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.