Flex Week Workshops

As followers of this blog, you might be interested in attending some of these workshops offered during Flex Week. 

Tuesday, January 17

11am – Noon     Accessibility

1pm – 3pm         Great Practices in Online Teaching

3pm – 4pm         EduStream

Wednesday, January 18

5:30 – 6:30pm     Blackboard I - Getting Started

7pm – 8pm          Blackboard II - Managing the Course Menu and Adding Items

Thursday, January 19

2:30 – 3:30pm      Blackboard III - Grade Center

4 – 5 pm               Blackboard IV - Tests and Quizzes

Friday, January 20

9am – 10am         Blackboard V - Assignments and SafeAssignments

10am – Noon       Open Lab

No Students in the Grade Center

You will not see your students listed in the Grade Center when you go into your Blackboard containers before doing a course copy. The reason for this is that we removed the default Weighted Total and Total columns from the template that all new containers are built from so that these columns would not be duplicated once the old semester is copied into the new one.

However, it can be disconcerting to look at your Grade Center and not see any students there. If you are building a new course from scratch and/or not planning to copy in an old course, you can add your own Total column to the Grade Center, then your students will appear there.

To add a Total column:

1. Control Panel > Full Grade Center
2. Hover over Create Calculated Column and click Total Column
3. Type Total in the Column Name field
4. Leave all the other fields the way they are
5. Click Submit

Now you should be able to see all your students in the Grade Center.

Print the Grade Center

I made a quick video to show you two options for printing the Grade Center.

Method 1:  Create a report from within Blackboard's Grade Center
Control Panel > Grade Center > Full Grade Center > Reports > Create Report

Method 2:  Download the Grade Center into Excel and print from there
Control Panel > Grade Center > Full Grade Center > Work Offline > Download


View the video at http://screencast.com/t/KTJeKLLAd

There is a little monitor icon in the lower right corner of the video that will make the video show full screen when you click 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, in your course go to:
  Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability > Make Course Available: No
• To make a backup of your course follow the Archive Your Course Instructions 

Twitter Twaining

Katherine Linzy of the University of Evansville created an excellent guide called "Twitter for Academics - An Introduction" that can be found at http://ots.evansville.edu/support/training/twitterforacademics.pdf.

SafeAssign Slowdowns

Since colleges around the nation are nearing the end of the semester, SafeAssign papers can take as long as two or three days to be evaluated for plagiarism. Fortunately, most are being evaluated within 24 hours. Please plan on these delays as we approach the end of the semester.

Students and Technology

The results of the "ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2011 Report" illuminates how technology affects how students learn. Here are some of their key findings:

• Students are drawn to hot technologies, but they rely on more traditional devices
• Students report technology delivers major academic benefits
• Students report uneven perceptions of institutions' and instructors' use of technology
•  Facebook generation students juggle personal and academic interactions
• Students prefer, and say they learn more in, classes with online components    

A slide presentation can be viewed at http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ERS1103pdf.pdf.

This slide shows some key findings:

How to Google It

The folks at HackCollege.com have posted a web page with a very large picture that shows students how to get the most out of Google searches. You can find it at http://www.hackcollege.com/blog/2011/11/23/infographic-get-more-out-of-google.html.

"There is a lot more to efficient Googling than you might think: in a recent study on student research skills, 3 out of 4 students couldn't perform a 'well-executed search' on Google. When the success of your term paper hangs in the balance, using Google effectively is crucial, but most students surprisingly just don't know how." 

"Here are some crucial tips for refining your Googling, as well as some other great places to hunt down that last study you need for your thesis."

400 Free Online Courses from Top Universities

Open Culture compiled an impressive list of free online courses from some of the best universities in the United States. You may find ideas and inspiration for your own courses; or you may want to learn something you'd never had a chance to discover before from this list. I just wish I had time to take them all!

Check them out at:
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

Coach's Eye iPhone App

TechSmith has come out with an app for the iPhone that turns you into the ultimate coach. It allows you to:

• record and review video right on your iPhone
• focus on the details in the video by slowing it down, drawing on it, adding audio commentary
• easily share your modified video via text message, email, or YouTube

I can see this being used in education for more than sports coaching. It would be useful in many disciplines such as speech, chemistry, and geography. Find out more at http://www.coachseye.com/.

Tired of Playing Email Ping Pong to Set Up Meetings?

We all know how it works, endless rounds of emails to find a time for a small group of people to meet. Doodle can end all that. Doodle.com is a free website that takes the pain out of finding meeting times that work for everyone. You can find out how it works by watching the videos at http://blog.doodle.com/english/2011/10/05/video-doodles/.

You simply create a poll that has times that you're available and invite participants. Each participant checks off the times they're available, and you choose the time that works best.

Another tool that's rather hidden in Doodle is called MeetMe. You can put up your schedule showing when you're available and allow students to sign up for times to meet with you. It's not quite as sophisticated as the one I use (TimeTrade which costs $50/year), but there's a lot to be said for free!

Give Doodle a try the next time you need to set up a meeting and see how it works. There's nothing to lose!

Whiteboard Magnets

I just read a blog post by Cameron Moll about how he used an inkjet printer and magnetic paper to create whiteboard magnets to teach HTML5. This got me to thinking of hundreds of ways this tool could be used in the classroom so I thought I'd pass on the information to you here.

These magnets are easy to make. Just buy some Office Depot glossy magnetic sheets which cost about $14 for five 8.5" x 11" sheets, then use MS Word or any other program you're familiar with to create the text or artwork you want on the magnets. Print onto a magnetic sheet using an inkjet printer and cut out the individual magnets.

Use them in your classroom to present a topic, illustrate a way of grouping ideas, or let your students arrange them on the whiteboard to solve language, math, or programming problems. The possibilities for using these whiteboard magnets are endless.

Online Courses from @ONE for Faculty

There is still time to sign up for @ONE's online courses coming up this month. These courses count toward certification to teach online at Cuyamaca College and if you sign up for @ONE's online teaching certification program, you can get a certification that is honored at most California community colleges. The cost is only $55 per course and there is a very small amount of money in Professional Development funds that you can apply for to pay that cost.

Here are the courses starting in October:

• Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard 9.1 with Greg Beyrer (October 10 – November 4)
• Creating Accessible Online Courses with Carolyn Fiori and Jayme Johnson (October 24 –November 18)
• Designing Effective Online Assessments with William Doherty and Kathryn Damm (October 24 – November 18)
• Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning with Catherine Hillman (October 24 – November 18)

Open Files in New Window

There are reports that students attempting to open a PDF in Blackboard using Safari or Firefox on a Mac will not have success. This happens when using Build Content > Create > File to add PDF files to courses. Students using PC's will not experience this problem.

You can fix this in your courses by clicking "Yes" to "Open in New Window" when attaching files to Blackboard. This setting will force the browser to open the file correctly.

This is a case where Blackboard is caught between Apple and Adobe arguing about who is supposed to fix this problem. However, Blackboard is looking into a way to get around this. I'll let you know if they come up with something. In the meantime, just say "Yes" to "Open in New Window."

Students can view PDF files on Macs by using the Chrome browser which is a free download from http://www.google.com/chrome.

The Flipped Classroom

A new method of teaching is turning the traditional classroom on its head. What’s a flipped classroom — and why now?  See a full sized version of this infographic at http://www.knewton.com/flipped-classroom/.

 
Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Search for Closed Captioned Videos

You can find videos that are closed captioned by using the Google Advanced Search page. Captions make videos accessible to those who are hard of hearing. Captions also help students whose native language isn't English, since they may find it easier to understand written English than spoken English. Videos used in online courses that are required to pass the course must be captioned. Google has made it easier to find captioned videos using Advanced Search.

To access this, just begin your search as you normally would at google.com.

On the results page, click Videos.

Next click "Advanced Search"

On the Advanced Search page, you can select to show only videos that are closed captioned, have the duration you're looking for,  and a few other options.

 

My Workshops This Week

Professional Development workshops start today and if you're looking for something that may interest you, please come to one of these workshops about online teaching. No reservations required, just come on by!

Accessibility
Monday, August 15, 11:30am to 12:30pm
E-206

Getting Started with Blackboard
Monday, August 15, 2:30pm to 4:30pm
E-206

Whats New in Blackboard 9.1
Monday, August 15, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
E-206

What's New in Blackboard 9.1
Tuesday, August 16, 1:00pm to 3:00pm
E-206

Great practices in online teaching
Tuesday, August 16, 3:00pm to 5:00pm
E-206

Online Teaching Forum
Tuesday, August 16, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
E-205

Open Lab with Teaching and Learning Center Staff
Friday, August 19, 10:00am to 12:00pm
E-206

How to Hide the McGraw-Hill Icon in Tools

You may have clicked Tools on your menu in Blackboard and tried to hide the McGraw-Hill icon and instead of hiding it, Blackboard just gave you a blank white screen in response. This is a bug that can be fixed by following these steps:

1. Get back into your course either through the Welcome Tab or using the Back button
2. In the Control Panel expand Customization
3. Click Tool Availability
4. You don't need to change anything here, amazingly, just clicking on this link fixes this
5. Click on Tools in your menu and you'll see the McGraw-Hill icon is gone

Make Your Old Courses Unavailable Before Copying to New Courses

There's a quirk in the new version of Blackboard. When you do a course copy, Bb copies the course availability settings from your old course to the new course. If your old course is available to students, this would make your new course available before you're ready for students to view it.

 In a perfect world, you have already made all your old courses unavailable, but just in case you haven't, please do so before copying Bb containers for the upcoming semester. Instructions for making your courses unavailable can be found at
http://www.gcccd.edu/online/tutorials/bb/course-availability-9.pdf.

A word of caution. You may be tempted to avoid this problem by not copying course settings, but this is one of the most important areas to copy, so please make sure course settings is checked when you do a course copy.

MS Office 2010 Accessibility Checker

Please follow these directions to make your files accessible to those with disabilities before you do your final save in Microsoft Office 2010. This is just a reminder that making files accessible is not only a good thing to do, we are required to do so by law.

1. Click the File tab.
   
2. Click Info.
   
3. Under Prepare for Sharing, an alert will appear if the Accessibility Checker has found any problems.
   
   
4. If there is an alert, click the Check for Issues button, then click Check Accessibility.
   
   
   
5. 
   You are returned to your file where the Accessibility Checker task pane is open, showing the inspection results.
   
6. Click on a specific issue to see Additional Information and steps you can take to fix or revise the content.
   
   Note:   If the content in the additional information pane in the bottom of the Accessibility Checker is hard to scroll because you can't use the mouse, press F6 to focus on the task pane, tab until the focus is in that area, and then try to scroll with the keyboard.