Academic Technology Training

Blackboard is the essential tool for conducting technology-enhanced teaching at Palomar College. It is used to organize and present teaching and learning materials, conduct class communications, interact with students, carry out assessments, deliver assignments and perform grade book and other record-keeping functions.  This is a demonstration (hands-off) workshop to introduce participants to the Blackboard Learning System, including how to login to Backboard and review self-help videos.  The range of teaching tools available within Blackboard will be discussed.

Whether you are new to teaching online or looking for new approaches, the POET series guides you through the process by offering methods, techniques, tools, checklists, and best practices for delivering an effective online course. POET focuses on the pedagogy of online learning, not how to use Blackboard. The face-to-face orientation will get you started, and then you will complete four modules online: Online Learning, Using Blackboard Tools (or other management systems), Effective Design, and Course Management. You will earn a Certificate of Completion at the end of the training.

Online learning is as good as, if not better, than face-to-face learning. In this session, a panel of your Palomar College colleagues from a range of disciplines will share their best practices for delivering an online course that is effective, efficient and satisfying for the student and the instructor. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions and interact with each other.

Whether you are new to teaching online or looking for new approaches, the POET series guides you through the process by offering methods, techniques, tools, checklists, and best practices for delivering an effective online course. POET focuses on the pedagogy of online learning, not how to use Blackboard. The face-to-face orientation will get you started, and then you will complete four modules online: Online Learning, Using Blackboard Tools (or other management systems), Effective Design, and Course Management. You will earn a Certificate of Completion at the end of the training.

Description: This hands-on workshop explains how to:

Understanding the PowerPoint 2010 user interface
Construct a simple PowerPoint presentation
Modify its design
Add text and graphics
Use SmartArt diagrams
Perform basic drawing tasks
Print from PowerPoint
Present PowerPoint in the classroom
Save presentations for the web

We will be creating a simple presentation with PowerPoint 2010 during this workshop.

The flexibility of online learning attracts many students who already are facing many challenges. What strategies can we incorporate to keep our courses relevant and appealing to increase motivation and student success? Let’s review existing research, make recommendations at the college level, and explore practices within our various disciplines for improving online class retention. In this workshop, you will leave with a list of specific retention techniques you can use in your online classes.

Are your students tired of the same old chat sessions in online classes? Liven your synchronous online classes up with Elluminate Live! Students enjoy the video, sound, photos, graphics, white board, demos of software and Web interactivity possible in this Blackboard tool. It is great for office hours, troubleshooting with students, and delivering instruction. In this workshop, you will participate in a hands-on class using Elluminate Live!.

Since the majority of our students are members of the “wired” generation who already are active producers and consumers of media, instructors are challenged to incorporate relevant and useful media in their lectures. In this workshop, you will identify the resources readily available to us on campus; connect our classes and students to our media choices; and determine a number of techniques for effectively using media in both face-to-face and online classes.

As we move our face-to-face courses to an online environment, we have an opportunity to revise our content for our audience and technology. The instructor-student roles also change in eLearning, with instructors guiding learners who have vast amounts of information available via the Internet. No longer mere providers of information, our online courses become venues in which learners interact with the instructor, each other, and the course content. In this workshop, you will review a number of pedagogical approaches and strategies that are useful in online classes; develop a list that is relevant to your discipline; and create some specific new assignments and projects.

Whether needing to get a course site ready at the last minute, or planning ahead for the next semester, there are several things that should be in a Blackboard course before it is ready for Day One with the students. In this workshop we will demonstrate and create samples of these core elements of a Blackboard course.

This workshop is suitable for faculty of both online and on-campus classes who wish to use Blackboard. This workshop does not assume a prior experience with using Blackboard. It is highly recommended that you complete this workshop before any of the other online workshops in the Blackboard series.

Handouts, videos, lectures, PowerPoint slides; there are many things which can be distributed to students through your Blackboard course. In this workshop we will discuss several different best practices for distributing handouts and PowerPoint presentations, and create some sample content for uploading into Blackboard. We will also discuss the process of adding audio and video content to a Blackboard course, and do exercises in organizing material in a Blackboard course according to an appropriate structure plan.

This workshop is suitable for faculty of both online and on-campus classes who wish to use Blackboard. It is highly recommended that you complete the “Blackboard: Getting Ready for Day One” workshop before attempting this workshop.

Students need some way to turn in work, and get assessed; Blackboard has tools to allow students to turn in work and get assessed! In this workshop we will create samples of several of the tools Blackboard makes available for assessing students, ranging from Surveys and Tests all the way to plagiarism detection of essays. We will also explore the tools for managing grades in the Blackboard Grade Center.

This workshop is suitable for faculty of both online and on-campus classes who wish to use Blackboard, even for those who do not plan to conduct online testing. It is highly recommended that you complete the “Blackboard: Getting Ready for Day One” workshop before attempting this workshop.

Synchronous and asynchronous tools, e-mail and chat and discussion boards; communicating with students can be far more than holding office hours on campus. In this workshop we will explore several of the core communication tools built into Blackboard, then consider the virtues of adding other communication avenues to your course site.

As this workshop deals with the use of synchronous communications, it will be necessary to schedule a time with the facilitator to hold an online session. The exact timing of that session is highly adjustable, however, and can be made to fit your schedule.

This workshop is suitable for faculty of both online and on-campus classes who wish to use Blackboard, although many of the communication tools are of lesser value when used with the constant in-person meetings of an on-campus class. It is highly recommended that you complete the “Blackboard: Getting Ready for Day One” workshop before attempting this workshop.