A Gift for You

As my last gift of the semester, I would like to introduce you to Google Voice (GV).  The best way to describe Google Voice is to tell you what it can do for you as faculty members.  Have you ever wanted to give your students a phone number, but didn't want to give out your home or cell number?  You also may have wanted to be able to answer that number at certain times, from certain people, but other people and other times, have it just go directly to voice mail.  You might also have needed to call students who are taking your online classes in other areas, but you didn't want to have to pay the long distance phone charges to do so.

You can do all this and more with Google Voice.  Please take one minute to view this brief video about GV. 

When you sign up for GV, you will be given a new phone number you can give to your students and only have it ring your phone(s) when it is convenient for you.  If it is a family member calling, you can have GV ring all your phones, anytime of day, just to make sure they can reach you.  When you have forwarding turned off, GV will record the message and even attempt to transcribe it, although it does a pretty poor job of the transcription.  Computers just haven't gotten voice-to-text conversion for the masses down yet.

Here are some other things GV does:

• You can send and receive unlimited text messages for free.
• You can have a different voicemail greeting for different callers
• You can screen callers
• You can block numbers
• You can have callers record their names for your approval
• You can have certain contacts only forwarded to certain phones
• You can record calls for later listening, and have them transcribed into text. (You can't record calls that you've placed, just calls that you've received. And every time you initiate recording, GV notifies the other person on the line.)

GV is currently "by invitation only."  All that means is that you sign up, and when they have enough computer power to add people, they'll send you an email telling you how to get started.  This typically takes a week or less.  Be sure to check your spam filters.

So don't delay.  Get GV for yourself for the holidays.  Go to https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/ and sign up!

For more information if you're not already convinced, go to http://www.google.com/support/voice/.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and semester break.  I'll be back in the office and ready to help January 11 - 15.  Just pick a time on my schedule that works for you.  During Professional Development Week I will be busy facillitating workshops, so I will not be available that week for individual support or training.  So be sure to catch me the week before or after Flex Week!

Wrap it up and start all over again

At the same time you're wrapping up the Fall Semester, many of you are starting to prepare for the Spring semester.  Below are some reminders that may help you in this process.

Wrap up Fall

• Double-check your Total column to make sure it is totalling correctly.  
  
• Check to make sure you haven't hidden any students that have actually been in the class. 
  
• Make your course unavailable after grades are turned in.  
  
• Backup of your course.
  
  
  
  
  

Prepare for Spring

• Unhide your Spring course containers.
• Follow the link in the ReadMe section of your Spring containers to find out how to copy your courses from the Fall Semester to the Spring Semester.
  
  

Catch Me Now

This is just to let you know that I will not be available from December 19th until January 10th.  If you are going to need help with Blackboard, or more specifically, the Grade Center, as you prepare final grades, contact me before next Friday.

Rhonda

Intersession Accessibility Course

Start 2010 off right with @ONE's offerings.

Creating Accessible Online Courses
starting Jan. 4, 2010
facilitated by Laurie Vasquez
http://onefortraining.org/node/187

Also, check out their Winter/Spring line-up for:

Online Courses
http://onefortraining.org/online-courses

Desktop Seminars
http://onefortraining.org/seminars

More Video Resources

Last week I posted about video resources and some of you let me know about even more resources that are available.

From Diane Palmer, Humanities Instructor:

YouTube EDU (lectures from top universities, tons of subjects)

Annenberg Foundation  (unbelievable range of subjects, sort of dated but ancient Rome is ancient Rome, wonderful lectures)


From Roxane BenVau, Librarian at Grossmont College:

Free Media Resources on the Internet  (Roxane compiled a comprehensive list of video resources in this document!)

Blackboard Exemplary Course Program

The 2010 Blackboard Exemplary Course Program is now open! This program "was born with the goal of identifying and disseminating effective practices for designing engaging online courses. Using a rubric, instructors and course designers can evaluate how well their own course conforms to effective practices for Course Design, Interaction & Collaboration, Assessment and Learner Support. "

You can submit your course for review or volunteer to be a reviewer. To find out more, visit http://www.blackboard.com/ecp.

Winners will be announced in April 2010 and highlighted at BbWorld 2010 in Orlando.

Video Resources

Today I have two excellent resources for those using or interested in using online video for your courses. The first comes from Rick Salisbury from DePaul University who wrote a blog post on Beyond YouTube: Great Places to Find Video for Your Online Course.

The other resource is from the Ohio State University Web Accessibility Center. It provides relatively easy instructions for Captioning YouTube Video and Providing Accessible Controls.

Undelivered email

If you sent out an email to your class through Blackboard, you may have received an email that had the subject "Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender." This message is telling you that it tried to send your email to all your students, and one or more of those student email addresses are incorrect. If you look into the body of the message, it will tell you what email addresses caused the problem.

If one of the email addresses causing the problem is update.email@WebAdvisor, that means one or more of your students doesn't have an email address in WebAdvisor.

You can find out which students are affected by going to the Control Panel, clicking on List/Modify Users, then click on the Search button to display all your students. Scan down the list to see who has update.email@WebAdvisor as their email address and give them a phone call.

Any changes made in Blackboard to the email address will be overwritten each night with the information in WebAdvisor, so students need to enter their correct email address in WebAdvisor. You can give students the link to these instructions on How to Your Change Email Address in WebAdvisor.

At the beginning of each semester, it might be a good idea to follow the steps above to scan through your student email addresses and make sure you have valid email addresses for each of them.

Surprising Study Results

Jeremy Tutty has summarized a presentation by Penny Ralston-Berg at the 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning, titled: “What Makes a Quality Online Course? The Student Perspective” in a blog post. The results were not what you may expect!

To quote Tutty:

"As expected, students highly valued technology that worked; clear, consistent navigation in their course sites; and instructions on how to access resources. It was what students found least valuable that caught my attention. Based on this survey, online students do not want to:

1. Find course-related content to share with the class
2. Use wikis, shared documents, or other collaborative tools
3. Introduce themselves to the class
4. Coach other students
5. Attend synchronous meetings
6. Interact with games and simulations
7. Work in groups
8. Receive audio or video content

Surprised?"

I know I'm surprised! To find out more, please read his blog post or take a look at the PowerPoint slides of the original presentation.

Learn at Lunch Desktop Seminars

Techsmith recently released the Camtasia screen capture software for the Mac. @ONE is offering a free lunchtime online seminar introducing this new application on Wednesday, September 30th at noon. So if you're a Mac, check it out!

For information on other seminars offered, check out the @ONE website.

Assignment Upload Error - Update

When faculty or students try to upload an assignment in Blackboard, they may get an error message that says, "Please enter a valid file."

I originally posted about this error on August 12th, but it is affecting so many faculty and students that I am updating this information. This error occurs when using Firefox 3.5 or Chrome browsers. I have heard some reports of it happening with Safari as well.

The solution for now is to use IE 7 or Firefox 3.0. If you already have Firefox 3.5 you will need to uninstall it first. You can then upload Firefox 3.0 from these web pages:

Download for PC

Download for MAC

Please forward this information to any of your colleagues that are using Blackboard, but may not be subscribed to this blog.

If you are getting this blog post for the first time, please subscribe! Just go to the Cuyamaca Online Blog and put your email address in the Email Subscription box.

SafeAssign Comments Not Showing to Students

We have just discovered that when you grade a SafeAssignment and make comments to your students, they cannot view these comments through My Grades. This has been reported to Blackboard and we have two temporary workarounds.

One workaround is to make the SafeAssignment available after you have finished grading. This way students could view the assignment and see your comments. You would need to make sure to enter zero points for those students who haven't turned in their work on time so it would be clear if they tried to submit it late.

Another workaround is to enter the comments in Grade Details by clicking on Modify Attempt. I understand that this would require several extra steps and may not be very feasible.

This is a priority issue for Blackboard and we hope to get a fix for this soon.

Guest Speaker for Online Courses

Here's an offer you can't refuse from Kari Wergeland!

To All Online Instructors

Last semester I “visited” one of Cindy Morrin’s online classes as a guest speaker. This was my first attempt at offering a library instruction session online. To get the ball rolling, I started several threads on the discussion forum about various research (information literacy) topics. Then I appeared throughout the rest of the week to answer questions. Cindy jumped in, from time to time, too.

I would be happy to come in to any of your virtual classrooms to help your students become better researchers. My appearance could be geared toward a specific assignment; or I could go over Cuyamaca’s virtual library; or I could cover various search strategies. Of course, I am always open to your suggestions, as well.

If interested, please contact me at kari.wergeland@gcccd.edu or x4412.

If you take Kari up on her offer, here is how you add her as a Guest Speaker for your course:

1. Go to the Cuyamaca College home page
2. In the Online Services menu, click GCCCD Online Classes
3. Click Support for Faculty in the upper right corner
4. Log in with your email username and password
5. Click on Blackboard Course Containers in the left side menu
6. Click ADD an Instructor/Teacher Aide/Workshop Participant/Guest Speaker/Evaluator to a Blackboard container

Or just click this link and log in, but that won’t help you next time you try to remember where this was!
http://www.gcccd.edu/online/faculty_support/courseware/container-req-step-2-add-2009.htm

Register Now for @ONE Online Courses

@ONE has published their Fall schedule of courses for faculty. Most of them don't start until you've had a chance to settle into the semester, but it's important to sign up now to make sure you reserve your seat.

Here are some classes that you may need to get certified for teaching online:

• Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning
• Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard 9
  (Bb 9 is the new version we may be going to in Spring)
  
• Creating Accessible Online Courses

Optional professional development credit is available from Fresno Pacific University too!

Also, check out their 1-hour Learn at Lunch Desktop Webinars. There will be a webinar on Blackboard version 9 for those already familiar with Bb 8.

Make Old Blackboard Courses Unavailable

This is a reminder that it is important to make your Spring '09 and Summer '09 Blackboard course containers unavailable to students. We've had several calls to the help desk from students that are very confused when they see courses in Blackboard that they're not taking this semester.

To do this:

1. Go to the Control Panel
2. Choose Settings
3. Choose Course Availability
4. Make Course Available: No
5. Submit
   

Start YouTube Videos at a Specific Time in the Movie

I know many of you use YouTube videos in your courses. When playing videos in class or having students view a video online, rather than having it start at the beginning, you may want to have the video start later in the movie. To have a YouTube video start at a specific time in a video follow these steps.

1. Edit the URL you already have for the video.
   
2. Go to the end of the URL and add the time code for the specific time in the video you'd like the viewer to start watching.
   
   For example, if you'd like the viewer to start watching the video at four minutes and fifty-five seconds into the video, you'd add the following time code to the end of the URL: #t=4m55s . The URL with the Deep Link should appear this way:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLzoikMTaOA#t=04m55s
   

Speaking of YouTube videos for your students, below is one I hope every one of our students sees. If you can find a way to fit it into your curriculum, please do. It very graphically illustrates the dangers of using a phone while driving. Click the image below to play it or view it at http://vodpod.com/watch/2063868-cow-taster-001?pod=godiskatt .

Bb Email Address and Login Instruction Resources

I just want to remind you to tell your students that all email addresses in Blackboard come from the email address they have in WebAdvisor. Here is a website you can link to with instructions that show your students how to make sure they have the correct email address listed in WebAdvisor: http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/bb/docs/webadvisor-email.asp.

You may want to double-check to make sure your email address is listed correctly in WebAdvisor too!

Another website you can link to for your students has login instructions:
http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/bb/docs/blackboard_login.asp

SharePoint Designer is now FREE!

SharePoint Designer is the new program that replaces MS FrontPage at our college. It is used to edit web pages.

For those of you that want to use SharePoint Designer on your home computer, Microsoft has decided to give you the program for free. Just go to http://tinyurl.com/cz22uy and download it.

If you don't have SharePoint Designer on your campus computer, please do not install it yourself. Call the Help Desk at 660-4395 and ask to have it installed.

Assignment Upload Error

When using Firefox 3.5 or Chrome browsers, you or your students may get an error message that says "Please enter a valid file." This only occurs when uploading files in the assignments tool . It does not effect the SafeAssignment tool. The way to get around this error is to use IE 7 or older versions of Firefox to upload assignment files.

This has been reported to Blackboard and we're hoping for a fix soon. This is another reminder that, as fast as browsers are changing these days, it's a good idea to tell students that if they have a problem with Blackboard, to try using a different browser. Blackboard has a list of supported browsers that you can refer them to.

Course Copy Redux

Blackboard tells us that the problem with Course Copy was caused when the Grade Center had more than one Total column in it. So before copying your course, please make sure to remove any extra Total columns that are in your containers. You won't be able to remove the Total column with the green check mark, so remove any others as needed.

If you have problems with Course Copy, you can always recycle the destination container and try again with Export/Import Course.

Hide Courses in Blackboard Video

You may find that there are courses showing on your Blackboard "Welcome Page" that you don't need this semester. Blackboard provides a way to hide or show only the courses you want. I've created a video that shows you how to do this.

How to Create and Share a Pencast

Tim Fahlberg, the creator of Math247, has created this video showing how to make a video of solving a math problem using the LiveScribe pen, JingPro, and a document camera.

Don't Use Course Copy

Okay, I'm eating my words! In spite of all the testing we did to try to make sure that Course Copy was working correctly, I've had two reports today of problems with Course Copy.

So to be safe, I suggest you use Export/Import to copy your courses from previous semesters into your Fall containers. Export/Import has been working just fine, and only takes a couple more steps than Course Copy.

If you already tried a course copy (between Friday and today), please forward the email message you received from Blackboard to me, whether you had an error or not. This way we can get an idea of how widespread the problem is.

Fall Containers Are Ready

Last night all Blackboard course containers for the Fall semester were created. You will be able to see them when you log on. If you don't see courses you're supposed to be teaching, make sure that your chair has listed you as the instructor of record in WebAdvisor. The problems with Course Copy and Recycle Course have been resolved and your preparations for the Fall semester should go smoothly.

A few reminders about the Summer semester while I think of it. Don't forget to make your summer containers unavailable when the class is finished. It's also a good idea to archive your courses periodically, but especially after the semester ends and all grades are turned in.

Oh, and enjoy this great beach weather too!

Force Completion Message Changed

When choosing settings for a quiz or test, we usually recommend that faculty set Force Completion to off, and use a Timer instead so that there is a limited amount of time that the student has to complete the test. You can search my blog for several previous posts about this.

However, this caused one problem. When Force Completion was set to off, a message automatically displayed on the student’s introduction to the test that says, “Force Completion This Test can be saved and resumed later. “ This wording lead students to think they could stop taking the test and come back later, in spite of the time limit. They mistakenly thought the timer would stop when they were gone, however the timer keeps running whether a student is actively taking a test or not.

To remedy this situation, the wording has been changed to "Force Completion Force Completion is off.” That way it just won’t mean anything to the student and they’ll pay attention to the timer notice.

Online Student Experience

Please view this video for a view of what some students experience in an online class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWPI35WGsTc

An Alternative Way to Turn In Homework

The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wired Campus blog has an interesting article by David Wiley on ways to get the most from your students. One example was to have students turn in their homework in a public blog. Here is an excerpt of the article:

"In 2004 I began asking my students to post their homework on their personal, publicly accessible blogs. (Students who didn’t have a blog before taking a class from me signed up for a blog as one of their first assignments.) By changing their homework assignments from disposable, private conversations between them and me (the way printed or e-mailed assignments work in students’ minds) into public, online statements that became part of a continuing conversation, we realized very real benefits.

The very first semester I began asking students to share their homework this way, a popular e-learning newsletter found and liked one of my students’ essays and pointed its readers to the student’s blog. When the visits and comments from professionals around the world started coming in, students realized that the papers they were writing weren’t just throw-away pieces for class – they were read and discussed by their future peers out in the world. The result was a teacher’s dream — the students’ writing became a little longer, a little more thoughtful, and a little more representative of their actual intellectual abilities. And this benefit came by simply asking students to submit their homework through a different channel. They were already going to write and submit it; I was already going to read it. This was a true two-for-one."

Give the full article a read at: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3884/david-wiley-open-teaching-multiplies-the-benefit-but-not-the-effort

If you prefer having students keep private blogs that only you and/or other students in the class can view, that feature will be introduced in Blackboard version 9 which we may be going to for the Spring 2010 semester. More on that later.

Fall Containers Delayed

Blackboard has been working on fixing the problems we are having with Course Copy and Recycle Courses, but they haven't found a solution yet. These two functions must work correctly before you can prepare containers for the Fall. For this reason, course containers for the Fall Semester were not created today as planned. We hope to have a solution by next week.

In the meantime, if you want to get started preparing for the Fall semester, you can request a development container at http://www.gcccd.edu/online/faculty_support/courseware/container-req-step-01.htm. Log in to that site with your email username and password.

Webinar - Utilizing Clickers in Higher Education

For those of you interested in effectively using clicker technology to increase student participation and classroom engagement, there will be a live 60-minute webinar.

"Classroom Response Systems: Utilizing Clickers in Higher Education"
Thursday, August 6, 2009 10:00 - 11:00 AM PT
$199 per phone line (unlimited number can listen)
Hosted by Higher Ed Hero
http://www.HigherEdHero.com/HX/0/2/p2KLXBc/p2RCJXF8i/p0e

Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Your Classes

WCET (Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications) has published a document called "Best Practice Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity in Online Education" that lists several recommendations for how to promote academic integrity in your courses. Here are some of their suggestions:

1. State the academic integrity/academic honesty policy within the online learning environment and discuss it early in the course.
   
   
2. Require student engagement with the academic integrity policy. For example:
   
   
   1. Ask students for their input on how to create a community of integrity at the start of the course. This establishes the students as stakeholders in the community and the process of its formation.
   
   
   2. Develop and ask students to commit to a class honor code.
   
   
   3. Require students to read and sign an agreement to the campus academic integrity policy.
   
   
   4. Write a letter to students about integrity and post it in the course.
   
   
   5. Ask students to restate the academic integrity policy (this can also be used as a writing sample to use when grading and reviewing student work).
   
   
   6. Ask students to reflect on the academic integrity policy in the discussion board.
   
   
   7. Include a lesson on avoiding plagiarism.
   
   
3. Have assignments and activities in which appropriate sharing and collaboration is essential to successful completion. Foster a community of integrity by choosing authentic learning tasks that require group cohesiveness and effort. For example, focus assignments on distinctive, individual, and non-duplicative tasks or on what individual students self-identify as their personal learning needs.
   
   
4. Provide students with a course or course lesson on research and/or study skills. Work with library staff to design assignments and prepare materials on plagiarism and research techniques.
   
   
5. Include a statement that the instructor reserves the right to require alternative forms and/or locations of assessments (e.g., proctoring).
   
   
6. Ask students follow-up questions to assignments such as, “expand upon this statement you made,” “tell me why you chose this phrase, description or reference,” and “expand upon the ideas behind this reference.”
   
   
7. Select one or two difficult concepts from the paper and ask the student to restate/rewrite the information.
   
   
8. Require students to share key learning from references for a paper or self-reflection on an assignment in the discussion board.
   
   
9. Include an ethical decision-making case study within the course.
   
   

Fall Semester Course Containers

Blackboard course containers for the Fall semester are scheduled to be created the night of Wednesday, July 15th. There is an issue with recycling containers that we are waiting to have resolved. We want to make sure your experience with creating your Fall courses will go as smoothly as possible.

If you want to get a headstart on preparing your course for the Fall, you can request a development container at:
http://www.gcccd.edu/online/faculty_support/courseware/container-req-step-01.htm

Login with your email username and password to access that page.

Test Timer Covers the Submit Button

When a student is taking a timed test using IE 8 (MS Internet Explorer version 8) the timer may block the Submit button. Students should take tests using the Firefox browser or use compatibility mode for IE 8.

Compatibility mode needs to be set BEFORE they begin the test. To set the compatibility view in IE 8, navigate to your Blackboard course, then click the button located in the navigation bar just to the right of the address bar (next to the refresh button).

Learn at the Beach

I know many of you are enjoying your summer vacations. You might want to consider taking an online class with @ONE this summer and learn something new while sitting at the beach with your notebook. For the vodcasting course, you only need your camera at the beach!

@ONE is again offering their outstanding, four-week online courses this summer. Topics include online teaching and multimedia skills. The cost is only $50. All you need is an Internet connection and about ten hours a week to devote to the class.

Registration will be closing shortly, so reserve your spot right away. The courses below will count towards the recently approved online teaching requirements. Courses of most interest to CC faculty are:

• Video and Vodcasting for Teaching with Donna Eyestone. (1)
• Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning with Joshua Stern. (2)
• Building Learning Communities Online with Michelle Pacansky-Brock. (2)
• Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard with Greg Beyrer. (1)

For more information about each course, and to register, please go to: http://www.cccone.org/online-courses/index.php

(1) - Phase 2 requirement
(2) - Phase 1 online teaching and pedagogy requirement
(3) - Phase 1 course management system requirement

Problems with Course Copy

We are experiencing some problems with the Course Copy process. Instead of using Course Copy, Export your original course and Import it into the new course.

Follow the export/import instructions. Be sure to export from the course with the good content and import into the empty or new course.

I will post any new information I get about this when I get it.

End of Semester To Do List for Blackboard

It's the end of the semester and for those of you using Blackboard there are just a couple of things you still need to do to finish out the semester. You need to make your course unavailable to students and it's a good idea to create a backup of your course so all the student work and your work is archived to your hard drive.

• To make your course unavailable:
  Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability > Make Course Available: No
  
  
• To make a backup of your course:
  web version of instructions
  pdf version of instructions
  

Blackboard Maintenance Schedule

On Friday, May 22 from midnight to 5am, Blackboard will be down for maintenance.

On Friday, June 5 from 1 am to 4 pm, Blackboard will be down for the installation of Service Pack 5 and to implement the following changes to the Snapshot process for Summer 2009.

1. Faculty request: Set first and middle names to be “owned” by Blackboard so users can change them in Blackboard.
   
   
2. Change email to be owned by WebAdvisor – instructors and students would need to keep WebAdvisor email updated. This was the original intent but was not implemented for Spring.

Blackboard Changes

There are 2 changes for the summer semester that you need to be aware of. These changes will take place on June 4th.

1. All Blackboard users will be able to modify their first and middle names in Blackboard. They will no longer be overwritten by the Snapshot process each night.
   
   
2. Email addresses in Blackboard WILL be overwritten each night by the email address that is in WebAdvisor. All instructors and students should make sure their email address is correct in WebAdvisor. You can link to these instructions for your students if you like, or give them this PDF file.
   

Forward Your Campus Email to Another Account

Have you ever wondered if you could use gmail, yahoo mail, or some other email client for your campus email? The good news is that you can! IS put together these instructions that show how to do just that.

Free Webinar - Have You Talked to Your Students Lately?

CCC Confer is offering a free webinar on Thursday, April 30th, from 3pm to 4pm titled, "A Discussion About Regular Effective Contact in Distance Learning."

http://www.cccconfer.org/webinarEmail/haveyoutalkedtoyourstudents/haveyoutalkedtoyourstudent.html

Library Databases

As many of you already know, the library subscribes to a number of databases. These information products offer students access to magazine, journal, and newspaper articles—as well as excerpts from books, pamphlets, etc. You will find a list of them on the library’s website, under Databases A to Z. (http://www.cuyamaca.net/library/moresources/databases.asp)

If there is a specific database on the Databases A to Z page you'd like to embed into your Blackboard container (or place on a course website), let me know. Because we pay for these databases, we have to add EZ Prozy to the URLs so that students can get in (with a username and password). However, I would be happy to give you the appropriate URL(s), if you are interested.

Guest posted by your Librarian,
Kari Wergeland
kari.wergeland@gcccd.edu
619-660-4412

OTLC Brown Bag This Thursday

The Online Teaching and Learning Committee (OTLC) is hosting a (bring your own) Brown Bag lunch meeting this Thursday, April 16th from noon to 1pm. You can find us on the balcony of the Student Center on the east side of the top floor.

If you have questions about teaching online, or want to share strategies and ideas about teaching online, please join us. If you've never taught online and are considering starting to use some of the online tools, this is the place to get the answers to your questions. You can also find out what your peers are doing with their classes.

Note: brown bag is optional, everyone is welcome!

ITC and OTLC Minutes for March Posted

March 13th meeting minutes for the Online Teaching and Learning Committee and the Instructional Technology Council have been posted to the Teaching Online website. Look for the "MEETING MINUTES" link in the upper right corner of the page.

Conflicted About Conflicker?

With all the media hype about Conflicker, you'd think there was an easy way to make sure it wasn't on your computer. Today I finally found a very simple test for Conflicker at:
http://www.joestewart.org/cfeyechart.html

If that page indicates that you are infected, contact your virus protection vendor for your home computers, or contact IS at 644-7547 if it is a campus computer.

WebCT Bites the Dust (in June)

The final day for access to WebCT will be June 16, 2009. This is two weeks past the grade deadline for the Spring semester. If you need help moving from WebCT to Blackboard, please contact Rhonda at x 4013.

For those of us that remember the song "Another One Bites the Dust," here's a link to a YouTube video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

Test Options

On January 12th I wrote a blog post about the Force Completion setting in Blackboard. I would like to expand on that topic today.

There are two settings in Bb test options that work in conjunction with each other on a test. These are Force Completion and Set Timer.

If you put a check mark next to Force Completion, students must complete the test without interruption. That means that if their internet connection is lost or for any other reason they cannot complete the test all at once, they will not be able to return to the test to complete it. For this reason, I recommend that you leave this option unchecked.

However, Bb unfortunately adds the following statement to the test when the student takes the test: "Force Completion This Test can be saved and resumed later. "

This gives students the idea that they can stop taking the test whenever they feel like it and come back later and finish it. Which they can, but if you put a check mark next to "Set Timer" to put a time limit on a test (which I also recommend), what they don't know is that the timer keeps running, whether they are actively taking the test or not!

So while it is good to leave Force Completion blank, you need to add a statement to the Instructions to inform students that the timer will keep running no matter what happens once they begin the test. It will run even if their computer is turned off. You will want to make your grading policy for going over the time limit clear in this area.

You can add these instructions by going to the Test Manager, clicking on the Modify button for that test, then click the Modify button to edit the test information. (See the image below)


If the student goes past the allotted time you will see an exclamation point in the Grade Center (rather than a score) which will allow you to investigate further. The amount of time they used to take the test will be shown in the Grade Details.

IE8 and Blackboard Do Not Mix

Microsoft just released version 8 of their Internet Explorer browser (IE 8). Some of your students may have installed this on their computers. If they have, please suggest that they use Firefox instead. Please notify your online students that they may have problems using IE 8 with Blackboard to deter them from upgrading if possible.

The Compatibility View toolbar button in IE 8 does not solve all the problems your students may experience with Blackboard. One of the problems they may report is that they can't submit a timed test because the timer button is too big and is covering the Submit button. They may also have trouble submitting assignments.

How to Keep Your Emails From Going to Spam

Online instructors use email as one of their primary means of communication with students. However, some email clients may see your emails as spam so your students may miss getting them because they don't remember to look in their spam folder.

Deanna Thompson created a tutorial for students that shows them how to put you on their safe senders list so your emails won't go to the spam folder. You can give your students this link - http://www.cuyamaca.edu/helpdesk/tutorial_email.asp - to view the tutorial if they are having problems receiving your emails. You might want to put the link in your syllabus or your initial email to students each semester.

ITC and OTLC Minutes

Each month we will be posting minutes for the ITC (Instructional Technology Council) and the OTLC (Online Teaching and Learning Committee). You can find them on the home page of Tom Doyle's Teaching Online website.

Please check them out to stay informed!

Study Reports Podcast Trumps Lecture

Diff (Gregory Differding) has recommended two articles that address issues important to our online faculty.

The first article is "Podcast Trumps Lecture in One College Study." According to researchers, "Students who listened to a lecture via iTunes U outperformed those who attended in person."

"The ability to pause and rewind podcast lectures gave the upper hand to college students in a recent study that compared the performance of students who attended a lecture in person and those who viewed it from iTunes University."

The second article Diff recommended is "UC Distance Learning Up 15%." The UC in question here is the University of Cincinnati, but the information in the article applies to all of us.

Please take a few minutes to read these articles.

Test Taking Tips

Deanna Thompson created a web page that's full of test taking tips that you can offer your students. Just pass on this URL to your students: http://www.cuyamaca.edu/helpdesk/exam_tips.asp.

This exam tips page is just one of the many pages of useful information prepared specifically for online students that you can provide access to from your courses. Just link them to http://www.cuyamaca.edu/helpdesk/.

USGS Is Shaking It Up With Google

Enough about Blackboard already! Let's talk earthquakes today.

Google has teamed up with the US Geological Survey (USGS) and they just came out with a new feature that shows the most recent earthquakes at the top of their search results when you do a Google search for earthquakes. Search on earthquakes california and you'll get the most recent earthquakes in California.

Here are a few more things you can do with the information.

"If you'd like to know the local time where an earthquake occurred, search for 'time' followed by the location (for example, 'time Japan'). Let's say the epicenter was 50km from the coast and you want to know how far that is in miles. Type '50km in miles' into the search box. You can find out about these special features and many more on the Search Features page. "

Hide Courses in Blackboard

Now that Snapshot is generating course containers for you every semester, you may find that there are courses showing on your Blackboard Welcome Page that you don't need this semester. Blackboard provides a way to hide or show only the courses you want. I've created a video that shows you how to do this at http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/bb/docs/hide_courses/hide_courses.html.

Course Merge Tool Available

The Course Merge Tool is available again. Please be aware that once you have merged courses, requesting an ‘unmerge’ will delete student work and grades. If you plan on merging courses, please schedule an appointment to meet with Rhonda, or carefully review these instructions.

Remove Extra Columns in the Grade Center

You may have noticed that you have two or more Total columns and two or more Weighted Total columns in your Blackboard Grade Center. These extra columns should be removed so students aren't confused by what they see in My Grades.

One of the Total columns has a green check mark. You cannot remove that column.

To remove columns, click the double arrows next to the column name, then click Remove Column.

Just don't get carried away and delete too many columns!

Enroll Someone in Your Bb Course

Since we went to Snapshot, you can no longer directly enroll someone in your course using Blackboard. This is because Snapshot gets all confused (silly robot) when it sees enrollments it didn't create.

You may still need to have TA's and Guest Lecturers enrolled into your classes, so IS has created a form you can fill out to request enrollments that you can reach directly at http://www.gcccd.edu/online/faculty_support/courseware/container-req-step-2-add-2009.htm.

Use your campus email User name and password to log in.

Hide Students that have Dropped

In the Blackboard Grade Center you can hide students who have dropped your course by following these steps:

1. Go to the Control Panel
2. Click on Grade Center
3. Hover over the Manage toolbar button and click on Show/Hide Users
4. Put a check mark next to the name of each person you would like to hide
5. Click on the Hide Users button on the toolbar
6. Click Submit
   

Learn Something New

@ONE is offering online courses that begin on February 23rd. They offer some very useful courses to prepare you for teaching online, as well as how to use various computer software packages. They emphasize pedagogy along with technology. For a complete list of these courses and their descriptions visit the @ONE website.

Here are some of the 4 week courses they're offering:

Online Teaching

• Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning - 2/23 to 3/20
• Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard - 3/2 to 3/27
• Building Learning Communities Online - 3/9 to 4/3

Multimedia

• Photoshop Basics and Easy Page Layout - 3/9 to 4/3
• Dreamweaver I: Design and Build a Basic Web site - 3/9 to 4/3
• Dreamweaver II: Web Templates, CSS, and Multimedia - 4/20 to 5/15
• Audio and Podcasting for Teaching - 3/9 to 4/3
• Video and Vodcasting for Teaching - 4/20 to 5/15

They also have one hour "Learn at Lunch Desktop Seminars" on a wide variety of topics. Some examples are:

• Getting the Most from Word 2007, Part 1: Creating & Sharing Documents - 3/3
• Save $$ with Free and Open Textbooks - 2/25
• Engaging Millennial Students with Fun Tech: Learning with Comics - 2/26

IE 8 Not Supported in Blackboard

Some of your students may have installed Internet Explorer (IE) 8 on their computers. Please notify your online students that they may have problems using IE 8 with Blackboard. They can click the Compatibility View toolbar button in IE 8 or better yet, they can use Firefox instead.

One of the problems they may report is that they can't submit a timed test because the timer button is too big and is covering the Submit button. They may also have trouble submitting assignments.

Forms anyone?

I just found out about this cool tool that is part of Google Docs called "Forms." It does exactly what you think it does, it creates a form for people to fill in. So what good would this do most of you?

This form could be used to gather data for SLO's, or to get students to send you their correct contact/email information.

The form can be emailed or embedded into a webpage or Blackboard. You can be notified when someone completes a form, or once a day in digest form, or not at all. The results are stored in a Google Docs spreadsheet that can be downloaded into Excel if you're more comfortable with that. I'm not a big fan of the other Google Docs tools and now that I'm using MS Office Live for online document sharing I don't need them. However, the forms tool gives functionality that I haven't seen anywhere else.

The University of Colorado did a webinar on using Google Forms that can be viewed at:

https://connect.cuonline.edu/p24489351/

Work with others the easy way with Office Live Workspace

It’s easy—and it’s FREE.

Recently, Jodi Reed, Brian Josephson, and I worked together on a PowerPoint presentation for a Professional Development Week workshop. We had to email the PowerPoint file back and forth to each other as we made changes. A few times we had trouble figuring out which version of the file had all the changes.

I wish I had known about Office Live! We could have each worked on the PowerPoint file whenever we needed to without sending files back and forth to each other through email. If we had used Office Live, we could have shared just one file, with each of us able to modify that file from home or work, whenever and wherever it was most convenient for us.

Goodbye attachments. Hello sharing.

Office Live is the online extension of Microsoft Office, to store documents on the web, access them from virtually anywhere, and share them with others.

When you have multiple people involved in a project or planning an event, Office Live Workspace makes it easy. You can share documents, coordinate schedules, and manage to-do lists in your own password-protected online workspace.

There are several videos that tell you all about the features. More information is available and you can sign up for your own Office Live workspace whenever you like.

How to reach Blackboard when the CC website is down

Although it is rare that the Cuyamaca College website is down, it's always good to have a backup plan. Since Blackboard is now hosted off-site, you can reach it directly by going to http://gcccd.blackboard.com/.

Of course, by the time most of you read this our website will be up and running again, fixed by our great IS staff. You might want to tuck this information away for another day, or post it to your courses so your students can reach Blackboard when this happens.

Student View and Hiding Grades

Student View

As you set your Blackboard containers to be available for the Spring Semester, this is a good time to make sure that everything works the way you think it will for your students. Every instructor has a student account created for them with the format stu_yourFirstName.yourLastName. You can log in using this username with the standard 6-digit birthdate. Be sure to change that password as soon as possible (see http://tinyurl.com/c6rgrw for instructions).

Hiding Grades in My Grades

Please check how My Grades looks to your students. One of the most frequent questions I get is, "I hid the column in the Grade Center, but the students can still see it. How do I fix that?"

When you hide columns in the Grade Center, you only hide them from yourself. To show them again, go to Manage > Organize Grade Center. Select the column you want to show and in the Show/Hide menu, choose Show Selected Columns. Don't forget to hit submit once you're finished.

Now that you can see the columns again, click the chevron in the heading of the column you want to hide from students, and choose Modify Column from the menu. In the Options section, select "No" for "Show this column in My Grades" and Submit.

I hope you all have a great start to the semester!!

Entering Grades Causes Spinning "Saving..." Icon

Instructors using the Blackboard Grade Center could experience an unusual bug when entering grades that could cause the spinning "Saving..." icon to display indefinitely. Any scores that you were recording when this problem occurred will not be properly recorded in the Grade Center and will need to be reentered. This problem happens when your web browser may continue using an older version of the Grade Center code from your browser's cache instead of the newer, updated version that exists on the Blackboard server.

To fix this problem, simply clear your browser's cache using the appropriate set of instructions below. This will force your browser to download the most up-to-date version of the Grade Center from the Blackboard server. In addition to fixing this specific problem, you should periodically clear the cache to allow your browser to function more efficiently.

Internet Explorer 7

1. Once your browser is open, click the Tools menu and select Internet Options.
2. Make sure the General tab is selected
3. Under "Browsing History" click "Delete"
4. In the new window, click Delete Files in the Temporary Internet Files section.

Internet Explorer 6

1. Once your browser is open, click the Tools menu and select Internet Options.
2. Make sure the General tab is selected.
3. Click Delete Files in the Temporary Internet Files section.

Firefox

1. Once your browser is open, click the Tools menu and select Clear Private Data
2. Make sure that "Cache" is checked.
3. Click Clear Private Data Now.

Safari

1. Once your browser is open, click the Safari menu and select Empty Cache
2. Confirm the action by clicking Empty in the pop-up window

Force Completion... Huh... Yeah... What is it good for?

Absolutely Nothing

Seriously though, what legitimate reason would an instructor have for using Force Completion on an exam? Why does this setting exist?

Some things it DOESN'T do:
- Doesn't enforce time limits
- Doesn't submit the exam when time limit is up
- Doesn't prevent students from opening other browser windows, or other browsers
- Doesn't prevent using IM clients or other collaboration tools
- Doesn't prevent using their textbook

What it DOES do is make life difficult for students who for whatever reason, lose their connection in the middle of a test. This forces them to ask the instructor to let them access it again.

There is one argument in favor of this setting, which is that it prevents students stopping in the middle of a test and looking up the answers. However, this setting doesn't prevent them from just opening another browser or their text and looking up the answer. A better setting to use is to make your tests timed, so that there is a limit to how much looking up they can do. This timer keeps running even if the browser is closed, so if the student loses their connection and gets back in, they lose the amount of time it took to do so.

If you currently use the "Force Completion" setting on your tests, please reconsider and just say no!

For those that remember the Edwin Starr song that inspired the title of this post (War... huh... yeah... what is it good for... absolutely nothing... ), here's a YouTube video of it:

Fall '08 Class cleanup

Before we all move on and forget the Fall semester, make sure you set your Fall containers to be unavailable.

Do this in the Control Panel by clicking Settings, then Course Availability. Set Fall containers to "No."

Rent a Textbook

Chegg allows students to "rent" textbooks for significantly less than buying them new, and in many cases, for less than buying them used. On top of that, they donate a tree for every book they buy, rent, or sell. There are no monthly subscription fees or hidden charges. Each textbook has a specific rental fee, which is dependent on the ISBN. Shipping and handling are dependent on the shipment method chosen.

Urgent: Modify your personal settings in Blackboard

Jodi Reed made a good suggestion in her comment on one of my previous posts that is prompting me to make this post. While you're changing your password, you also need to check your email address and make it visible to students.

I can't repeat enough that as instructors, it is critical that you change your password in Blackboard. It is just too easy for students to find your birthdate on the web. You cannot risk having them compromise your course by not changing your password.

Change your password:

1. Log in to Blackboard
2. click the Personal Information link in the Tools section
3. Click Change Password
4. Choose a new password - I suggest you use your WebAdvisor password so you don't have to remember two different passwords
5. Click Submit

Check your email address and phone number:

1. On the Personal Information page, click Edit Personal Information
2. Verify and change if needed your email address
3. Verify and change if needed your phone number and website address
4. If you needed to change this information, make yourself a note to change it in WebAdvisor too, because that's where Blackboard gets its information.
5. Click Submit

Make your email address and/or phone number visible to students:

1. On the Personal Information page, click Set Privacy Options
2. If you want students to be able to see your email address or phone number, check it it section 1.
3. If you want to be listed in the Blackboard User Directory, you can check that item.
4. Click Submit

System Status

I added a new section to my blog that will report the system status for Blackboard and the campus internet/website to the best of my knowledge. I'm doing this so that you all will have a place to check to see if there are any known issues. Notices like the ones that are there today will only be kept there for one day after they are resolved.

If Blackboard is down, and you don't see a notice in the System Status, please report it to IS at 619-644-7547.

Please bookmark my blog at http://cuyamaca-online.blogspot.com/ so you have it handy when things go wrong and you're wondering if you're the only one that knows it!

Where are my Spring containers?

This question is coming up a lot these days. If you log into Blackboard and you don't see the containers for the Spring semester, you are probably logging in to Blackboard with a username that is different than the User ID that WebAdvisor uses for you. Since containers are created by the data in WebAdvisor starting this semester, you will have to log in to Blackboard with your WebAdvisor User ID for the Bb Username. The first time you log in to Blackboard with this username, your password will be your 6-digit birth date (mmddyy).

The first thing you will need to do is change your Blackboard password. Just to keep things simple, change your Bb password to match your WebAdvisor password, then you don't have to think about which password to use for each program. On the Welcome tab, click Personal Information in the green Tools section. Then choose Change Password and follow the instructions from there.

You should now see your Spring semester containers listed in "My Courses." This confirms that the reason you weren't seeing your containers was that the system thought you should be using a different username.

So now you have a problem. You can't copy any of the classes from your old username to this new username. The solution is to log back in using your old Blackboard username. Then enroll your new WebAdvisor/Blackboard username into your old classes as an instructor.

Here are the steps to enroll yourself as an instructor:

1. Log in to Bb with the old username.
2. Go into the course you want to copy.
   
3. Control Panel > Enroll User > click Username radio button > type your new username in the search box > click the search button.
4. Put a check mark in the Add column next to the entry with the username that matches your WebAdvisor User ID.
5. Click Submit and OK.
6. Now you need to modify the rights for your WebAdvisor Username by clicking List/Modify Users in the Control Panel.
7. Either list all or search to find the entry with the username that matches your WebAdvisor User ID.
   
8. Click the Properties button next to that entry.
9. Scroll down to section 4, and click the Instructor radio button.
10. Click Submit and OK.

It would be best if you did these steps for all the classes that use your old username. That way, from then on, you only have to log in to Blackboard using the new WebAdvisor/Blackboard username.