Modern and Contemporary Poetry, a free Coursera Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) taught by Al Filreis at the University of Pennsylvania, hosts weekly live webcasts from the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, PA. We decided to take the show on the road and host webcasts in San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC and London. Here's the gear we used, which is optimized with weight, efficiency and travel in mind.
Notebook / Blog
Rather than a blog, I like to think of this space as a personal notebook that is open and available for all to see. If I'm already keeping notes for my own various uses, why not share them publicly and hopefully provide value to others as well?
In order to record a Google Hangout, the easiest way is to use "Google Hangouts on Air." Adding the "On Air" feature to a Google Hangout is intended to make your meeting public so that anyone can tune in and watch it -- BUT, you can make it private, if you prefer, and still gain the benefit of a downloadable recording. The easiest way to do a Google Hangout On Air is through YouTube.
The Streaming Media East conference in New York City was excellent, as usual! The conference covers everything from the technical side to the business side of online video. There was a lot of great content, but these are my 7 favorite takeaways.
A great reminder of many things in life. As seen in the Fishwrapper Magazine. Original author unknown.
For many of us, email swallows up a significant percentage of our workday. For me, it's more than 30% of my day! Here is my personal list of ways to manage email based on research and personal experimentation.
This 28 page paper, from my 2015 Masters Degree Capstone Project at the University of Pennsylvania, explores the value of social media as a business marketing tool.
One of the biggest challenges of presenting is being able to succinctly and clearly summarize a lot of information in a short amount of time. After being a part of panel presentation at the 2015 Streaming Media West conference (an excellent conference on video and audio on the web), I recognized a very simple but useful tool in honing this ability. It may even be obvious, but I wish I realized it sooner.
With modern technology and services, it's now possible to host professional grade webcasts on a small budget. At the University of Pennsylvania, we produce weekly webcasts in our Modern and Contemporary Poetry MOOC. The webcasts are done in regular room on a modest 3-camera setup, comprised of only a fraction of a "professional" studio’s gear.
At the University of Pennsylvania, we’ve been offering for-credit online courses for many years. However, the landscape of online course offerings became much more interesting in 2012 when the University partnered with the online course platform, Coursera, to start offering select courses as MOOCs -- not-for-credit courses that are free and open to the world.
As an I.T. Professional at the University of Pennsylvania, I’ve been lucky to work on Al Filreis’ 10-week Modern and Contemporary Poetry MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on Coursera. The free, not-for-credit course is comprised of nearly 100 pre-recorded video lectures, weekly quizzes and 4 writing assignments.