The Ravens have gone, the students are back in force, and summer is over.
DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES
It was a hectic first day of class for us in InTech. Nothing particularly unusual, though. A technical glitch here and there with Blackboard—file uploads without extensions, data integration slips, quizzes that didn’t copy, students not on active directory, classes didn’t get turned on, browsers with security settings that block scripts and cookies. Stuff like that. In addition, we’ve been merging course sections, uploading publisher course cartridges, and just fielding calls throughout the day. All in all, though, things seem to be running relatively smoothly.
I just checked. First day of class, we had (so far) about 1,600 different users sign on to Blackboard and view nearly 40,000 pages.
One surprise here this first week. Chris has been busy showing folks Qualtrics. We honestly didn’t expect that. Actually, we sort of expected that the need for supporting that application to tail off. How many folks really want to do surveys anyway? Turns out, more and more faculty want to use it for peer review, evaluations of projects, signing up for advising, special sessions and the like… as well as doing surveys. Who knew such a tool would be so popular?
Anita is gearing up for several class visits coming up. I think she has seven or eight to do in the next few days. I know she will be meeting classes in labs and working with students on setting up blogs and wikis. And she is doing a lab presentation/workshop for an HRD graduate class on how to use WordPress to set up an ePortfolio. That and supporting the use of e-Beam and interactive whiteboards that several faculty are using.
COMING SOON
Next several days, we’ll be busy putting out the new edition of InTech News and preparing for our fall workshops series. We will get our workshop calendar and sign-up form out by mid-week. This fall, the three of us will be offering nearly 60 workshop sessions. And they start next week!
Chris will be doing the Blackboard series, of course. Pretty much the same as last semester, with a few updates and improvements, and with a little more emphasis on the Blackboard Grade Center. She had a successful series of pre-semester Blackboard workshops just this last couple weeks.
Anita will be doing blogs, wikis, and podcasts. Continuing our collaborative technologies for teaching line…. Anita is also preparing one new workshop–Slide Shows, while significantly updating her workshop on video editing and podcasting fundamentals.
My focus will be the Academic Continuity Class (more on this later), preparing a series of online workshops, and writing a new workshop on WIMBA CLASSROOM. We are very excited about this new application.
Wimba is a live, virtual classroom environment now available in all Blackboard classes. The application includes audio, video, whiteboard, text chat, application sharing, and Mp4 capabilities.
With Wimba, you can create online videos from PowerPoints, “capture lectures,” and meet students online in real time. You can also demonstrate live what you are doing on your computer, and/or take “control” of a student’s computer. What’s more, everything you do can be archived and turned into a podcast.
We’ll be talking up WIMBA quite a bit throughout the year. We’ll have a main article about Wimba in InTech News. And we’ll be offering dozens of workshops. Watch for details coming very, very soon. In InTech News. And here! :-)
