Summary: Beyond iPoding

The following is the transcript of the November 2006 E-Learning Classes podcast for the Institute for Interactive Technology (IIT) Podcast Series. The IIT is a consortium of faculty, staff and graduate students in the Master of Science in Instructional Technology program at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Heading List

• Pam Berman: Introduction
• Karl Kapp: Introduction
• Pam Berman: Introduction to the Podcast
• Beyond iPoding
• Use of Audio Files
• Summary

Pam Berman: Introduction

Institute for Interactive Technologies, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, November 2006.

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Karl Kapp: Introduction

Welcome to the Institute for Interactive Technologies instructional design podcast. These monthly podcasts will focus on the convergence of learning, technology and business.

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Pam Berman: Introduction to the Podcast

This pod cast is an excerpt from Dr. Kapp's upcoming book Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning: Tools for Transferring Know-How from the Boomers to the Gamers published by Pfeiffer. Look for it in April of 2007.

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Beyond iPodding

As with any new technology, at first there is unbridled enthusiasm or irrational exuberance quickly followed by fear and loathing and then the technology settles down into an every day tool. One example is podcasting for learning. It was first thought of as great way to train but now some pundits are warning that "telling ain't training" and that podcasting isn't all that it is cracked up to be.

The answer is that podcasting needs to be thought of differently than just recorded training. Podcasting can be used for far more than just listening to a lecture. Podcasts are appropriate for a variety of purposes.

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Use of Audio

Often a short audio narration provides the information and coaching needed to help an employee solve a problem or deal with a customer issue. The wide spread adoption of MP3 Players like Apple's iPod products has lead to an entire ecosystem of tools, accessories and content providers. You can literally subscribe to a podcast on any topic via iTunes or other subscription services. A podcast (for those few who may not know) is a web-based audio file distributed over the web. The file can be downloaded onto a handheld device that plays audio files. The most popular of which is Apple's iPod family.

The concept is just getting started and has room to move in exciting directions. One appealing concept in this area is the creation of of corporate Napster-type software for the exchange of audio files among experts and members of an organization.

Originally, Napster allowed for the free exchange of audio files among a virtually limitless group of internet users, now imagine a corporate Napster where you upload audio files of information about competitors, new product launches, corporate directions and other valuable information all easily searchable and downloadable by members of your organization. Once loaded onto a portable MP3 device, the information can be listened to anywhere at the exact the time of need. Creating files could be easily done with a handheld digital recorder.

Imagine a scenario where a pharmaceutical sales representative, waiting in a doctor's office, accesses a corporate audio server and downloads the necessary information and listens to the drug detail recording just prior to meeting with the doctor. Or imagine a doctor downloading an audio file of a patients' medical history. The doctor listens to the file while preparing for the patient to arrive or fast forwards through the audio file to learn key patient information.

A strong advantage of audio is that it provides the proper tone of voice, inflection and other information necessary to assist sales representatives, doctors or others. Audio can provide information with relatively little bandwidth requirements as opposed to video.

Drexel's University’s LeBow College of Business has 150 online students all over the world enrolled in its MBA program. LeBow College is using podcasting for both presenting class information and distribution of administrative information.

Students can view a slide presentation of an economics lesson along with the audio or download just the slides or just download just the audio. This gives the learners the flexibility of how they would prefer to receive the information. The podcasting allows the MBA students to learn at lunch, after work or when they are exercising. It provides an opportunity for them to multitask.

LeBow College officials like the podcasting of administrative information. It helps to ensure that the students get the right information and are able to navigate requirements, scheduling and other tasks critical to their successful completion of the program. At least every two weeks, the college issues a podcast explaining everything from course schedules, to scholarship rules and regulations to upcoming events.

The students can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or listen to the information online via a Flash player interface. Erik Poole, associate director Online MBA Programs, explains. "The students are receiving the administrative information they need. They are responding to the podcasts and are incorporating both the administrative podcasts information and the lectures into their MBA experience here at Drexel."

Not only is sound important for lectures or giving administrative instruction, sometimes sound itself contains important information. An experienced production employee may be able to hear when a machine is running out of spec. They can hear the abnormal vibrations of the equipment or the sound the die makes when it is hitting the raw material. A newer employee hearing the same sound or change in sound may not know what it means or even be aware of a sound change. If the various sounds of the machinery can be recorded and placed onto an iPod or other MP3 player, a newer employee could learn, through repetition, the different sounds of the machinery and what each sound means.

A similar process is being used to teach young doctors how to distinguish between the different sounds of a heart. After hearing a recording of different heart sounds about 500 times, young doctors reliably discriminate between different sounds made by various heart problems. Before listening to the recordings, the young doctors only correctly identified 50% of the heart sounds; after the test they could identify 80% of the sounds correctly.

Nike, the athletic footwear, equipment and accessory company, has even created an iPod enabled shoe. The shoe has a built in sensor that "talks" to the runner through an iPod receiver. The runner can receive real-time audio feedback about his or her time, distance traveled, calories burned and pace. Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO states that "the result is like having a personal coach or training partner motivating you every step of your workout." It even has a feature that plays your favorite running tune when you are near the end of your workout—so download the Rolling Stone's Start Me Up or Survivor's Eye of the Tiger and run off those boomer pounds.

Another innovative use of an iPod or MP3 player is a game called iGAMEZ. Each player plugs their iPod into a hub and gets ready to "face the music". The hub selects the first DJ who, in turn, chooses a song from their library for everyone to hear. Then the players have to buzz in…and name the artist and song title. Could this be adaptive to the sounds of machinery or failing harddrives or any other sound that is important in a manufacturing or business process. What a great learning opportunity, in a class, a person listens to the sounds of a machine running and describes if it is in spec or out of spec.

Another application would be to listen to competitor's web sites or any web site for that matter. A company called Textic has a product called Talklets that actually allow you to download an entire web site or certain web pages as audio files. Imagine asking your assistant to download a competitor's web site and then you could listen to the information while driving or exercising or on a plane. It gives you the ability to shift-time to listen to something that you normally need to read. This can be a tremendous time saver.

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Summary

So in summary...

Podcasting has the potential to provide audio-based instruction anywhere. A mechanic can play the sound of well tuned engine vs a not-so-well-tuned engine. A sales representative can listen for the proper enunciation of the name of a complicated medical procedure, a novice trial attorney can listen to the proper inflection of questions during a cross-examination by a seasoned attorney.

These are the types of applications we need to envision for iPods, not simply automating a lecture but using the ability to have sounds, any sounds in a simple, portable format that can be listened to anywhere. We need to think outside of the lecture and expand the use of this new tool instead of being stuck with our old paradigms.

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Summary: Advantages and Disadvantages of E-Learning Classes

The following is the transcript of the August 2006 E-Learning Classes podcast for the Institute for Interactive Technology (IIT) Podcast Series. The IIT is a consortium of faculty, staff and graduate students in the Master of Science in Instructional Technology program at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Heading List

• Pam Berman: Introduction
• Karl Kapp: Introduction
• Pam Berman: Introduction to the Podcast
• Kristy Delvecchio and Megan Loughney: E-Learning Pros and Cons
• Disadvantages of E-Learning
• Advantages of E-Learning
• Steve Brink and Lauren Farrett: Dos and Don'ts of Taking Online Classes
• The Dos of Taking Online Classes
• The Don'ts of Taking Online Classes

Pam Berman: Introduction

Institute for Interactive Technologies, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, August 2006.

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Karl Kapp: Introduction

Welcome to the Institute for Interactive Technologies instructional design podcast. These monthly podcasts will focus on the convergence of learning, technology and business.

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Pam Berman: Introduction to the Podcast

Students in the E-Learning Concepts and Techniques class were asked to create podcasts on an e-learning-related topic of their choosing. This month's podcast deals with the pros and cons of e-learning.

Are you thinking about incorporating e-learning into your training? Maybe you are thinking about taking a class or workshop online. Whether you are an instructor or a student, before you take the plunge, it might be helpful to learn a little more about what it is like to take a class online.

Some online classes are similar to taking a correspondence course except that materials are sent by electronic means instead of through the postal service. The downside to this is the loss of interaction with the instructor as well as with other students. In addition, this method does not work well for all types of instruction.

When instructor/student interaction is a critical part of the learning, online classes can include a synchronous portion. For example, the class may meet at a set time each week. Instructors can meet virtually with students using chat room tools or products with voice over IP capabilities such as Centra or Horizon Wimba. And there is an added benefit when using these tools; if the class requires group project work, special sessions can be set up for each group to meet as needed for the duration of the class.

As with everything, there are benefits and pitfalls with e-learning. Let's hear about the pros and cons as well as the dos and don'ts of e-learning from some students who took the spring 2006 online E-Learning Concepts and Techniques class.

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Kristy Delvecchio and Megan Loughney: E-Learning Pros and Cons

This is a podcast for the pros and cons of e-learning at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania presented by Kristy Delvecchio and Megan Loughney on March 26, 2006.

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Disadvantages of E-Learning

First, we look at the disadvantages of e-learning. One disadvantage of e-learning is learners need to have access to a computer and Internet access. They also need to have computer skills with programs such as word processing, Internet browser, and e-mail. Without these skills and software, it is not possible for a student to succeed in e-learning.

E-learners need to be very comfortable using a computer. Slow Internet connection or old computers may make accessing course material difficult. This may cause learners to get frustrated and give up.

Another disadvantage of e-learning is managing computer files and online learning software. For learners with beginner level computer skills, it can sometimes seem complex to keep their computer files organized. Without good computer organizational skills, learners may lose or misplace reports causing them to be late submitting assignments. Some students may also have trouble installing software that is required for the class.

E-learning also requires just as much time as attending and completing assignments for any traditional classroom course. This means that students have to be highly motivated and responsible because all the work they do is on their own. Learners with low motivation or bad study habits may fall behind.

Another disadvantage of e-learning is that without the routine structures of a traditional class, students may get lost or confused about course activities and deadlines causing the students to fail or do poorly.

Another disadvantage of e-learning is that students may feel isolated from the instructor. Instructors are not always available to help the learner so learners need to have discipline to work independently without the instructor's assistance.

E-learners also need to have good writing skills and communication skills. When instructors and other learners aren't meeting face-to-face, it is possible to misinterpret what is meant.

Another con of e-learning is isolation from the other students. Sometimes it can be difficult to get a point across when you are not meeting in person. Poor learners are more likely to fall between the cracks when immediate and personalized help is lacking. Hands-on or lab work is difficult to simulate in a virtual classroom. Many students need to interact with hands-on work in order to gain a full understanding of what they are doing.

Instructors can also be a con of e-learning. Instructors of e-learning need to be effective online teachers because e-learning is much different from the traditional classroom learning environment. It is hard for instructors to move traditional classroom content online. Instructors do not always have enough time to provide personalized feedback to all the students because many students are actively involved in the learning process opposed to the traditional classroom.

Effective evaluations and assessments of the students are also difficult for the instructors to do online. Academic honesty of the student is also another issue of e-learning. Instructors are not always able to observe the students when they are taking tests so students have the opportunity to look up information during the test.

All these disadvantages are important for learners to think about before signing up for an e-learning class.

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Advantages of E-Learning

If we look at the advantages of e-learning, one advantage is as long as the learner has access to a computer, has computer skills and typing skills, and has an Internet connection, there are no restrictions on the location for the learning. Learners can log onto a computer in any geographic location and they can participate in their e-learning. Therefore, learners do not have to spend time commuting to class which is another advantage to e-learning.

Since the learner does not need to travel for their learning, there are no travel expenses which is another advantage. Since e-learning can be done in any geographic location and there are no travel expenses, this type of learning is much less costly than doing learning at a traditional institute.

Another advantage to e-learning is the learner can work at their own pace. If the learner needs to do the learning at night, then this option is available. Learners can sit in their home, in their pajamas and do their learning if they so desire. Learners can fit this e-learning into their busy schedule. If they hold a job, they can still be working with e-learning.

Many times e-learning is more focused on the learner and is more interesting. For certain instruction for learners, it can be flexible and customized to meet their individual needs.

If money is an issue with the learner, then e-learning may be the type of instruction needed. When we talk about e-learning, the program is less expensive for both the learners and the organizations that are providing the training. The number of the learners to the program is not limited unlike a traditional institute where this number would be limited.

The instructors are much more responsive to the learners' needs working with e-learning. The learners and instructors are there because they want to learn in a manner that is time-effect to both of them. Because of this, better instruction will be given online, both informal and formal instruction. There will be more active learning through online courses taken rather than the passive learning that happens in traditional courses taken.

Only the best instructors will be hired for the position because they will be there because they want to be. The instructors will guide their learners through the learning process rather than just simply delivering information to their students like traditional courses do.

Many learners feel more comfortable taking online courses and therefore, will participate more in class discussions.

Students like e-learning because it accommodates different types of learning styles. Students have the advantage of learning at their own pace. Students can also learn through a variety of activities that apply to many different learning styles learners may have. Learners can fit this e-learning into their busy schedule. If they hold a job, they can still be working with e-learning. If the learner needs to do their learning at night, as said before, this option is available. Learners can sit in their home, in their pajamas and do the learning if so desired.

E-learning encourages students to peruse through information by using hyperlinks and sites on the World Wide Web. Students are able to find information relevant to their personal situations and interests. E-learning allows students to select learning materials that meets their level of knowledge, interests, and what they need to know to perform more effectively in an activity. Many times, e-learning is more focused on the learner and is more interesting for them.

For certain instruction for learners, it can be flexible and it can be customized to meet their individual needs. E-learning helps students develop knowledge of the Internet. This knowledge will help learners throughout their career.

E-learning encourages students to take personal responsibility for their own learning. When learners succeed, it builds self-knowledge and self-confidence in them. Educators and corporations really benefit from e-learning.

Learners enjoy having the opportunity to learn at their own pace, at their own time, and have it less costly.

These were the benefits and the cons of e-learning. Many educators and businesses greatly benefit from e-learning. However, some people do not enjoy e-learning and, therefore, there are negatives to this.

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Steve Brink and Lauren Farrett: Dos and Don'ts of Taking Online Classes

Welcome to Steve and Lauren's dos and don'ts of taking online classes. Steve's going to explain the dos while Lauren explains the don'ts. Let's get started.

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The Dos of Taking Online Classes

The first thing you want to do when taking an online class is make sure you read the syllabus. This will give you a good overview of what's coming up in the class and allow you to ask questions before you fall too far behind.

The second thing you want to make sure is that you have a quiet place for class. Don't sit in the TV room or the game room or in the family room where you can be distracted. You want to be able to focus on class just like you were sitting in a normal classroom.

Take notes just like you were in a class; either write them down on paper or type them out on some sort of word processing software.

Before the semester even gets started, you want to make sure you make time throughout the week to work on class. Schedule it in advance and get into a routine. This will ensure that you take the time that is needed to get your class work done but will also ensure you are not spending too much time in class and ignoring other parts of your life.

The next most important thing you can worry about is keeping up with all your work. Don't fall behind early in the semester and try to catch up later on. As the semester wears on more things seem to happen and it's going to be that much harder to get caught up. Keep up with the readings and make sure you participate in the discussions that are going on in the class. By participating in the discussions, you ensure that you keep up to date with what is going on and it's going to help you remember what is being taught as you actively apply it to different learning environments.

With the amount of work and the different projects that will be going on throughout a semester, it's very important to keep a To Do list and to make sure you keep that list updated. Going along with that, you want to make sure you take the bigger projects that you have through the semester and break them into smaller projects and give yourself deadlines to ensure that you keep on task.

The final and most important points are this; don't over-volunteer. Learn to say no. It may be your first semester back or you may be into the full swing of things but you don't want to overextend yourself in the classroom setting or you are not going to be able to live up to the expectations. You are just going to stress about not be able to get the work done. And finally, (and this works both online and in real life) don't be afraid to ask questions. Make sure you get all your questions asked so that you are clear on what is expected of you.

I'm now going to turn it over to Lauren and she is going to tell you some of the don'ts of taking online classes.

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The Don'ts of Taking Online Classes

Thanks, Steve.

Well, you've heard the things that you should do as part of an online class. Now it is time to hear things you should not do. One of the most important things to remember is that even though you are taking class from the comfort of your own home, you are still in a class. While it is nice that you can take the class in your pajamas, try not to get into the habit of doings things that you would not do if you were in a real classroom.

Do not have the TV on because even if you still may be able to hear the professor and your classmates speaking, you will be distracted.

Do not answer your phone if it rings. If you were sitting in a classroom, you would have your cell phone turned off or set to vibrate. Try to follow that rule while in the online class.

Another thing that can distract you during class is if you try to do things around the house. Keep your attention on the task at hand. Don't leave your computer unless it is absolutely necessary.

Where you take the class also has an affect on how well you are able to focus. Do not try to take the class from the office; there are a million and one distractions that will take your attention away from the class.

Because the class sessions are recorded for us, you can go back if you miss something and get clarification later. However, do not use this as a way to skip class. Never say, "I'll just listen to the recording later." because either you will forget or the weeks will start piling up before you know it. It is also unhelpful to rely on the recording because you won't see what is happening in the text chat and you also won't be able to ask questions if you have any.

Finally, don't blow off the class until the end of the semester. This will be the busiest time of the year and the last thing you need to do is have to make up assignments you missed from two months ago.

The major point here is to treat the online class just as you would treat a class that meets in a classroom.

If you remember to follow the dos and don'ts that we discussed in this podcast, your online class will be just as rewarding, if not more so, than a traditional class.

This podcast was produced by Lauren Farrett and Steve Brink for the E-learning Concepts and Techniques class at Bloomsburg University. We would like to thank our instructor Pam Berman and the rest of the class for their ideas and their help throughout the semester.

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Summary: Interview with Charles L. Chen, Creator of CLC-4-TTS and Fire Vox

The following is the transcript of the February 2006 interview with Charles L. Chen for the Institute for Interactive Technology (IIT) Podcast Series. The IIT is a consortium of faculty, staff and graduate students in the Master of Science in Instructional Technology program at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Heading List

• Fire Vox Screen Reader
• Karl Kapp: Introduction
• Pam Berman: Introduction
• Charles L. Chen answers the question, "What is Fire Vox?"
• Pam: What about it's history? Why did you choose to create Fire Vox?
• Pam: How are things going with the project?
• Pam: What are some of the challenges you faced in doing this whole project?
• Pam: How is this helping you prepare to enter as a professional in your field?
• Pam: How important then is networking with other people?
• Pam: Yeah, it takes a team.
• Pam: Do you have any advice for students like yourself that might be going through a program; maybe in taking opportunities to work on projects or build networks of communities?

Fire Vox Screen Reader

HTML Title: IIT Podcast Series.

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Institute for Interactive Technologies, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, February 2006. End of document.

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Karl Kapp: Introduction

Welcome to the Institute for Interactive Technologies instructional design podcast. These monthly podcasts will focus on the convergence of learning, technology and business.

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Pam Berman: Introduction

This month we talked with Charles L. Chen, creator of CLC-4-TTS and Fire Vox, a screen reader for Firefox.

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Charles L. Chen answers the question, "What is Fire Vox?"

Fire Vox is an extension that transforms Firefox into a talking Web browser so it delivers the features that you would expect from a screen reader such as the types of features that you normally see in JAWS and Internet Explorer. The main difference is that Fire Vox is an open-source freeware project and it works on Firefox. So when I say typical features of screen readers, what I mean by that is that they give users more information than just reading the text directly. They might identify headings and links, and assist the user with some navigation tasks. So one feature that Fire Vox has that isn't typical is that it's cross platform. Fire Vox works on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. This gives users the same user experience regardless of which system they happen to be on. The best way to think about it is that it is an independent screen reader for Firefox.

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Pam: What about it's history? Why did you choose to create Fire Vox?

Charles: It's actually a couple of things. It's a combination of wanting to try out and practice all the software engineering techniques and principals that I've learned and wanting to do something that would help people and, of course, there is that sense of adventure; trying to build something that's really interesting, really complex and there is just a little bit of arrogance there that says, "Yeah, I think I can do this really large, really complicated project."

A bit of background about myself; I'm someone who has always loved computers. I've worked as a free-lance computer technician throughout high school and I still do some of that work today. So when I got into college as a EE major at the University of Texas at Austin, I had to take some programming courses. I've never programmed before them but it fit like a glove. I felt that I really had a knack for it and I just got into software more. And this interest led me then to get a research job so I am now a research assistant working on software architecture research for Dr. Dewayne Perry at ESEL. ESEL is the Empirical Software Engineering Laboratory at UT. That's the first part.

The second part about wanting to help people; the thing that got me involved in with all this was a computer science course three semesters back, Software Engineering. This course is designed to give students a real software engineering experience by putting them into teams, giving them a client, and then they need to try to build software that meets the client's requirements. My team ended up doing a project for Dr. John Slatin. He's the director of the UT Accessibility Institute. He is blind and he uses JAWS extensively. At that time Firefox was gaining a lot of popularity, people were worried about Internet Explorer because of all the security holes and Microsoft wasn't fixing them so what he really wanted was for JAWS to work with Firefox. JAWS has this built in scripting system that is designed to let users write scripts and then those scripts should make it work with programs that it doesn't already support. We tried to use that system. We ran into a few major problems using it; a lot of it was documentation-related. Freedom Scientific, we contacted them and told them about the project we were working on and they said, "Sure, we'll help you with this project. You are working on something with our product; we will help you work on it." and they said they would give us a limited timed-version of JAWS, which meant that it would be fully-featured for six months and run as a full version because the trial version we were using would force us to shut down and restart every 40 minutes. If you didn't save your scripting work, you lost that so it was really painful.

Anyways, they promised they would help us but then they kept putting it off. When we asked them about it after several weeks of delays, they finally changed their minds and just said, "We don't have time. We are not going to help you." They never actually sent the limited timed-version, which meant every 40 minutes that we worked on a project, we had to restart our systems. This was very frustrating and, like I said, the documentation was somewhere between really poor and incomprehensible to just being plain wrong.

The worst error they had was, there was a statement that if you called this function, it would enable what they call the HTML cursor and it claimed it let users navigate HTML documents. What we found, actually, it wasn't an HTML cursor. It was an IE cursor that worked for Internet Explorer and this meant we didn't really have any control. All we could do was to just make it read everything on the screen in Firefox.

We still managed to complete the project to Dr. Slatin's satisfaction. He tried, liked it, but personally I didn't feel very satisfied with it because I really don't like hacking around this way and I knew there were other limitations. For example: you couldn't do form controls and, because we were dumping everything directly, if you had anything that was complex, with like CSS or tables, you would have to fully linearize it. If you linearize it, the page doesn't look anything like the way it used to before. It wasn't the ideal solution but it was the best solution we could do under the constraints.

In this project, I was the team leader and, as such, I did a little bit of everything and that really got me in touch with the problems that visually-impaired people face. I discovered that screen readers are quite expensive; JAWS professional edition runs over a thousand dollars. The other thing is screen readers are not cross-operating system compatible. If you are really used to using JAWS on Windows, you can't take those skills and use JAWS on a Mac or a Linux machine because JAWS does not exist on a Macintosh or Linux. I felt somebody really should step up and make an open and freely available screen reading tool that would work everywhere.

Mozilla seemed to be a really good platform for that because they have an open and freely available product like Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. and those work everywhere. And, I've also had experience with those extensions. I thought, "Why not?"

On the last point of this as being an adventure; I started this over the Christmas of 2004 and my thinking at that time was, "I wonder just how hard it is to make a screen reader? I bet I probably could figure out something." I fiddled around with Microsoft SAPI for a couple of days and with two weeks I had the bare bones framework.

My original intent, by the way, was not to make Fire Vox what it is today but rather just to make a framework that could then be used to develop screen readers and other accessibility tools for Mozilla products. What I did was created CLC-4-TTS, which is Core Library Components for Text-to-Speech. It was a set of library functions that can be used in any extension.

The first version of Fire Vox, just to show how not serious I was about it, I didn't even name it Fire Vox. I just called it the screen reading demo extension and it's entire purpose was to prove that CLC-4-TTS works as a library. It's kind of funny how things turn out sometimes; right now Fire Vox is far more popular and more talked about than the library that spawned it. This is another case of things not going exactly the direction you've planned although that's not always a bad thing. That's sums up the history.

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Pam: How are things going with the project?

Charles: I would say things are going pretty well. Just late last night I managed to release an update. This makes it compatible with the newest version of Firefox which is 1.5.0.1. The new version of Firefox has a lot of security fixes and stability fixes so I urge everyone to upgrade to it. My update not only makes it compatible, it also fixes a huge Linux problem that I had earlier which caused it to not work with several Linux users.

The problem was the obvious, easy-to-use command to create a Java object, which works perfectly in Windows and Macintosh, doesn't really run on a lot of Linux systems. So the solution was then to use something that was unobvious and very complicated to do the exact same thing. The good news is that Windows and Macintosh are okay with doing that solution as well so this new release uses that system. It works everywhere and has a lot fewer problems on Linux than it did before.

The other thing this new release does is it does lay all the groundwork needed to build in speech property support in the near future. That's were you and I are going with that.

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Pam: What are some of the challenges you faced in doing this whole project?

Charles: A better question might be, "What hasn't been a challenge?" (laughter) The answer to that is probably nothing. (more laughter)

About the challenges, there are too many to list but the main issues have been documentation problems. They are everywhere. There is either a lack of documentation and you waste hours trying to Google for a solution to it. Or, even worse, you get bad documentation that's just flat out wrong. The other thing is a Firefox-specific gripe. There is really strange cursor handling in Firefox.

Something else that is more of a problem with what I know in my domain is that I have to learn a lot about the Web standards. I'm not primarily a Web developer; that's not my primary domain so I'm actually picking up a lot of this stuff just as I go along. It's not like I have much previous experience with it.

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Pam: How is this helping you prepare to enter as a professional in your field?

Charles: I think a better way to state it might be to say, "How does working on this project in a safe environment prepare one for work in a company as a software engineer?" Because as far as I'm concerned, this project is very much like working in this field as a professional with the upside, you have a very flexible schedule and you define your own goals, and the downside, you are not getting paid for doing any of this.

It really is very much like a real project as opposed to what would be considered a student project. Whenever I hear student project, what pops into my head is basically an over-glorified homework assignment where they are trying to teach basics of programming and they tell you, you have to implement a stack or create a string-handling routine or write a sort function.

The really cool thing about school ... okay, maybe it's not that cool ... if you are really smart, what you will do is you will write a one-line solution to your program and the way you will do it is you will use a library call. Yet for being really smart like that, you will get a zero for the assignment, at best, and, at worst, you will probably get into trouble for cheating. That's not real life at all because in a real programming situation, that's exactly what you have to do. You really need to work smarter and you really need to take advantage of libraries.

Fred Brooks is the person that wrote The Mythical Man-Month. It's a very famous software engineering book on classical software engineering problems written in the '70s. Most of those problems are still applicable today. As Fred Brooks put it, "Buy, not build." That means that rather than try to reinvent the wheel, you should just go and buy a wheel that someone else has made and use it. The open-source version of that is to Google for an open project, not build your own.

The other thing is, when you don't know how to do something, ask a student. What you do is you go to the TA's office hours and you beg for help and if it turns out it is not your fault and there is a problem with the original assignment, they will fix it for you and people will say, "Oh, good job!"

As a real programmer, there is no TA to go crying to. What you have to do is spend hours Googling, posting on message boards, going on to IRC, and so forth trying to ask for a solution whenever you get stuck. If you want to make any progress, you really have to find your own way around it and doing all this is really quite similar to doing a real job.

How does an actor get better? They rehearse. How do rock stars get better? They have jam sessions. How do programmers get better? Well, they have to write programs and practice. So really I think it's practice and it is really similar to a real job except I don't get any money out of it.

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Pam: How important then is networking with other people?

Charles: Speaking of networking; this actually has put me in touch with quite a few interesting people; some people that I didn't think I would ever really get in touch with. I didn't think that they would really want to talk to someone like me; just this college student. For example: I've gotten emails from Dave Raggett. He's actually interested in text-to-speech in terms of multi-modal Web applications.

This has put me in touch with Willie Walker. Willie Walker is the lead behind Java-FREETTS. He was also the lead developer for the Sphinx project, which is a Java voice recognition program. He works at Sun and I think it is really cool to get in touch with people like this and be able to work with them and learn from them. It's a really good experience and, hey, it really helps to put all this stuff down on your résumé.

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Pam: Yeah, it takes a team.

Charles: On that note, even though on this project it looks like it is a one-man job; even though it looks like I am the person doing it, I'm still getting a lot of help from outside. For example: you are helping me with the [speech style] examples. That gives me knowledge and information that I need that I don't have from any other source.

I frequently have to talk with Aaron Leventhal, the accessibility chief architect for Mozilla and ask him questions about why does this work this way in Firefox? It really is a very community-oriented thing and it is important that you have interactions and look for help when you can.

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Pam: Do you have any advice for students like yourself that might be going through a program; maybe in taking opportunities to work on projects or build networks of communities?

Charles: First and foremost, I would say the most absolute important thing for anything, not just programming but for anything, is that you have to like what you are doing because if you don't you are never really going to be good at it and you certainly won't be happy doing it.

Now if you enjoy your work, then this next bit of advice basically is a natural response that you would probably have. I'm going to give it anyway. Don't be afraid to reach for the stars and what I mean by that is that you might have some crazy ideas about how to accomplish something; you might have this huge project you think might be great to try but then you might think, "Well this is kind of far out there. I'm not sure if I can do it." Sometimes these crazy ideas work out and you've find that you've managed to do something you couldn't have done otherwise.

Now I'm not saying that all crazy ideas always work. They are called crazy ideas precisely because they are crazy and they are expected to fail. Often times they meet those expectations. So for every success I've had, I have dozens of what some people might consider failures. The key to remember is that if you can attempt it safely, like you won't get fired if you fail, while sometimes it is a mistake to try it, it is always, always, always a mistake to not make the attempt.

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