Students benefit from intensive music recording experience

I have written about the convergence of technology and specifically digital media in the past. I still feel very strongly that this convergence is being missed by many colleges and universities. We are still working in our silos for the most part. The students are seeing the opportunties for collaboration and are often "cherry picking" among digital media courses (credit and non-credit) to build a personal portfolio of skills.

This week our campus experimented with a short non-credit workshop focused on music recording. The whole process was explained and demonstrated by professional engineers. Students paid a small fee for the workshop, but got two 8 hour days of instruction. Keep in mind this was not a credit program, was not sponsored by the university, and was not required. Students signed up to become immersed in the music recording process for the fun of it. This is pretty unusual these days. It was also interesting that many of the students had also had credit courses in video production and other digital media areas.

You can learn more about the program at The Recording Experience web site. I stopped by the studio to see how this were going and found students standing for hours in the sound studio totally focused on what was being explained by the professionals. They spent day one working in the computer lab learning how Avid Pro Tools is used in recording and mastering music tracks. They spent day two learning how to mic instruments and voices, and doing the actual recording. A touring band provided the talent. The band members of Honor By August interacted with students and really got into the instructional nature of the sessions.

Johnnie Kearse, one of the students said " It was awesome man! I'm incredibly inspired after the last two days. Thanks again for having something like this. Makes me love what I wanna do with my life even more."

Th lesson for me is that the technology and exposure to practicing professionals can, and will, engage students at a high level. This is not to say that this can, or should, replace the role of teaching faculty. The "real life" interaction with professionals provides context for the student's education and is also motivating. Connections between what students learn and how they might use it after gaduation is often missed in some disciplines. I hope that colleges can learn leverage the overall excitment coming from students and alter the way they teach to inlcude hands-on immersive experiences like this one. You could feel the interest and excitment coming from the studio. Very cool.

Laptop prices at an all time low

While others might be looking to buy a large flat screen TV for the Super Bowl, I am thinking, "what is the one best thing for a colege student to buy going into the spring semester". January can be a great month for bargains, but this year it is amazing to see how laptop prices have dropped. You can buy a 15" laptop with 4GB of RAM and as much as 5000GB hard drive for well under $500. These incude the now expected webcam and microphone. Of course the latest 802.11n wirless is also included. Here are a few links to some of these great prices, but they are all over the web:

Toshiba 15" laptop for $399

HP 15" laptop for $418

Sony 15" laptop for $399

HP 14" laptop at $499

Acer Aspire 15" laptop at $483, with 500GB HD


All of these are probably just fine for a college student. I would check the warranty both from the seller and the manufacturer, but at this price the laptop has become a disposable item. I always recommend backing up your critical data to a cloud service like dropbox . There are many free services now that giveyou 3 to 20GB of free cloud storage. Also, always check the weight on the laptop. Anything over 6.5 lbs can be a boulder to drag around. Lastly, DO NOT BUY THE VISTA OPERATING SYSTEM. Some of the lower pricesd units include Vista.

I know that this is the new era of multiple devices. After Christmas we are alrady seeing the new iPad, the new Smartphone, and the new eReader. At these low laptop prices you can get almost everything you need in one box. Once you have your new laptop ask at your campus Helpdesk about low prices on software. Never buy software with your laptop! lamost all colleges have great deals on software.

Christmas and the College Student 2011

Yes, it is that time of year. Our campus is about to take the Thanksgiving mini-break before the home stretch to finals and then the Christmas break. I have a had tougher time each year thinking of great tech Christmas gifts for the college student. This fall we saw that students having multiple wifi gadgets. This causes real challenges for network administrators, but the trend is unstoppable. So what more could the college student need in the world of tech? Here is my list from what I have seen this year:

The tablet, not just the iPad, but other models as well are still not seen in large numbers on campus. I think cost is driving this to a large degree (about $500 for the base model, with no 3G). There are still few Apps out there that will make a difference acedmically, but the convenience of carrying a 2 pound wireless internet device cannot be understimated. Some students are already using tablets to buy and access e-texts. Still, $500 is a lot of money.

The flash drive, is still a great and inexpensive gift. A 32GB drive can be bought for under $35 this year. This is pretty amazing. Students can carry every paper they have ever written, thousands of photos and even a few movies in their pockets.

Cloud storage is new this year. Carbonite and Mozy offer subscription auto backups from the students laptop over the internet. The cost is about $55 a year and the backup worries go away. A damaged, stolen or lost laptop is bad enough. Losing the stuff on your hard drive could really be a heart breaker.

The bluetooth hands free cell phone device is now a legal necessessity in most states. students are always on the phone and being able to do this safely and legally is imprerative now. Most students drive cars which do not have bluetooth already installed. Jabra, among others, offer agood hands free solutions. Models vary, but you can buy an ear attached device for about $50.

22" to 32" monitor with speakers . This will enable the student to plug in the laptop and use Hulu or Netflix to watch TV from their laptop on demand. These large monitors can be had for $149 to $199. Who needs cable TV anymore.

How about a speaker system to turn the PC into a top of the line stereo? I like the Bose Companion for less that $100. There is a three piece sytem for a view dollars more.

College students have so many credit courses to complete to meet degree requirements, no matter what the major. I have noticed that few programs give students hands on experience with web page development, blogging, or media (film and audio) creation. I am not saying that a student needs to be expert in these areas, but the web and media are the new platform communication and will be, regardless of professional area persued. Having some basic skills in these areas might help them get that first job or help them market themselves. I would suggest that they take a non-credit course at the local community college in the summer or winter term. These are generally 4-5 week short courses (one evening a week) and they can provide basic skills than can be added to the resume.

Last, don't forget about the stocking stuffer. I know I always like getting an iTunes card or Amazon gift certificate for music. You can spend as little as $15 and go up from there. The goal is too stay legal and away from the music police, while enjoying their favorite music.

Addition: I just thought of this one. Almost all students have a laptop (over 98% at my campus), but how many have a mouse that can easily attach? I know I hate using the odd mouse like features of laptops. The mini mouse, wired or not wired, is a great stocking stuffer. I like Logitech equipment for price and durability, but you can find these every where and rarely are they more that $20. Think mini-mouse.

Please feel feel to send in a comment with your own ideas and I will share them. Happy holidays.

The insatiable need for more bandwidth

As we started the fall 2011 semester we new that we would have to add additional bandwidth. We added a new 600 bed residence hall. This added over 1,000 network drops to and dozens of wireless access point to the campus data infrastructure. At the same time we opened a new Business School, again with over 1,000 drops and dozens of new wireless access points (APs). With all of the other renovation projects going on on campus we have increased wireless APs from 300 to almost 700. We used a packetshaper to carve out 200MB for students and about 60MB for faculty and staff.

I naively that that bumping residence capacity by 10% would be enough. Wrong. The first report I got one week into the semester was that we needed more on the student side. We bumped the capacity another 80MB to 300MB. This barely got our heads above the flat lined usage graphs. Days later it was faculty/staff. Their usage was also pegged. I added another 10MB and it was pegged again -- immediately. I feel like I am in a Titanic stateroom struggling to find air in a one inch of air space near the ceiling. The water is rising.

What's happening? Well, I am still trying to get an exact answer to that question. We believe the following is taking place on the student side:

Students own multiple devices. Laptops, desktops, Smart phones, eReaders, tablets and gaming devices are the norm. The content has moved dramatically to streaming audio, video and animation. Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube everywhere and 27x7. All bandwidth hogs.

Students never turn off their devices. All of the devices noted above are on all of the time. They are either actively pulling down content or at least pinging wireless APs continuously.

On the faulty/staff side, digital media is streaming into offices and classrooms at a much greater rate. Pandora, and other music services, is almost ubiquitous. When was the last time you saw someone with a small radio in thier office? Also in the mix are browsers which stream animated or video content continuously. An of course video links which are emailed on every imaginable topic. Oh, we are also using Skype to the classroom to provide some great impromptu guest speakers in classes. We also have faculty posting lectures and other rich media to their website. (See my earlier post on Lecture Capture systems.)

This is all great stuff, but I expect our Internet costs to jump about 25% this year. I am guessing that our use will continue to go up at 10-15% annually. As more Smart phones come to campus and more cloud apps become available for teaching, the bandwidth use will continue to rise. From my perspective as an IT professional, this is all a blessing and a curse. A recent article in the eCampus news illustrates that this rapid increase in bandwidth consumption happening on all campuses. Another short article which cites the research done by Educause can be seen at eSchool News.

Colleges have a real challenge. We have students with the equipment and expectation for unlimited bandwidth. The killer audio and video apps are driving usage, and our own web based learning management systems are pumping out needed academic content at an increasing rate. Bandwidth management is a key challenge for IT leaders. We need to share ideas and hopefully technical solutions will surface.

So what do you think of E-textbooks?

I am still scratching my head at the idea of E-books, particularly E-textbooks. Even our campus "brick and mortar" bookstore is now selling E-textbooks. There are a growing number of companies who are eating the lunch of college bookstores that are not in the E-textbook business. Well, maybe not the whole lunch. According to a recent article in Wired Magazine the E-Books market is only of about 10% of college text book sales. This is a pretty good percentage for a new technology, but college students are amazing when it comes to finding a bargain. So why such a low number?

A few reasons could be that e-Books in general are often sold by publishers who also sell a E-reader device like the Kindle (Amazon)for the or the Nook (Barnes and Noble) and buyers need to be sure the book they are buying can be read on the device they have. This can get confusing since the iPad and other tablets also offer reader software that can work with certain formats. Therefore the buyer needs to beware. Want a mind blowing look at the market for E-readers? Check out Wikipedia.

Another reason could be that more often publishers are shipping the paper books to the campus with premium stuff that cannot be found in the online version. Lab manuals or DVDs with extra support materials are common. This adds to the confusion at the point of purchase. Another reason could be that even the tech savvy college students of today have not grown up on E-books. In all of their years of school paper was the rule. This E-book thing is still very new and frankly may not provide the financial incentive needed. Most E-texts also have an "end of life date". This means you don't get to keep them forever or sell them to your friends the way you can a paper book. You really need to check prices between paper and the virtual text. Very often the prices are pretty similar. In some cases there are deals to be had, if you can deal with the "difference factor". Publishers often say that there is no real money in a textbook because the cost is in the intellectual property that it takes to write the book. How many copies a Geographic Information Systems or Multiple Regression for the Behavioral Sciences are you going to sell. Good argument.

I think we have a few things going on in this space right now. The E-reader and tablet thing is very new, maybe 2-3 years. Many students are just now seeing these devices for the first time. Second, they are competing with the new book rental business. This model allows you to rent the real paper book and mail it back after the semester. You way than than cover price and you get to use the real book. Third, often the E-books re used on a separate device. A Kindle, Nook, or tablet. How many devices can you afford to own. Almost every student already owns a laptop and a rapidly growing number already own Smartphones. Again students are very cost conscious and they are not jumping to buy these new devices, at least as early adopters.

So what will make the e-book sell? To an extent the growth will happen naturally, but the real driver is price and features. If a single standard can me sold regardless of the publisher that allows the student to use any device -- even their laptop that will will help. If you want to see the E-books really take off, the price needs to be about half of the paper text offering and they need have no expiration. This will be possible with some titles and not so easy with other highly specialized texts.

I am going to watch closer of the next year or so and see how this develops. The game is still young. Stay tuned.

Last minute tech stuff for the fall 2011 ...

In August 2009 I wrote a blog about "last minute tech gadgets to bring to campus". I was just looking at this entry again. Although all of things that I mentioned are still good things to bring along, there are a few more considerations.

In 2009 I suggested that students bing:

1. A laptop bag or backpack
2. Laptop lock for your room
3. Portable storage
4. USB hub
5. Headphones for use in the labs or library
6. Subscribe to a music service like Pandora

I think most of these still hold true, but I would add a few notes.

1. The laptop bag is still a good idea, but most students seem to be going with a backpack or courier bag. There are now backpacks with extra padding to protect a laptop. I you plan on carrying your laptop all over campus, I would go with a 14" model. You save a pound or so and still get a nice workable image.

2. Laptop lock - still a must. Things can walk from a residence hall bedroom when you are visiting friends down the hall.

3. Portable storage - still a good thing, but prices have really dropped. You can buy a 32GB (huge) for less than $40. Note that we now use Microsoft Live@Edu for our email system, but it also provides about 25GB of storage in the "cloud". No worries about backups or losing your data. Remember backup your data from your laptop or flash drive. BTW, the email and storage are yours even after graduation!

4. USB Hub - I am not as hot on this anymore. Most laptops are coming with 4-5 USB ports in them now. You may need a hub, but this is doubtful. Spend the money on a good power strip a circuit breaker to protect your gadgets from power surges and lightening.

5. Headphones - Still a good idea, but you can reuse the earbuds from your iPod or other music device. You will need this in the library and labs for sure.

6. Music service - you can still use Pandora for 40 hours a month for free, but it only costs $36 for the entire year. You might also look at AOL radio or Yahoo radio. You cannot customize you playlist the way you can with Pandora, but free is good.

7. Personal Printer- I know everyone hates printing on their own printer when you can get free printing in campus labs and the library, but when you need that paper for an 8AM class a little desktop ink jet printer is a cheap investment and comes in handy.

8. Tablet or eReader - Still not seeing large numbers of these on campus. In most cases you read eBooks on your laptop or even your phone. Personally, I would not jump on this bandwagon just yet. Prices will come down and they are just another device to worry about. If you have plenty of cash or someone buys one for you as a gift, enjoy, but they are not work tools just yet.

9. Personal wireless access router - forget about it. You don't need it on campus and the network will detect it and shut you down. Save the $50. If you live off campus, go for it.

10. Personal video camera - about 30% of SU students report that they own one, but it's unclear whether the device is their phone or something like a Flip camera. If you like making videos you can get a great quality HD video camera for $100-$150. Flip is not made anymore, but Kodak, Sony and others make them.

I think that's it for this year. If you have some ideas of your own, feel free to send me a comment. Let the year begin.

What if technology is just too expensive...

I spend a great deal of time describing what college students are bringing to campus. My surveys over the past few years have show dramatic growth in amount of technology being brought to campuses these days. First it was the desktop computer, then the laptop, most recently Smart Phones, and we are just seeing tablets make their arrival. This is all kind of exciting when you deal with tech all day, like I do. While we have seen students bringing tech to campus, the campuses have been adding lots of free tech in all sorts of places. Convenience is king.

You may have noticed in my last post that while freshmen are bringing lots of tech to campus, they still want more computer labs, free printing, more library computers, and even walk up computers in campus coffee shops or dining spaces. Some even ask for rental computers and tablets. It never seems to be enough.

Although most students are jumping on board and investing in lots of personal technology (at least at my campus), what if this is all just too much. What if you can barely afford to pay tuition and by or rent textbooks. Yes, students are now renting text books and saving. Check out Chegg.com or Google rent textbooks. Back to the story.

What if you are barely getting by and are trying to keep up. What do you absolutely need to survive on a college campus? Well not every campus offers free printing and printing is still hugely important. So I suggest saving a few cents for printing, but avoid commercial print shops. Most campus labs will allow you to print for 5 cents or less per page. So where else can you save?

My campus provides three open computers labs. These are labs with not scheduled classes. You can walk in and use most of the programs you need for free. When classes are not scheduled, say during late afternoon or early morning, many campus labs are open and available for walk-in use. The campus library is open an average of 16 hours per day and they have dozens of desktop computers for walk-up use. Check with the front desk, but most campuses have these and all you need is a valid network account which comes with your tuition. You should also see if you can check out a laptop or tablet at the circulation desktop. We have been loaning these for about 10 years. You can generally borrow a computer with all of the software for 2-3 hours, for free.

Does your campus have coffee shops? Our main coffee shop has about 10 desktop PCs for walk in use. Spend your money on a coffee. You can't print in the coffee shop, but you can do some work and save it to your network drive, cloud storage, or a thumb drive.

So what do you have to buy to stay competitive with technology? Well keep in mind that going cheap requires you to plan ahead and to be flexible, but it can be done. I suggest buying one thing. A thumb drive (or two for backup). You can buy these almost anywhere, but I just checked and you can buy a 16 gigabyte thumb drive for less than $17 at Amazon. This will hold every paper and assignment that you do over your four years of college, excluding video and audio recordings. Buy two and back-up often. These are easy to lose. Always have a backup tucked away at home.

This will allow you to go anywhere to work and to search for the cheapest printing. You can also save videos and music and you can play these back on the free computers with some inexpensive ear buds.

Now you know the frugal side of tech. College is expensive, but campuses make an awful lot of tech available for the price of tuition. Enjoy and save.