EdTech Connect

I found the following video online and it made me think a little bit on how content can be delivered to support online learning.



(hat tip: American Digest)

Sean Carroll is a theoretical research physicist at Caltech. The format he uses here could easily be adapted to different courses on our campus. I am not sure in what context he is delivering his "lecture" (I don't know that it is actually a lecture, but it definitely encapsulates some great information that could be delivered to a course on cosmology, quantum mechanics, or even basic astronomy).

One way in which this video-style of presenting information could be used would be for an instructor to record some content (10-30 minutes worth). The students would be required to watch the video and then answer questions about it online through some sort of assessment mechanism.

Additionally, the instructor could pose questions to the students in an online discussion forum. Dr. Carroll refers to a number of other prominent scientists who are researching competing/complementary theories about the origins of the universe. Students could be tasked with researching one of those names and then posting their findings in the online discussion forum.

Finally, the instructor could simply include a link to the video within a supplementary materials section of their online course. The downside to this is that there is no real incentive for students to visit the link (unless there are points involved).

Anyway, it's definitely a good video for a general audience. A course-specific video would be more in-depth.

EdTech and IT are opening up the CLC software request process for faculty who need specific software packages installed in computer learning centers across campus.

All software requests should be submitted to IT for processing no later than close of business on Friday, October 30, 2009.

Software currently available in each of the CLCs on campus can be found at:

http://it.mst.edu/clc/

Details on submitting a CLC Software Request can be found at either of the links below. Please read the directions on how to submit a CLC software request thoroughly prior to submission. It is very important to submit requests in a timely manner to ensure the best possible support from IT and EdTech. We appreciate your cooperation!

IT Press -- http://itpress.mst.edu/2009/10/_edtech_and_it_are.html

EdTech Connect -- http://edtechconnect.mst.edu/2009/10/clc_software_request_process_f_1.html

The fourth and last session for the day is "Effective Teaching--Tips from Award Winning Faculty". This is a panel of instructors -- Carrie Ellis-Kalton of Maryville University, Laura Pawlow of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Bill Mayhan & James Henry from UMSL, and Peggy Cohen, also from UMSL who will be moderating the panel. It should be an interesting discussion.

Since this is a panel discussion, it will be difficult--if not next to impossible--to properly attribute who says what. The extended entry will simply document what is said, along with my own internal commentary.

The third presentation of the morning is "Teaching Blended Courses: Ensuring Success by Avoiding Pitfalls", presented by Barbara Petzall of Maryville University. According to the program blurb, this session will identify problem areas that instructors may encounter when designing blended classes.

My second session for the morning is No-Doze PowerPoint--Tips and Tricks, presented by Andrea Compton of St. Charles Community College. I guess the idea is to provide ideas on how to make PowerPoint presentations more interesting through interactivity and storytelling. Dr. Klaus Woelk at Missouri S&T is pretty good about this. He likes to introduce the chemistry concept of stoichiometry using an analogy with a boardgame (I can't remember what it is called, unfortunately).

PowerPoint presentation can be very boring. I, myself, am just as guilty as the next person in using boring presentations, so I am very interested in learning how to add some interest to a presentation.

I will be starting today's events with "Effective and Practical Uses of eTextbooks", presented by Roger Von Holzen from Northwest Missouri State University.

Roger is the director of the educational technology office for Northwest Missouri State University.

Northwest has a very strong technology presence on campus and in the textbook rental arena.

Students are charged $360 per year for a wireless notebook computer rental. The cost/read is the most important aspect. Rentals can get up to 15+ reads per textbook. Reselling textbooks only get up to 5 reads per book.

NW charges $180 per year for students to rent their textbooks (total cost: $540/year). Textbooks can be purchased for long-term usage (e.g. calculus, chemistry and other general and discipline-specific reference textbooks).

eReaders include Sony's eReader, Amazon's Kindle, and a version called Plastic Logic. Apple also has an electronic book reader application for iPhone (CourseSmart that draws on 7,000 textbooks and AlgebraPrep from Pearson Higher Education).

Sony Reader -- Has a 6-inch display, E ink technology (appears similar to paper, also used by Kindle). High contrast and high-resolution display. Easy to read even in bright sunshine.These features are also found in Amazon's Kindle.

The second session for the day is "Mastering Oral Foreign Language Proficiencies with Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL): Pedagogical Implications" presented by S&T's own Dr. Irina Ivliyeva, who teaches Russian.

Presentation Outline:

• Subject background; students and classes; FL proficiencies
• CALL and evolving technologies
• Classroom activities and information management
• Evaluation and assessment
• Teaching methods: historical perspectives

I'm in St. Louis for the Focus on Teaching & Technology (FoTT) conference, put on by the Center for Teaching and Learning at UMSL. Between today (Oct 15) and tomorrow (Oct 16), I hope to blog about several of the sessions I plan on attending.

My first session today will be on "Fundamentals in Designing and Teaching an Online Course", presented by Mary Abkemeier of Fontbonne University.

UPDATE: Irina very graciously acknowledged Educational Technology for providing support for her uses of technology. We are very pleased to be working with Irina. We want her to be successful!

MOREnet, which provides core network services to Missouri S&T and other campuses, will be performing maintenance on UMSL's network from midnight to 1 a.m. on Sunday, October 18, 2009.

As a result, Blackboard at Missouri S&T will be unavailable during the maintenance window.

Other IT services will still be available.

Please call the Help Desk with questions about this or any other issue at 573-341-HELP (4357).

EdTech and IT are opening up the CLC software request process for faculty who need specific software packages installed in computer learning centers across campus.

All software requests should be submitted to IT for processing no later than close of business on October 30, 2009.

Software currently available in each of the CLCs on campus can be found at:

http://it.mst.edu/clc/

To request software be installed in a CLC, send an email to edtech@mst.edu that includes the following information:

• Your name
• Your department
• The software to be installed and each software package requested should includes
• Software name and version
• CLC location(s)
• Courses affected by the requested software
  

Please use this Subject line when sending email:

CLC Software Request - Spring Semester 2010

If you are requesting software on behalf of your entire department, please include (in addition to the above information):

• Instructors who will be using the software
• Courses affected by the requested software (please do not use "ALL"; be specific--e.g. CHEM 001, CHEM 002, MATH 204, etc.)
  

Other important considerations when requesting CLC software:

• If the software package requires a license, it will need to be managed by a license server
• The software package has been tested by IT and has been determined not to "break" or interfere with the normal operation of other software installed in a CLC
• The software package requested meets campus security standards.
  

Once the software request has been received by EdTech and IT, we will follow up with customers on an individual basis to ensure all software request needs have been met for Spring Semester.

We appreciate your cooperation and attention to detail when submitting software requests.

NOTES:

Software that meets all of the following criteria will no longer be included in the image for a given CLC:

1. It has not been requested for 3 semesters or longer.
2. It is not part of the standard software package for CLC images.
   

To ensure that software you need for your courses is available for your students, please submit a request for software every semester that you will need it. Do not assume that requesting it once means that it will always be available.

IT regularly rebuilds the images on all campus CLC machines to help maintain the integrity, stability, and security of the campus network.
 

Blackboard has a number of options for enabling guest access to enable access to a course to individuals who are not currently enrolled in a course. It is also possible to limit guest access to specific areas or tools within a course.

By default, guest access to Blackboard courses is disabled. IT has recently performed some updates to Blackboard that may have disabled guest access for some courses where instructors had allowed guest access to specific users. Instructors who have previously enabled guest access may have to do so again.

Please be aware of  the following caveats with regard to use of guest access in Blackboard.

• When guest access is enabled, ALL Missouri S&T authenticated users will be able to see your course.
  
  
• If you use copyrighted materials as part of your course, IT strongly recommends that you do NOT enable guest access for your course, as this could make you liable for copyright infringement (only fully enrolled students are permitted to view the copyrighted materials for educational purposes).
  
  
• If you have students enrolled in hearer or auditor status through the Registrar's office, then IT recommends leaving the students enrolled as students. You can limit their access to content through the Adaptive Release options, if restricted access is desired.
  
  
• Guests DO NOT have access to the communications tools, discussion boards, or other collaboration tools.

Given the above, there are three primary ways to enable Guest Access in Blackboard:

1. Enable guest access to a course area.
1. Select Manage Course Menu under Course Options on the Control Panel.
2. Click Modify next to the course area (e.g. Announcements).
3. Click the checkbox next to Allow Guest Access.
4. Click Submit.
2. Enable guest access to a specific course tool.
1. Click Manage Tools under Course Options on the Control Panel.
2. Click Tool Availability.
3. Select the checkbox for the tool to allow guest access. Most tools will not allow guest access at all.
4. Click Submit.
3. Enable guest access for the entire course.
1. Click Settings under Course Options on the Control Panel.
2. Click Guest Access.
3. Select Yes.
4. Click Submit.
   

Under option 3, above, the default content guest users will see are the following areas in your Blackboard course:

• Announcements
• Course Information
• Staff Information
• Course Documents
• Assignments -- assignments can be viewed by guests, but any attempt to complete an assignment by a guest will result in "Access Denied" message.
• External Links
  

Additional course areas can have guest access enabled through option 1, and default options can be turned off through option 1 as well.
 

Educational Technology is now accepting presentation proposals for the Third Annual Teaching and Learning Technology Conference, scheduled for March 11-12, 2010. Interested presenters can download a copy of the Call for Proposal form at our web site: edtech.mst.edu.

This year's theme will be Cyberlearning.

Proposals will be accepted until November 20, 2009. The conference schedule will be finalized around December 11, 2009. At that time submitters will be notified of acceptance.
 
Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Joel Hartman -- Vice Provost for Information Technologies and Resources at the University of Central Florida.  Dr. Hartman has been instrumental in leading the University of Central Florida in the arena of online and blended learning.

EdTech is a little late to the game, but we finally set up a YouTube account for our group. Although we have access to other ways of posting videos, I figured YouTube has some versatility that our other methods don't have.

However, the quality of our videos has diminished somewhat. Compare the video below to the one that is found on our own web space: How to Login to Blackboard.

IT will be upgrading Wimba Voice Tools building block within Blackboard on Friday, October 9, 2009, starting at 5:30 p.m.

Wimba Live Classroom and other Voice Tools will be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes during the upgrade process.

Regular Blackboard services will still be available.

If you have any questions, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP.

Blackboard's Digital Dropbox  will be permanently decommissioned in Summer 2010, prior to the release of Blackboard Version 9 on our campus. The Digital Dropbox has been used most commonly by students to store data files prior to submission to the instructor's dropbox, but will no longer be supported in Blackboard 9.

Digital Dropbox will no longer be available starting in Summer 2010.

We realize that a large number of instructors rely on digital dropbox for collecting assignments from students.  

The Assignment tool is much more effective for organizing student assignments. Assignments can be downloaded for grading in bulk, or individually, depending on an instructor's needs. They are also tied to the Grade Center and have numerous feedback options for providing timely responses to student submissions. The Assignment tool is currently available in Blackboard 8, our current version, and will continue to be supported in Blackboard 9.

EdTech wants to help instructors who are currently using the Digital Dropbox to transition their courses to using the Assignments tool. During the rest of Fall Semester 2009 and Spring Semester 2010, we encourage instructors to engage with us on how to best make the transition.

Online resources for using the Assignments tool can be found at:

http://edtech.mst.edu/servicesupport/blackboard/addassignments.html

If you would like some assistance with restructuring your course to take advantage of Assignments, please contact EdTech (edtech@mst.edu) for a consultation. We would be glad to talk to you and provide guidance.

Blackboard Message, a tool available within the Communications Area of Blackboard, will be made available to all instructors starting on Friday, September 25, 2009.

EdTech will be conducting a demonstration of the Blackboard Message functionality and best practices at noon on Friday, October 2, 2009, during the Cyberlearning Faculty Learning Community (FLC) meeting in Civil Engineering 115.

All instructors are welcome to bring their lunch to the Cyberlearning FLC meeting.

Blackboard Message is an internal email service within Blackboard that allows instructors and students to focus discussions about a course exclusively within the course, rather than through more traditional email channels such as Outlook.

Documentation on how to use this tool will be available on the EdTech web site (edtech.mst.edu) before the FLC meeting on October 2.

IT will be upgrading Wimba Live Classroom tool inside Blackboard from version 3.3 to version 4.0 on Friday, September 25, starting at 5:30 p.m. Wimba Live Classrooms will be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes during the upgrade process.

Regular Blackboard services will still be available.

Wimba  Live Classroom provides a live virtual classroom experience for students and faculty that allows for in-class chat, class polling and participation, desktop and application sharing, etc.

This upgrade fixes a number of current Building block issues as well as provides MP4/MP3 downloads of Wimba Classroom Archives, support for Wimba Classroom 6.0 server, Grade Center integration with Wimba Voice Boards and support for Internet Explorer 8.

For more information about Wimba Live Classrooms, contact Educational Technology (edtech@mst.edu) or visit the EdTech web site:

http://edtech.mst.edu/servicesupport/wimba

Blackboard service has been restored.

The campus Blackboard application is currently experiencing extremely poor performance due to server issues.  Our Blackboard administrators are currently working to restore service and expect services to be restored within an hour.  Updates will be posted at IT Press and EdTech Connect as they become available.

If you have any questions, please contact the IT Help Desk at 573-341-HELP.

Summer Semester 2009 courses in Blackboard will be set to "unavailable" to students on Friday, September 11, 2009, starting at 5:30 p.m.

Instructors can still see all of the course content inside a Blackboard course, but students will be unable to see the SS2009 courses at all.

Instructors will be able to set a course back to "available" in the event that a student requires access to the course. Instructions on how to make a course available are at:

http://edtech.mst.edu/servicesupport/blackboard/courseavailable.html

Please call the Help Desk with questions about this or any other issue at 573-341-HELP (4357).