Carmen Lite - Adding News Item

Carmen is the course management system (CMS) for Ohio State University. Desire2Learn (D2L) provides the redesigned system behind Carmen. Like most CMS, Carmen has a lot of features that are very helpful for instructors and students. However, like many other CMS, they are hard to learn and maintain for instructors.

My boss (a professor) came up with an idea that should help most instructors. She stated that Carmen can have a simplified version that helps instructors basically know what they need the most – upload syllabus, upload some content, and manage grades. She called it ‘Carmen Lite’. I liked the idea and decided to purse this in order to help OSU instructors. I will provide here some of the most essential pages need to know Carmen without having to learn the entire Carmen system.

One of the most useful and important aspects of Carmen is the news page. Since this is what students see first when they enter the CMS. Instructors can input the most important items in this section – like the syllabus. Here is how you can do this. Lets upload your Syllabus file:

Go to your class homepage.
Click on the + icon (New News Item)
Type the HEADLINE
Type the CONTENT
You can also enter when the Item will be available in AVAILABILITY (Do not worry about this)
To add your syllabus file, Click ADD A FILE
- Browse and find a file your syllabus file your computer
- Click ADD
- Click UPLOAD.
Click SAVE

That’s it!

Technologies: Carmen (Course Management System)

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Bing VS Google - Part 2

When I wrote about Bing a few weeks ago, people backlashed at me like I criticized their first-born. Google has (rightfully) enjoyed dominance for several years now, and will certainly feel the heat from Bing. This is great for end-users.

Microsoft has now partnered with Yahoo (after unsuccessfully trying to acquire it) and this will surely make the challenge with Google more interesting. Bing is now receiving favorable reviews from various circles and has also slowly increased its share. With Google challenging Microsoft in the operating system and Office software fields, the battle will only benefit the users again. That is what I am most gleeful about.

Bing has clearly seen the search engine from the perspective of the ‘regular’ person and has organized the page accordingly. The thing about the ‘regular’ person is that more and more people use the search engine for almost everything, hence blurring the lines.

Some of the other useful features that Bing has highlighted (see/click images for details):
* Images can be quickly displayed in various formats (small, medium, large, with information) and pop out when hovered. More images are displayed if you wait.

* Videos will start playing when hovered, thus saving you time. (This could actually be a bit annoying since you can accidentally play a video when just moving around the page. Just hover out!)

*Popularity index of the searched term is displayed in a time-line graph. This also shows the top-ranked searches in the same ‘category’ helping you find the most popular item in the searched ‘category’.

It will now be interesting to see if Google ups the ante and provides newer features. Google currently has over 70-80% (numbers vary) of the search engine market, but time will tell if Bing will make a ding in this share.

Technologies: Google (Search Engine), Bing

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

People Make the VC Technology Tick!

The last three weeks of my work-life were fully dedicated to a program called Regents’ Chinese Academy. One of the main facets of this program was a three-site videoconference that collaborated Ohio State University, Miami University (Hamilton), and Washington State Community College.

Video Conference (VC) technology is getting better and IP based VC is improving since most sites follow the H.323 standard and have similar equipment. But the fact that there are still different types of audio and video equipment, varying broadband, echo cancellation devices, etc makes things a lot trickier. And in our case, the fact that more than 2 sites were involved over a bridge, made things a lot more complicated.

I have stressed before of the need to test and maintain protocols on VCs. But in the case of important VCs, it may also be important to personally know the staff that drive these systems. Since this was a 3-week program, I had the chance to go and meet the tech people from the other 2 universities. At first I thought that this was unnecessary, but in hindsight that was one of the most important factors that helped to make this event work. Knowing the staff at the 2 sites personally, and how they interact with technology and people was directly responsible for increase in the response rate during tech issues. Knowing who to contact and what type of response – speed, method, language – was expected helped tremendously in a situation where the technology was complicated and needed a lot of attention.

Moral of the story: Though VC technology has taken over some of the person to person contact, knowing your business partners personally alleviates some of the headaches that technology itself brings.

Technologies: Videoconferencing, Polycom, H.323

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Bing VS Google - Part 1

Most of you are already wondering….So how is Bing different from Google? Should I even bother?

I have not been a supporter of Microsoft and its product and naturally stayed away from its BING search engine, touted to be (one day) better than GOOGLE. The very thought of something replacing Google is blasphemous to many since we google more than we eat and sleep.

In the last few days I went over BING in some detail and looked at some features. (This post deals with organization and layout). Here are some interesting (& different) features:

Organization in Bing is a bit different and depending on how you like your placement, you might prefer this to Google!
(SEE IMAGE Below)

The search results are divided into categories and these are placed visibly on the left panel of the page (and also within the results). This keeps the layout neat.
Below this left panel of categories are the related searches that list other items that are similar to the searched term. This can be a useful tool.
The search results (but not all) can be previewed when you hover your mouse pointer at the right side of the search result(s). This quick view can be a useful time saving feature during your searches.
There is also an enhanced view (I think only) for Wikipedia items that you can view within the Bing page. This might be helpful in quickly getting information while still staying within the search engine and other categories that Bing displays.
Bing also lists your search history helping you track your searches (this can be modified for privacy reasons).

Bing might have a long way to go to beat Google considering Google is well established, but the new features might give users and Google itself something to think about! Just to have another strong search engine is what the end-users need!

Technologies: Google (Search Engine), Bing

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Flying Over Google Earth

I recently conducted a workshop on Google Earth (GE) at the Foreign Language Center. Its significance as a learning tool major leaped after I prepared for this workshop. Most of us who are familiar with GE might have played with the maps and looked at some images/photos of places. But the features of the new GE (5.0+) are a lot more interactive and learner friendly and can be used not only in a language class, but anything to do with geography, history, monuments, places, art, weather, photos, traffic, news….wait, I think that pretty much covers everything.

We went through the basic navigation quickly since I thought it would be cool to play around with some of the PLACES and LAYERS panels. We had a birds-eye view of Madrid (Spain) and marked our own places (called place-marking). We were able to see 3-D renditions of monuments, look at live weather, come eye-level close to the streets of Madrid (amazing!) and literally walk up and down these streets (called ‘street view’). We were able to look at historical imagery (a time-line of sorts) and see how it has changed over time. I could tell the workshop attendees were having a lot of fun!


One of the best (and overlooked) feature is ‘recording a tour’ (requires some prior planning). The best way to use it is to have placemarks of places that you want to show and then record a tour (with your own voice-over) along with photos, 3-D views, current weather conditions and the whole enchilada. Your imagination will run crazy!

I encourage educators (and others) to look at GE closely and see how such related information can be added to your info-bank as you make your classes more visual and interactive.

Technologies: Google Earth, Youtube, Online Images

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Banging Heads With the Videoconference System!

Unlike the previous posts in this blog that refer to some success story/event, this one is a little different!

The Foreign Language Center added a new mini videoconference room (in addition to the Kermit L. Hall Videoconferencing Center) to accommodate smaller videoconferences – for thesis defenses, interviews, one-on-one meetings and language instruction, etc. The room is equipped with a new Dell Optiplex 755, a Sony Bravia KDL46V4100 LCD TV and Bose Companion II Speakers. If all this sounds snazzy, it is! We do have excellent equipment. The software for videoconferencing is Polycom PVX and this might be where the problem is!

The IS department installed the software (since only they have admin privileges) and instantly we had issues. But I was told that the software worked well in the past. During the first few weeks we were unable to make any consistent IP calls. After several attempts by the IS staff and weeks of tests, it looked like we were finally able to call ALL numbers. All fine I’d thought!

About a month ago, the University of St Andrews tried to connect with this room for a conference. But after several unsuccessful attempts we decided to scrap this and talk on the phone. A massive trial-and-error and elimination process later, we discovered that this room is NOT able to RECEIVE any calls from external stations. So began all the ‘fixes’ that I have tried. Some experts say it’s got to do with the firewall settings. The IS staff checked for that and everything else related. No luck! Weeks later, some other experts say it was with the software settings and I checked and rechecked and rechecked and rechecked (not a typo) for all possible setting errors. After about 6 weeks of all this – I’m giving up!

I guess the solution is to reinstall the software but I am skeptical that this will work. And if that does not work then we have to redo all of this with another software. I’m not going to be the usual calm person then!

Technologies: Polycom PVX, Videoconferencing, Network (access/privileges)

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University

Class Videos On YouTube – Again!

(2 part post – This is Part 2. Here is Part 1)

As mentioned, I have been working on videos for Dr. Smith in her Spanish conversation class to upload presentations to YouTube (for grading, sharing, reference, etc.). Considering I have worked with YouTube and have already done this for Dr. Smith, this session was going to be a breeze. That's what I'd thought.

I had this marked on my calendar and was 'ready'. I had the Canon miniDV Camcorder loaded on a tripod and connected to the same Sony Microphone (ECM – MS957) that I had used successfully before. Once again, the whole taping session was smooth sailing. That's what I'd thought.

I came back to my office and plugged the camera into my Mac (via Firewire) and was ready to do some quick editing in iMovie 08. Dead silence! I mean dead.....dead silence. It took me some fumbling around and David Lynch moments of emptiness to realize that the taping session had NO sound. None at all!

Half a day later I realized that the microphone was the culprit (I like to blame things on inanimate objects!). The microphone had enough juice for a test, but that was it. So the rest of the session had NO audio. Lesson learned - test your batteries; do not hesitate to use new(er) batteries. Luckily, Dr, Smith was nice enough to ask the class to redo the entire set of presentations. I had to re-tape everything, edit them again, and then only upload them to YouTube. Everything went well. Thats what I'd thought!

One Saturday morning at 1:30AM, I received an email from a student mentioning that the group videos were actually NOT private and that others could see them as well. Sheeesssshhh! All that group levels, members, uploading and then (only) adding to the group, was all a waste of time. So here I am at 2:00 in the morning making the videos 'private' and allowing just the class (Youtube allows 25 people) to view the videos.


Technologies: YouTube, iMovie, Video Taping, mini DV Camcorder, Video Editing, Video-sharing.

Contact me:
Sujan Manandhar
Technology Integration Specialist,
Foreign Language Center
Ohio State University