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WebCT/Blackboard User Conference
This
is a wonderful time for eLearning—whether teaching online or
supplementing your face-to-face class with Blackboard Campus
Edition 6.1 (formerly WebCT Campus Edition 6.1). Small, powerful
computers and wireless connections, combined with new products and
tools, create unlimited possibilities for content delivery and
pedagogy. I'd like to share with you some highlights of the recent
WebCT/Blackboard User Conference in Chicago and how you can
implement WebCT/Blackboard into your teaching.
Although the name WebCT will no longer be used come August, the
product—Campus Edition—its support, and new tool development will
continue. Many of the bugs have been fixed, and some of the design
improvements recommended have been implemented. There are also a few
new tools in 6.1 that reflect current trends in the web, especially
journaling and blogging.
JCCC has also purchased a site
license for Horizon Wimba, a virtual classroom product that
is also a Blackboard power link within the course shell. Horizon
Wimba adds voice and video to the features and tools already found
in the Chat/Whiteboard tool, as well as application sharing, and
threaded audio discussions. In the late fall, Horizon Wimba will be
rolling out an upgrade whose main feature will be 2-way audio AND
video. Can you say ‘The Jetsons’? (You’ll have to wait for that
flying car, however). The Ed Tech Center will be scheduling a number
of training sessions throughout the semester.
Horizon Wimba works well not only
for synchronous classroom and office hours as a supplement to online
or face-to-face classes, has also been used effectively to teach
foreign languages. Great Bend College, located in Elko, NV with
several satellite centers hundreds of mile away, is using Horizon
Wimba to bridge the distance in Distance Learning.
Blackboard has released a new
integrated Portfolio product that allows both student and
instructor to create portfolios of coursework. Every tool has
a save to Portfolio icon in the Action Link. Although the
default is On for all tools, the instructor has the ability to
disable specific tools, such as quizzes and exams, so that students
can't add exams to their portfolio.
Blackboard
Portfolio has an advantage over other portfolio products in that
students and instructors do not have to learn a new environment
within which to navigate. Students are already familiar with the
Blackboard tools and architecture. And although Portfolio is a
separate product, users can build their portfolio entirely within
the course shell without a separate login.
Also advantageous
is the ability of instructors to use student materials to
demonstrate teaching effectiveness in their Formative or Summative
peer review, or use the Portfolio as the means to record their
formative artifacts for their 3-year continuing contract review.
The user has full
control over access to their portfolio, as well as tracking features
for those who have access to the portfolio. Blackboard is planning
to create a separate for-pay server so that students can keep their
portfolios once they have finished the course or left the college.
For more information go to
http://www.webct.com/portfolio.
Respondus has released a new
product to help eliminate cheating on exams and quizzes.
Respondus Lock-Down Browser locks the browser so that students
cannot surf or run any other programs while taking an exam. It's
potential drawback for Distance Learning courses is that students
must download and install the program on their desktop. Although
only 2.8 mb, students with dial-up connections my experience long
download times.
Marshall University is currently using the Lock-Down Browser for all
proctored and testing lab exams. Many certificate programs, such as
Nursing, use it for their competency exams. Foreign Languages has
also adopted it, as well as faculty in other disciplines. To see a
demo go to
http://www.respondus.com/.
I spoke again at length with Michael Brufun, the sales rep for
Turnitin, about my surprise why JCCC has not yet added this
product to its list of Blackboard power link tools. I can't say
enough about the necessity of this product in higher education in
general, and eLearning in particular. It has saved me hours of time
Googling for plagiarized content. And the Grade Mark and Peer Review
features allow instructors to quickly and more efficiently grade
electronically submitted papers, as well as allowing students to
peer review and critique each others' submissions. Michael is giving
me a free fall subscription to Turnitin so that I can demo the
product live for those faculty who are interested. For more
information about Turnitin go to
www.turnitin.com. Contact me at
michaelr@jccc.edu if you
would like to submit a paper for review and see how Turnitin works. |
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Beginning fall semester, JCCC will offer a new
classroom course, CPCA 107 Distance Learning, which prepares
students to take an online Distance Learning class. But how do
students themselves know whether they need such a preparatory class
to be a successful online student? Northern Michigan University
developed an online quiz that identifies online skills. There are
two quizzes available--one that instructors give to students at the
beginning of the semester, and another that students take before
registering for an online course. The quiz produces a score that
assesses whether the student has the skills necessary to succeed in
an online course, whether the student should take a preparatory
course (like CPCA 107) before taking an online course, or whether
the online environment is not suitable for the learning style of the
student. NMU has made these quizzes available (in Word format) for
faculty and institutions to use and adapt to their own uses (some of
the questions are specific to NMU). You can find these quizzes, and
the PowerPoint presentation, at ....
The big buzz of course is podcasting.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds of content can easily be
embedded into your content pages to supply students with current
articles from print journals or news media. The Ed Tech Center has a
number of training sessions scheduled in the near future on
podcasting.
In addition, many institutions have begun pilot
programs or have already implemented podcast lectures for students
to download onto their mp3 players using RSS. Vendors are developing
hardware and software to make this an easy and automated process.
Mississippi State University developed a pilot program where class
lectures are recorded and automatically published so that students
can download the audio files from Blackboard into their mp3 player.
New hardware and software are integrating sound with the visual
presentations in a 'smart classroom' so that the physical class can
be recorded, downloaded, and reviewed by students. Video will be
added soon.
Next year's conference will be in Boston and,
due to the merger of WebCT and Blackboard, will be the largest
single conference of eLearning in the world. BbWorld'07!
WebCeTera
WebCeTera is a 5-week course that
introduces the instructor as student to Blackboard Campus Edition
6.1 and is typically offered entirely online. This fall the Ed Tech
Center is providing the student/instructor the option to participate
in the introductory modules in a face-to-face environment. This
3-hour afternoon session will introduce you to the basic tools so
you'll feel more comfortable completing the remainder of the course
online. WebCeTera includes tutorial movies, directed online
discussion, optional live chat sessions, a Horizon Wimba Live
Classroom demo, specific learning activities (assignments), quizzes,
and an opportunity to learn online as your online students do. After
the afternoon session on the 16th, the course resumes online on
September 10, 2006. Keep in mind that WebCeTera is not a self-paced
course but rather an interactive class that gives faculty a chance
to experience being an online student. You'll use all the major
Blackboard tools and receive a free textbook (147 Practical Tips
for Teaching Online Groups) plus a WebCeTera t-shirt after
successful completion of the course. For more information and
registration instructions go to
http://web.jccc.net/edtech/training/Schedule.htm.
A reminder for those graduates of
4.1 or 6.0 WebCeTera, or those who have gone
through 6.0 transition training and need refreshers, that all the training materials and Captivate videos are available
online at
TechNotes on the
WebCT
Resources page (Ed Tech Center). You can use the search engine
to find information about a specific tool, or click on the WebCeTera
link under Channels to display an alphabetical list of all WebCT
training documents and videos.
Online Course Information
Guide
It's time to update your online course
information for fall courses. Please review your
information on the
Online Course Information Guide and send any additions or
corrections to me at
michaelr@jccc.edu.
If you are teaching a new online course, please send me your new
page ASAP. Simply cut-and-paste any of your current pages into
FrontPage or Word and use as a template to edit in the new course
information.
Online
Student CD
The online student CD is located at
http://students.jccc.edu/dlorientation. You might want to add
this URL to your Web Links tool. You can also direct students to the
hands-on exercises to help them gain familiarity with WebCT before
the semester begins. To gain access to the
Z - Dev
Courses - DL Orientation shell, type in
OCB30401 to
99 as the User name on the WebCT
login page, and 123456 as the Password.
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