Week Ending July 6

Wow, it has been a LONG time since I did an update. For some reason, I can’t remember to block out time on my calendar on Fridays to post updates. Anywhoo, here’s a quick rundown of what’s been happening in my world of instructional design.iTunes U – We’ve been trying to pin down the Apple rep to get some information about why we were rejected for a public iTunes U site. We FINALLY got him on the phone and found out that it’s likely because we don’t have enough content. I tried to explain to him that we’ll likely be more successful with iTunes U if we have a public site first. It would be easier to convince instructors to use the service if they can see exactly how it will look. We already have a private site, but it’s not the same. I think he heard what we were saying, but I don’t think it will help in getting a public site.WordPress – Absolutely no progress has been made with this project recently. We are still waiting for University Communications & General Counsel to approve the social media policies. It’s to the point where no one has any answers as to the timeframe. It’s frustrating and I’m becoming less and less confident of the service being made available before the start of the Fall semester. I have no clue what we’re going to tell instructors. This project was supposed to be an “easy win” for IT Services, but I’m confident that if the service isn’t available by the start of the term, the project will have backfired.Video Working Group – I’m not sure this is an actual project, rather than a group that I’m facilitating. We had a very low turnout at the last meeting, which I’m chalking up to it being the summer hours. When we do meet, however, we do make some good progress in making sure that we are all up to date on the university projects around video.With it being the week of July 4, there has been very few updates. Next week we have an all staff meeting in IT Services where we find out the results of the reorganization and how our group will be effected.Tschuss!