all. But I found this training really good. It was nicely organized. The sections, or chapters, were all around twenty minutes long so they weren’t too long or too short. The instructor was a really good speaker and very knowledgeable. I liked it so much I signed up to get my own account.

First, the price. Lynda.com offers a number of pricing options.

I chose the basic monthly plan for $25.00. I liked this option because if there was a month where I knew I was going to be really busy I could suspend my subscription and then reactivate it later.

Second, their training covers a ton of different topics for all sorts of interests and needs.

I can learn more about Photoshop and digital photography for my personal hobby and then I can watch lessons on programming with PHP and ASP.NET for work. Plus, you can use your account to bookmark important areas of different training lessons, track your training, get updates, and more.

Lynda.com is a great option especially if you are just starting out or just want to get your feet wet with a topic before you start shelling out for the expensive training – if you still need that expensive training.

Category: Training |