Cuyamaca College Online

You Can Impact the Future of Blackboard

2012-02-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

Blackboard is offering two new opportunities to partner with the Blackboard Product Development team to impact upcoming releases of Blackboard Learn. Please share the link to the first survey with your students.

1.) Social Learning Survey Opportunity for Students, Instructors, and Instructional Designers

Attention Students, Instructors, and Instructional Designers! We need your help.

The Blackboard Product Development team is currently investigating social learning ideas with students, instructors, and instructional designers. We want to understand your motivations for integrating social capabilities into the online learning experience. Please set aside about 20 minutes to tell us about yourself and answer some questions so we can better understand your motivations.

About the Survey - This is the second of approximately three separate surveys on social learning. Questions will be 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 link with other students, instructors, and instructional designers who may be interested! This survey will be available to you for the next week. To take the survey, click on the following URL or paste it into your browser:

Survey Link: https://bbuxresearch.wufoo.com/forms/social-learning-2/

2.) Assessment Creation and Reporting Survey Opportunity for Instructors

Attention Instructors! We need your help.

The Blackboard Product Development team is currently investigating what features are important to instructors when creating and analyzing tests and surveys. Please set aside about 20 minutes to tell us about yourself and answer some questions so we can better understand your needs.

About the Survey - Questions will be 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 link with other instructors who may be interested! This survey will be available to you for the next week. To take the survey, click on the following URL or paste it into your browser:

Survey Link: https://bbuxresearch.wufoo.com/forms/assessment-creation-and-reporting/

Easy New Way to Paste from Microsoft Word into Blackboard

2012-02-05T07:58:00.000-08:00

Did you know that posting directly from Micrsoft Word can create display problems in Blackboard? This is a serious problem that I've written about before. The good news is that now we have an easy way to fix this.

There is a new option in the Blackboard text editor that allows you to paste from Word. This option removes the Microsoft code that causes the problem. Just click on the Add Mashup icon (it's the last icon on the far right of the third row of the toolbar) and choose the Paste from Word option.

Please encourage your students to use this Paste from Word Mashup tool when posting to Blackboard.

@ONE Online Courses & Online Teaching Conference

2012-02-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

Spring 2012 Online Courses are Available Now!
Come join fellow educators and participate in our popular series of @One online courses. Our course curriculum has been developed to align to the internationally recognized iNACOL standards for effective online instruction. Demand is high so register today!
For more information, see our Online Courses page.

Beginning in February & March:
•Creating Accessible Online Courses
begins February 21st, 2012
•Designing Effective Online Assessments
begins February 27th, 2012
•Introduction to Teaching with Moodle
begins March 5th, 2012
•Introduction to Teaching with Blackboard 9.1
begins March 5th, 2012

Beginning in April & May:
•Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning
begins April 9th, 2012
•Creating Accessible Online Courses
begins April 9th, 2012
•Designing Effective Online Assessments
begins April 9th, 2012
•Building Online Community with Social Media
begins May 7th, 2012

All classes above have professional development credits available through Fresno Pacific University.

Spring 2012 Desktop Seminars:
•Teaching on the Move: Integrating Student's Smart Phones and Tablets into your Courses
February 14th, 12:00 p.m. PST

•Beyond Online Teaching With Virtual Presentation Skills
March 2, 2012, 12:00 p.m. PST

2012 Online Teaching Conference
June 13, 14, & 15
Evergreen Valley College
San Jose, California

Course Entry Point

2012-01-25T15:39:00.000-08:00

In Blackboard, the Course Entry Point is the first thing students see when they go into your course. The default Course Entry Point generated when we create new containers is the Tools Area. The reason is that when containers are created, that is the only menu item it can be set to, but the Tools Area is not a good thing for students to see when they enter your course.

A better thing for students to see when they enter your course is Announcements. Announcements makes a good Course Entry Point because you can post a Welcome message there, and as the semester goes on, you can post any important information that comes up.

The first thing you have to do is make sure you have the Announcements tool link on your course menu. To find out how to create this link, please watch the video at http://youtu.be/JmnfStgKdUA. Also, follow the instructions in that video on how to move Announcements to the top of your course menu.

Next you need to set your Course Entry Point to Announcements. To do this:

In the Control Panel click Customization
then click Style.
in section 4, click the drop-down
click on Announcements
click Submit.

Flex Week Workshops

2012-01-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-11T17:01:00.000-08:00

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:

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

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

Print the Grade Center

2011-12-19T13:01:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-07T10:41:00.001-08:00

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

2011-12-07T10:21:00.001-08:00

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

2011-12-01T09:03:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-18T19:12:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

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?

2011-10-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

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

2011-09-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-14T23:21:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-10T16:43:00.000-07:00

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:

Get back into your course either through the Welcome Tab or using the Back button
In the Control Panel expand Customization
Click Tool Availability
You don't need to change anything here, amazingly, just clicking on this link fixes this
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

2011-07-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

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.

Click the File tab.
Click Info.
Under Prepare for Sharing, an alert will appear if the Accessibility Checker has found any problems.
If there is an alert, click the Check for Issues button, then click Check Accessibility.
You are returned to your file where the Accessibility Checker task pane is open, showing the inspection results.
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.

Massive Open Online Class (MOOC) on “Online Learning Today...and Tomorrow.”

2011-06-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

The Center for Online Learning, Research and Service at the University of Illinois Springfield is hosting a Massive Open Online Class (MOOC) that already has over 2,500 participants registered. This course started June 27th, but there's still time to register and take advantage of the chance to learn, connect, and collaborate with thousands of others around the world that are interested in Online Learning.

There are no grades, certificates, or requirements for this course. You can concentrate on the areas that interest you or take in the entire experience. There will be a weekly webcast on Thursday mornings at 11am Pacific time. This webcast will be recorded, so you can watch it at your convenience. The course runs until August 19th.

Here are the weekly webcast topics:

6/27/2011	Online Learning Today
7/4/2011	Online Learning Research
7/11/2011	Online Learning Technologies
7/18/2011	Online Learning Apps and Mobile Learning
7/25/2011	Public, Private & Open - Learning
8/1/2011	Personal Learning - Informal Learning
8/8/2011	Collaboratives & Collectives in the Clouds
8/15/2011	Online Learning 2011-2021

You can register for this MOOC on the right sidebar about 1/3 of the way down the page at https://sites.google.com/site/edumooc/home.