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