What is Open CourseWare?

The main content for this course is housed at Notre Dame’s Open CourseWare (OCW) site. Most students get the idea of “open content” in general, but this variation might be less clear. Last week, staff writers at the Online College Courses website published an infographic titled, The State of OpenCourseWare. It starts with a visual explanation of what OCW is, then talks about its impact, provides stats, and gives a look at the future.

Converting M4a files

The Audacity sound editor will open WAV, MP3 and OGG files. Unfortunately, there are other kinds of audio out there, including M4A and WMA. To remedy this one needs a converter. A pair of free utilities are listed below.

1. Switch for Mac (look for a link to the free version) – converts any of 25 formats into just about anything you might want.
2. Free M4a to MP3 Converter (download link at bottom of page) for Windows – converts AAC, M4A, M4B, MP4 and 3GP files to MP3 or WAV. Watch out for an optional toolbar installation.

iTunes users have a couple of other options:

1. Right-click (CTRL-click on a Mac) any title in your music library to create an MP3 version OR
2. Adjust your import settings to convert newly added sound files to MP3

Visions of Students Today

[This article follows up on an earlier post, Share Your Vision.]

Students in a class taught by Professor Michael Wesch at Arizona State last year collected a large number of short student-produced videos, which were then assembled into the video show below. At the project’s website there’s a more elaborate, Flash-based presentation where you can access longer clips from selected individuals. As students, what do you think of the commentaries strike you? Which ideas strike the strongest chord?

Learn more

• Visionsofstudents.org Video Collage (at Professor Wesch’s site)
• Visions of Students Today – More Digital Ethnography

Great tutorials on PhotoShop effects

The website Photoshop Essentials has all kinds of tutorials, but some of the best are their photo effects tutorials. Learn how to create cool effects like flaming text, punch-throughs, water ripples and more. Here are a couple of examples:

Dead zone blur streaks example

Mapping a texture to a face

Mounting NetFile on a Mac

Here’s how Mac users at Notre Dame can mount a volume corresponding to the institutional file space known as NetFile or the N drive:

1. From the Finder, choose Go > Connect to Server …
   
2. For the server address enter
   smb://ADND;netid@fs.nd.edu/~netid
   (substituting your net ID, of course)
   
3. Click “Connect” and enter your password.
4. After you are connected, go back to the “Connect to Server” window and click the plus sign. This will add your address to a list so you don’t have to remember it next time.

Early remix

Here is a remix of early submissions to the call for videos described earlier in “Share Your Vision“. I added an “assignment” to Concourse for submitting this as an extra credit option.

Making money in Second Life?

There are really two questions: 1) how does Second Life make a profit? and 2) can a user earn real money in-world?

Basic accounts in Second Life are free, but the company also sells premium accounts that give users additional privileges, a small plot of land, and a monthly “stipend”. The company doesn’t release statistics, but rumor has it that there are 80,000-100,000 paying users (in case you were curious, over 22 million Second Life accounts have been created since 2003). The company also rents virtual land for a monthly fee, and there are fees for various activities, such as uploading images. My rough guess is that premium accounts and land rental alone produce at least $50 million of annual revenue.

In response to the second question, many Second Life users sell other users land, goods, and services. The Lindens they earn in-world can be cashed out for real currency. In 2009, user-to-user transactions amounted to more than half abillion US dollars and over 50 in-world businesses made more than $100,000 (see Second Life’s virtual money can become real-life cash). In the 4th quarter of 2010, web merchandise sales related to Second Life reached nearly a billion dollars, according to a corporate statement, The Second Life Economy in Q4 2010.