Playing a YouTube Video in Chrome

There is a problem that can occur when trying to play a YouTube video in Blackboard while using the Chrome browser. The instructions at http://www.gcccd.edu/online/documents/BB-Chrome-YouTube.pdf explain how to get these videos to play. Please pass this information on to your students if you have YouTube videos embedded in your Blackboard courses.

Flex Week Workshops

Here is a list of workshops that many of my blog readers may be interested in. See the full Professional Development schedule for more information. All these workshops will be held in E-206. I hope to see you all there!

Monday

11:30 - 12:30 pm
Accessibility

Tuesday

9:00 am – 10:00 am
Films on Demand Streaming Video

Noon - 1:00 pm
Social Media for Departments and Classes

2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Great Practices in Online Teaching

CANCELLED
Lecture Capture

Wednesday

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

7:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Blackboard II – Course Menu and Content

Thursday

2:30 am to 3:30 pm
Blackboard III – Grade Center

4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Blackboard IV – Tests & Quizzes

Friday

9:00 am to 10:00 am
Blackboard V – Safe Assign

10:00 am to Noon
Open Lab with TLC Staff

New Semester Preparations

Welcome back for the Fall Semester! We've prepared several resources to help you prepare for the new semester on the new Online Success website. There is a Blackboard Semester Checklist web page that lists things you'll need to do in your Blackboard containers. There is a very useful Word file ("downloadable checklist") on that page with a more detailed list that you can print out and check things off as you finish them.

There is an important emerging legal issue that I'd like to remind you about as you prepare your syllabi. It is increasingly important that online instructors establish an ongoing drop policy and implement it. It is the responsibility of the instructor and the college to assure that students receiving federal and state financial assistance be dropped from online classes when they cease to be active. The most common measure of inactivity is the passing of a week without communication with the faculty member or submission of course work (simply accessing the Blackboard container is not sufficient to demonstrate “activity”). The federal government has audited colleges to see if students are receiving financial aid for periods longer than they were actively involved in the class. Further, they are asking colleges to reimburse them for money paid to inactive students!

Information about your drop policy should be included on your syllabus that defines exactly when and under what circumstances students will be dropped for inactivity. For example, “Students who are inactive will be dropped from the course. If an entire week goes by with no activity on your part either through discussion board participation, email communication, or submission of work, quiz, or exam, you will be dropped. Therefore, it is imperative that you let me know if, for some reason, your contribution to the class will be interrupted.” In reality, we recommend you send a warning notification to students after a week of inactivity and allow a few days for them to respond.

Online Video for Your Classes

The Cuyamaca College Library subscribes to a few collections of educational videos that can be used for online and face-to-face courses. Check out the library streaming videos web page for all the options they offer.

Films on Demand is the newest and best video resource the library has to offer. It includes thousands of high quality educational titles in many subject areas. These videos can be shown using a computer and projector in classrooms or viewed outside the classroom on the web. All the video clips are closed captioned, and can be embedded or linked to in a Blackboard container.

To find out more about Films on Demand, come to the workshop Angela Nesta is giving on Tuesday, August 14th from 9 to 10am in room E-206 or check out the Films on Demand website Angela created.

Discussions in Online Classes

Discussions are very important in online courses to allow instructors to meet "regular effective contact" (see p.10 - 55204. Instructor Contact) requirements and help students to engage in course material. However, discussions pose several challenges for instructors. A series of three articles from the Online Learning Insights blog offers some good insights and suggestions to help faculty facilitate online discussions.

1. How to get students to participate in online discussions 
2. How to facilitate robust discussions online 
3. The Methods and Means to grading Student Participation in Online Discussions

Learn Blackboard This Summer

@ONE is offering the Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard online course from July 9th to August 3rd. This course is fully online so you can take it while sunning at the pool or from whatever exotic locations you may be travelling to this summer. Full-time instructors can receive professional development credit for taking this course. This course also counts towards certification to teach online at Cuyamaca College.

See the @ONE website for more information at:
http://www.onefortraining.org/node/587

Word Counter for Blackboard

Liberty University created a Firefox add-on that counts the number of words in discussion board, blog, journal, and wiki posts made by students. This add-on lets faculty quickly see the number of words a student has posted to make grading easier.

To get the add-on, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/Word-Counter-Bb/ using Firefox. Click the green "Add to Firefox" button to install it.

After installing the add-on you'll see something like this in your Discussion board threads.

Online Teaching Conference This Week

The Online Teaching Conference for 2012 starts this Wednesday and runs through Friday. You can attend online for free by registering at http://www.onlineteachingconference.org/.

To kick-start the conference, 2012 Blackboard Catalyst "Exemplary Course" Award winner (and former OTC Keynoter) Dan Barnett's presentation -- "Closing the Loop - Creating Self-reflecting Students in Online Classes" -- is now free to view on YouTube at http://youtu.be/MmmXpjSt2ag. This thought provoking video is pertinent to all online teachers.

Cheating in Online Classes

An article in The Chronicle titled, "Online Classes See Cheating Go High-Tech" underscores the importance of having multiple measures of assessment in an online class AND making some of those measures project based so that a student’s work and skill set becomes recognizable.

The Cuyamaca College "Best Practices Checklist for Effective Online Instruction" lists several ways to reduce cheating. In particular we encourage "Instructors use more than one method to assess student learning, and the methods are appropriate to the content being assessed. (item 3.4)"

Another Checklist item that is applicable is "Learning activities foster instructor-student, content-student, and if appropriate to the course, student-student interaction (e.g. e-mail, discussion, phone, online conferences)." (item 5.1)

The more instructors get to know their students through discussion and other interactive assignments and activities, the easier it will be to determine when a student is not doing their own work.

End of Summer Semester Reminders

Here are some quick reminders of things to do in your Blackboard containers before you head off to enjoy your summer.

Wrap it up

• 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
• Grade Center > Manage >  Row Visibility > only students with a "no" icon should be grayed out
• Make your course unavailable after grades are turned in
• Backup of your course

No Upgrade

Due to problems with course copy in newer versions of Blackboard, we will not be upgrading to a new version this summer. This means no new stuff to learn in Blackboard for the summer or fall semesters.

Have a great summer!

Photo by Craig Belldina

How to Add Someone to Your Blackboard Course

The new Online Success website has changed the steps you take to add someone who is evaluating your course, another instructor, a guest lecturer, a student making up an incomplete, or a TA into your Blackboard containers.

Here's how to add them:

1. Go to the Blackboard Login page
    
2. Click Faculty Support for Online Success
   
   
   
3. Click Blackboard Requests
   
   
   
4.  Click Add a User form
   
   
   
5.  Login with your campus network username and password
    
6. Fill out the form

Please note: All users added this way will be given a special "technical add" user.name that starts with "ta."  (ie: ta.john.smith).

New Online Success Website

The GCCCD Online website has been completely overhauled. It is now called Online Success. A task force that included Rhonda Bauerlein and Cindy Morrin from Cuyamaca, Chris Rodgers and Janice Johnson from Grossmont, and Debbi Smith from the District, worked over the last few months to revamp the outdated GCCCD Online website. We hope you will be pleased with the changes and we would like to hear any suggestions for improvement.

You can find the Online Success website from the link on the Cuyamaca College website under Online Services or use this URL: http://www.gcccd.edu/online/ .

Unfortunately, this big of a change couldn't be made without breaking a lot of links to resources you may have been using in your courses. Please take some time to review your courses and put in the new links.

Here are some of the major links to check:

• Blackboard Login Instructions - http://www.gcccd.edu/online/student/blackboard/default.html
• How to Submit an Assignment video: http://www.gcccd.edu/online/tutorials/bb/videos/submit-assignment/default.html
• Change your email address in Blackboard: http://www.gcccd.edu/online/documents/tutorials/change-your-email-address.pdf
• Exam Tips: http://www.gcccd.edu/online/student/blackboard/exam-tips.html
• Student Help Desk: http://www.gcccd.edu/online/student/online-student-help-desk/default.html

Please explore the new site to see what may be useful to you and your students.

Blackboard Calendar Tool Survey Opportunity for Instructors and Students

The notice below is from Blackboard. I know many of you have strong feelings about how the calendar in Blackboard could be improved, so please take this survey and let them know. Also, let your students know about it so their input can be heard.

---

Attention students and instructors! We need your help.

The Blackboard Product Development team is currently investigating ways to improve our Calendar tool for instructors and students. We want to understand how you feel about specific options for this feature. Please set aside approximately 20 minutes to tell us about yourself and answer 28 question pairs (students) and 36 question pairs (instructors) so we can better understand your motivations.

About the survey: Questions are delivered in pairs to ask you how you would feel if a feature WAS included and if the feature WAS NOT included in Blackboard Learn.

To participate: Share the links with other students and instructors who may be interested! The surveys are available for the next week. To take a survey, click the appropriate URL for your role or paste it into your browser:

Survey link for students: https://bbuxresearch.wufoo.com/forms/calendar-student-perspective/

Survey link for instructors: https://bbuxresearch.wufoo.com/forms/calendar-instructor-perspective/

Make Flashcards with Quizlet

Quizlet is a free web app that lets you create flashcards and study games that can be embedded into Blackboard and viewed on a PC, phone, or tablet. They have thousands of flashcard sets that have already been created. Find out more at quizlet.com.

Embedding does not work in emails, so click the title of this blog post above to see an embedded set of flashcards for Horticulture- Vines/Groundcovers.

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study horticulture flash cards

Free Instructional Ideas Course Offered by Blackboard

Course Title: 

Instructional Ideas and Technology Tools for Online Success

Description: 

Motivating students and creating community within blended and online learning environments is crucial to academic achievement and success. This open course will provide both theoretical concepts and practical tools for instructors to improve motivation, retention, and engagement within blended and online courses.

Course Objectives:

* Identify and apply relevant motivational strategies and instructional techniques 

* Construct thinking skill options for different types of learners and subjects 

* Design and share innovative thinking skill activities as well as unique cooperative learning 

* Map and apply instructional models and ideas to online learning tools

Enrollment: Open Enrollment begins Monday April 23, 2012. 

For more information, http://bit.ly/ImHv05

To Register: http://bit.ly/I6aiZG

Course Duration:  April 30th- June 4th ( A total of 5 weeks)

About Dr. Curtis Bonk:  Curt Bonk is Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University and President of CourseShare. Drawing on his background as a corporate controller, CPA, educational psychologist, and instructional technologist, Bonk offers unique insights into the intersection of business, education, psychology, and technology. A well-known authority on emerging technologies for learning, Bonk reflects on his speaking experiences around the world in his popular blog, TravelinEdMan. He has coauthored several widely used technology books, including The World is Open, Empowering Online Learning, The Handbook of Blended Learning, and Electronic Collaborators.

There are more than 1000 people from all over the world registered for this already.

Photo Editing Made Easy - PicMonkey.com

Up until recently, I thought Picnik was the easiest online photo editor to use. However, Google bought it and decided to shut it down as of April 19th. I've been looking for a viable alternative and finally found it at PicMonkey.com.

PicMonkey is a free web-based photo editor that you can use without signing up. Once you upload your photo, it keeps things simple by showing the "Basic Edits" which are the seven tools you will most likely need to use.

• Auto Adjust
• Crop
• Rotate
• Exposure
• Colors
• Sharpen
• Resize

PicMonkey has many more features if you click one of the gray icons to the left of the tool list. The "Touch Up" tools let you fix blemishes, erase wrinkles, add blush or spray on a tan with a click.

Even if all it had was the easy to use crop and resize tools, I'd be very happy with PicMonkey. I can't believe how hard it was to find a program that did these two functions easily and well. PicMonkey does everything I want an online picture editor to do and more!

Using Wikis, Journals, and Blogs in a Face-to-face Class

In this audio podcast from NIU, Dan Cabrera and Carol Deemer discuss her use of wikis, journals, and blogs in her face-to-face course.

Click here to play the MP3 file

Other podcasts from NIU can be found at http://teachingwithblackboard.niu.edu/blackboard/podcast/.

Videos to help you rethink education, learning, & school

Garr Reynolds, the author of Presentation Zen has pulled together a collection of thought provoking videos in his blog post at:
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2012/03/rethinking-education-learning-the-role-of-school.html

Got a great lesson?

"TED-Ed's mission is to capture and amplify the voices of great educators around the world. We do this by pairing extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of curiosity-igniting videos. You can nominate a teacher, nominate an animator or suggest a lesson here: http://education.ted.com."

Check out the TED-Ed YouTube channel to watch a video that explains what this is all about as well as how you can share your teaching skills with a global audience. While you're there, check out the videos that have been developed so far. There might be something you can use for your classes.

Technology Showcase at Grossmont College

You can earn Professional Development credit by attending the Technology Showcase on March 13th and 14th in room 70-066 at Grossmont College.

March 13 Workshops:

10:00 - 12:00	Apple Products and Free Services
12:30 - 1:30	Using McGraw-Hill in Blackboard
3:00 - 3:00	Dropbox
4:00 - 5:00	CCC Confer

March 14 Workshops

10:00 - 12:00	Overview of Cloud Computing
2:00 - 3:00	Google Voice
3:30 - 4:30	Twitter

Form more information about these presentations and how to sign up see:
http://goo.gl/8YSHj