Sunday 07/08/2012

A useful introduction to a feature that will be of great use to the new Russ Berrie Institute online graduate program, and probably others as well.

Snapshot – designate various courses as templates

Manual – just use Wizard

If the template is a matter of menu items the changes can be broadcast across the arc of courses. To add content one needs to use snapshot.

• We probably want to add content. Need to brief RBI.

Topics:

• Navigation
• Content
• Assessments
• Collaboration
• Learner support

Navigation

Simple – don’t make me think – concise and clean

Chunking content – divide text into short blocks – vids into no more than five mins (not 50-mins of a talking head). Balance against white space.

The importance of uniformity within and between templates is important. Students shouldn’t have to work hard to navigate through a course or through different courses in a program.

=> This is something to advertise to potential user

Good course entry points should have content, which is why the announcements page works well. Is that what RBI is going to want? We have to talk to them about it. Maybe they want a special course/program intro page?

Accessibility: no color coded; all video needs transcripts Camstasia creates transcripts.

Specify objectives – Allow students who want or need more to get that info

Color palettes:

http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes/rating?time=30

One can submit a color and a palette will be created for you.

She stresses Guide on the Side oriented development.

Effective feedback is timely, frequent, specific, descriptive and not evaluative

Collaboration – again, simple and frequent with clear expectations, without excessive instructor involvement– Communication, collaboration, cooperation, community

Building in support: Technical help, institutional training and support, instructor contact info, links to institutional policies, support for disabled learners, opportunity for feedback.

Might want to create all of these and leave instructors the option to use those they need

http://learning.blackboard.com/

Sunday 07/08/2012

Snapshot – designate various courses as templates

Manual – just use Wizard

If the template is a matter of menu items the changes can be broadcast across the arc of courses. To add content one needs to use snapshot.

• We probably want to add content. Need to brief RBI.

Topics:

• Navigation
• Content
• Assessments
• Collaboration
• Learner support

Navigation

Simple – don’t make me think – concise and clean

Chunking content – divide text into short blocks – vids into no more than five mins (not 50-mins of a talking head). Balance against white space.

The importance of uniformity within and between templates is important. Students shouldn’t have to work hard to navigate through a course or through different courses in a program.

=> This is something to advertise to potential user

Good course entry points should have content, which is why the announcements page works well. Is that what RBI is going to want? We have to talk to them about it. Maybe they want a special course/program intro page?

Accessibility: no color coded; all video needs transcripts Camstasia creates transcripts.

Specify objectives – Allow students who want or need more to get that info

Color palettes:

http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes/rating?time=30

One can submit a color and a palette will be created for you.

She stresses Guide on the Side oriented development.

Effective feedback is timely, frequent, specific, descriptive and not evaluative

Collaboration – again, simple and frequent with clear expectations, without excessive instructor involvement– Communication, collaboration, cooperation, community

Building in support: Technical help, institutional training and support, instructor contact info, links to institutional policies, support for disabled learners, opportunity for feedback.

Might want to create all of these and leave instructors the option to use those they need

http://learning.blackboard.com/

Bb Analytics for Learn

Customer Field Trial Panel: Early Findings and Insights

Just released – combines Bb data with data from the SIS and stores in a data warehouse. The point is to improve student retention, engagement, optimize blended learning

It would be a good idea to get this particular presentation.

Can also work to support the operational side – when are the best times to staff the help desk, etc.

Data can be received in dashboards, reports, and dynamic analyses.

UM Baltimore County. Their president gave the initial keynote.

Happy happy.

Grand Rapids CC – Kunnen

Project Astro

but felt he needed more – analytics for learn. Thinks it will help them keep track of data. Yeah, but the question is =did it=?!

Montgomery CC – some wealthier areas, and then there is anthracite Pottsville. Hello George Korson.

Their pilot group recommended buying the product.

Like we need to send Bb more money. Does anyone else feel that way? Learn, content management, collaborate, now Analytics. Fine tools, limited resources. We go back to the provost and say “This will tell us a) how well Bb is doing and b) how it can improve what we are doing,” and he says: “Great. When you find the money you can buy it . . . “ siigghh

Unfortunately this session feels to me like a packaged advertisement. I was looking for more content, less marketing.

For example the audience question session started out with another set of prepared statements from the panelists. Why call it a question session if most of the period is taken up with more cheerleading?

Using Bb Learn as a Hub of Social Media

Beth Burns

Buffalo State, but teaches in a CC

Voice is an important aspect of  education.

Vyou – voice – she uses it as an “ask the instructor” forum. Students ask a question and the professor can record a video answer. She feels as though it is like having a chat with a student after class.

http://vyou.com/

It is a free service, and right now there is no limit. Privacy settings allow you to control who can see what.

The videos can not be downloaded.

You can use this to update your status. I guess that could be used in lieu of (or in addition to) Announcements.

Honestly in a world with Collaborate I don’t see the point. Of course Burns started using it before Collaborate came along, one imagines. And it is still a solution for schools that don’t use Collaborate.

VioiceThread – there are “pro” accounts, pay accounts, but you can create three. Individuals can get an account for $100/annum. It is an interactive multimedia slide show. Students can comment in at least five ways.

http://voicethread.com/

Some faculty are using it to upload their lectures. Again, Tegrity and/or Collaborate are more sophisticated tools for the same thing, at least for the schools that have adopted those tools.

She finds it interesting to see her students, to see what they look like the areas from which they choose to broadcast.

The speaker thinks that students learn better when they associate pictures with words.

Picasa

The speaker is addressing the slide show aspect of Picasa. I’d note that the Bb Mashup tool incorporates SlideShare. Why use something else unless the other tool is a very good one. Picasa is good, but if you have a Google+ account you’ll want to create a unique Picasa account in order to avoid sharing out your presentations in an inappropriate format..

http://picasa.google.com/

This presentation would have benefited from a more descriptive title?

Communication Strategies for online education

Wednesday morning – Karen Watson, Fort Valley State University

Orientation: Beginning of the year they use collaborate to have university leaders get together and introduce students to the new semester. Was hard to get the admins to participate.

=> Maybe we could do the same thing but with deans?

=> We could augment the developing a tech orientation for new faculty with a series of collaborate sessions!

Faculty use Collaborate for office hours.

They have a Collaborate help desk for students and another for faculty.

=> We can offer Collaborate help sessions for faculty by appointment.

They use Connect to send student systems messages, emergency messages, reminders about the closing of add classes . . .

Random thoughts, people – the actual session was much more detailed. See Watson for more information!

Wednesday morning, Bb staff members

Collaborate is going mobile

Enterprise instant messaging

Voice authoring – will this eliminate our need for the Tegrity lecture capture tool?

The mobile app will be in the app store soon!

Echo cancellation eliminates the need for a headset

Captioning window is improved – ADA compliance

Works more seamlessly with various other LMS

A scheduled session gets added to the Calendar – the Bb calendar, not the university calendar. This is a problem at my university where members of the administration urge faculty to avoid the Bb app in order to force people to use the university calendar.

New: grade center support – any session is a gradable activity. Column is added in the GC and if the point value is set to zero the tool will simply note the users presence, making it an attendance tool.

Road ahead

Reusable content – making recordings easily distributable – mp4 – going into beta soon

Long term: concentration on creation, storage &­ access

2-way video on the mobile app

moderation ability on the ipad app

streamlined deployment – ie, ldap (but if our Bb uses ldap already won’t collaborate by extension?)

This presentation likely features learning elements/strategies we’ll use when training faculty.

Preloaading content, as we can do with the templates, is going to be useful.

I strikes me that collaborate changes the entire canvas of support. Using collaborates we can share out with users an application or our desktop or we can take control of their computer. No more “I’m sorry but I can’t see what you’re seeing.” I imagine we’ll be using collborate for support on a daily basis. We can pre-load content (documentation). The possibilities are deep and transformative.

Marianne and Jennifer did a bang up job! We all had a good time and now I really do know my elbow from that other body part.

Sunday 07/08/2012

A useful introduction to a feature that will be of great use to the new Russ Berrie Institute online graduate program, and probably others as well.

Snapshot – designate various courses as templates

Manual – just use Wizard

If the template is a matter of menu items the changes can be broadcast across the arc of courses. To add content one needs to use snapshot.

• We probably want to add content. Need to brief RBI.

Topics:

• Navigation
• Content
• Assessments
• Collaboration
• Learner support

Navigation

Simple – don’t make me think – concise and clean

Chunking content – divide text into short blocks – vids into no more than five mins (not 50-mins of a talking head). Balance against white space.

The importance of uniformity within and between templates is important. Students shouldn’t have to work hard to navigate through a course or through different courses in a program.

=> This is something to advertise to potential user

Good course entry points should have content, which is why the announcements page works well. Is that what RBI is going to want? We have to talk to them about it. Maybe they want a special course/program intro page?

Accessibility: no color coded; all video needs transcripts Camstasia creates transcripts.

Specify objectives – Allow students who want or need more to get that info

Color palettes:

http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes/rating?time=30

One can submit a color and a palette will be created for you.

She stresses Guide on the Side oriented development.

Effective feedback is timely, frequent, specific, descriptive and not evaluative

Collaboration – again, simple and frequent with clear expectations, without excessive instructor involvement– Communication, collaboration, cooperation, community

Building in support: Technical help, institutional training and support, instructor contact info, links to institutional policies, support for disabled learners, opportunity for feedback.

Might want to create all of these and leave instructors the option to use those they need

http://learning.blackboard.com/