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Academic Technology
FAQs |
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Teaching Online
( see also
http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/teachingonline.htm )
- Q. I want to be an online instructor. How do I get
started?
- Q. What is Blackboard?
- A. Blackboard is the course management system
used by Palomar College. It is a password secured, web-based system where
a "course shell" for every course it is possible
to enroll in is created 90 days prior to the
start of each semester.
Enrollments and instructor assignments are
handled automatically through integration with
the PeopleSoft system.
Once the student logs in, she sees the Blackboard courses
for which she is enrolled, and can enter her class area (if
the instructor has made it available) in
order to read materials, fulfill assignments, take exams,
participate in discussion boards, communicate with the
instructor and classmates, follow web links to learning
resources, and other learning activities. For more
information on Blackboard, visit our
"About
Blackboard" page, and see also the
information published at the
PCOnline web
site. For a brief video
introduction to Blackboard,
click here (QuickTime required).
- Q. What is PCOnline?
- A.
PCOnline
is a web site which acts as the login gateway to the
Blackboard system and also contains information for
online students and instructors.
- Q. Does every class at Palomar have
a Blackboard area associated with it?
- Q. Do I have to use Blackboard?
- A. No. Each class in which it
is possible for a student to enroll gets a
Blackboard "shell" created for it, but students will
only see the Blackboard courses that have been made
available by instructors. It is entirely up to
the instructor whether he/she makes the Blackboard
course available to students.
- Q. I have no intention of teaching
online, or using Blackboard for my class handouts,
can I just ignore the whole thing?
- A. Yes, but you may be interested
in some of the other useful things you can do
through Blackboard. For example, post class
announcements. If you are going to be absent on
a certain day when the class is scheduled to meet,
you can announce it on Blackboard, and students can
check there before driving to campus. You can
also use the email distribution lists within
Blackboard to send group emails to any/all of your
students. You might also find the "digital
drop-box" or the Blackboard assignment feature a useful way for students to turn in
papers electronically. A feature that
students like most about Blackboard is the gradebook,
so you might also be interested in this. There
are many more features that you might wish to make
use of without actually doing any teaching with
Blackboard. If you would like a demonstration,
contact Haydn Davis,
hdavis@palomar.edu,
phone ext. 2341.
- Q. When are the Blackboard course
shells created for the coming semester?
- A. 90 days before the beginning of
the semester. In the summer, this is ninety
days before the beginning of the 6 and 8 week
classes, not 90 days before the beginning of
"intersession 4-week classes."
- Q. When are students enrolled in
Blackboard courses?
- A. Enrollment is automatic and is
tied to PeopleSoft. As soon as a student
officially enrolls in a course via student
eServices, they are enrolled in the corresponding
Blackboard course. An enrollment report runs
each hour on the half hour, so there can be a gap of
as much as 59 minutes between official enrollment
and Blackboard enrollment.
- Q. What happens if a student drops?
Are they automatically dropped from my Blackboard
roster?
- Q. From the Instructor’s perspective, is Blackboard hard to
use?
- A. No. It was chosen primarily for ease of use.
- Q. I don’t want to teach online, but I do want to place my
class handouts and other materials in a secure place on the
web. Can I still use Blackboard?
- A. Yes. The majority of Blackboard courses use
Blackboard to enhance in-person instruction, rather than to
teach exclusively online. It is up to the instructor how
much, or little, of the Blackboard interface to use.
Features within Blackboard are easily enabled or disabled,
according to the instructor’s needs.
- Q. Can I place copyrighted materials within Blackboard?
- Q. Do I have to use Blackboard just to present some basic
materials to my students on the web?
- A. No. See the section titled “Web Authoring” below. We will
set up your own public web space outside of Blackboard. The
reason people use Blackboard is 1) they need a secure web
space; and 2) they wish to take advantage of the tools
available in Blackboard, such as the class discussion board,
the assessment tools, the digital drop box, and so on. A
“best practice” is to use both open, public web space to
communicate general information about yourself and the
courses you teach, and to use the “private” web space of
Blackboard to present detailed course materials.
- Q. Is it easier or harder to teach online?
- A. Yes. Both. It is different. You will spend far more time
preparing materials for online instruction, and a great deal
more time in communication with your students. The good news
is, you can pretty much schedule that time whenever you
want. Haydn Davis has compiled a suggested checklist
of what goes into making up an exemplary online
class.
Click here to view it [PDF]. He also
maintains a web page title "Teaching
Online," which you might find useful.
- Q. Is there a mentor
within my department who can help me get started
with Blackboard?
- A. Perhaps. Contact
Haydn Davis,
hdavis@palomar.edu,
phone ext. 2341, to find out. If
not, Haydn is available to help you.
- Q. Who does the technical
support for Blackboard?
- Q. I just want to put my tests up on Blackboard, so that the
system will grade them for me and place the grades in an
electronic gradebook. Can I do that, without bothering with
the rest of the system?
- Q. My students are having trouble logging in to Blackboard.
Who should they call?
- A. The online help desk, at phone ext.
2862, or email
onlineclasses@palomar.edu. Blackboard
uses Active Directory authentication, which
means that a student must set a password in
eServices BEFORE logging in to Blackboard.
Most student login problems are solved by the
student going to student eServices and setting
or re-setting their password.
- Q. Does Blackboard support the Apple "Safari" browser?
- A. Yes.
Click here
for a list of browsers supported by Blackboard.
- Q. Do students have to have a computer and access to
Internet to take an online class?
- A. We strongly recommend that they have these things, but
strictly speaking, it is possible to use the public
computers in the
Academic Technology labs, or other public
computers, to take an online course without personally
owning a computer. It would be very difficult, however, to
always insure timely access to these resources.
We have devleoped a web site titled "Are
you ready to be an online student?" which
details the equipment, and skills that make for
a successful online student. Consider
directing your students there as a "reality
check" near the beginning of an online course.
- Q. What sort of training do you provide for teaching online?
- A. We offer
several different
workshops in the use of
Blackboard. Depending on what you want to do. You may want
to enroll in only the “Blackboard
Essentials” class, or take all of them.
Click here for our training schedule. Contact
Haydn Davis,
hdavis@palomar.edu, phone ext.
2341 for details.
- Q. Are there FAQs just for students using
Blackboard?
- Q. How long do Blackboard courses
remain on the system?
- A. We keep the previous three semesters,
the current semester, and one future semester (as
sonn as its courses are created) on the system.
We prune courses from the Blackboard system on a
rolling year basis. For example, at the end of
the fall semester, we remove the previous fall
semester's classes.
- Q. How long do students have access
to a Blackboard class after a semester ends?
- Q. Can I audio record my lectures
and place them in my Blackboard class?
- A. Yes. As a matter of fact,
Academic Technology will check out a digital voice
recorder to you to make the recordings. Adding
the recordings to Blackboard is very simple.
- Q. What about plagiarism.
Does Blackboard have any originality checking
features?
- A. Yes. We subscribe to the
TurnItIn service, and you can create any assignment
as a TurnItIn assignment in Blackboard.
Click here for a brief tutorial on using
TurnItIn with Blackboard.
As of fall 2007, we have also implemented Blackboard
SafeAssign, another plagiarism prevention tool
built-in to Blackboard.
- Q. How do I get my Blackboard
course contents copied from one semester to the
next?
- A. Faculty members are responsible
for doing this for themselves using the Blackboard
course copy feature. Remember that your new
semester courses will not be available to students
until you make them available.
- Q. My text book publisher has a
Blackboard course cartridge. Will you load it
for me?
- A. We will be glad to assist you,
but the process is so simple we encourage you to do
it yourself. We have an instructional screen
video on how to do it among all of our
Teaching with Blackboard tutorials.
- Q. Can I meet synchronously with my
class online?
- A. Yes. We have deployed a
product through Blackboard called Elluminate that
permits online synchronous (with the ability to
archive for later viewing) meetings.
Elluminate has great whiteboard and chat features,
supports voice-over-IP audio and streamed video, has
built-in student polling, and permits desktop and
application sharing.
Click here to find out more.
- Q. Can I hold "virtual office
hours?"
- A. Yes, using the Elluminate
product mentioned above. Elluminate permits
creating an online meeting space that combines the
students from all of your classes. It also
permits scheduling the online, synchronous meeting
on a repetitive basis and and notifies you when a
student enters the meeting room.
Academic Technology
Communications
- Q. How can I keep up with
technology news at the college?
- A. Subscribe to the Academic
Technology podcast series. It is a weekly
podcast that includes segments on technology and
download news, the Blackboard Feature of the
Week, Teaching with Technology, Tech Talk
Topics, Gizmo of the Week, and more. You
do not need any special hardware to listen to
podcasts other than a sound card and speakers on
a computer. We recommend iTunes as the
best "podcatching" software.
Click here for more information on podcasts
and how to subscribe.
Subscribe also to the Academic Technology RSS
feed to receive up-to-the-minute notification of
technology news and events at the college.
To subscribe to an RSS feed you will need an RSS
aggregator program (also called "news
aggregators."
Click here for more information.
Finally, subscribe to the Academic Technology
electronic newsletter, which is issued each
Friday. You will find the subscription box
on the main
ATRC web site.
- Q. Do you maintain blogs on using
technology in teaching and learning at the college
- Q. How can I keep up to date with what's
going on in the broader world of technology?
- A. On our
What's New page, we not only feature the
things that are new at Palomar College, we
maintain a set of "World Technology Headlines"
links, updated daily, that attempt to capture
the most interesting current tech stories as
they relate to education, in particular. A
few of these headlines are also published on our
main web page.
Web Authoring
- Q. I want my own Palomar web site. Can you set one up for me?
- Q. I want to have a web page, but don’t have time to learn
how to
make one. Will you do it for me?
- A. Yes. Web pages can
be as simple as creating a document in Word or
PowerPoint and saving for the web, or they can
be complex sites. If you want Academic
Technology to design and set up your site,
contact Chris Norcross at ext. 3225,
cnorcross@palomar.edu.
- Q. Do you teach faculty how to set up and maintain their own
web
sites.
- Q. Can I work on my web pages from my home computer?
- A. Yes, absolutely. All
you need is a working Internet connection. You can update your pages
either
using MS FrontPage, or another authoring tool of your
choice (like Dreamweaver or GoLive). Contact
Chris Norcross (cnorcross@palomar.edu ext. 3225 ) for
details.
- Q. If I want to promote an
upcoming class on the main college web page, how do I get an ad
placed there?
- A. Contact Elaine Armstrong
(earmstrong@palomar.edu). Basically,
what we need from you is the section number,
class title, and some copy to which we can link.
- Q. I don't want to use FrontPage. Can I use Dreamweaver or
GoLive to author my web site?
- A. Yes. Contact Chris Norcross
(cnorcross@palomar.edu ext.
3225) for details on using these products with our servers.
- Q. Are templates available if I want
my web site to look like the main college web site?
- A. Yes, contact Chris
Norcross to receive the template.
- Q. Can I create an interactive web form on your servers?
- A. Yes, using the MS FrontPage server extensions.
- Q. If I want to do my own
scripting, do you support Perl or php scripting on
your servers?
- No. We support asp or MS .NET scripts.
Software
- Q. Can I purchase Microsoft Office from Palomar?
- A. No, but you can purchase it at very low cost
through the Foundation for California Community
Colleges (FCCC). For more information, go
to:
http://www.foundationccc.org
- Q. Is FrontPage still part of Office 2003, and can I buy it
in the same
package from the FCCC?
- A. You can buy it from the same site, but it is sold as a
separate package. It costs around $52.00, and comes bundled
with Publisher.
- Q. Do you have any new software that
faculty can use in your labs?
- A. Yes. We have the CS2 and Pro versions of all
the Adobe products, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive. We also have Premiere
Pro 2.0, AfterEffects 6.5, and Acrobat Pro ver.
7. We have the latest Macromedia
(now Adobe also) products
(Flash MX, etc), the latest encoders for Windows
and Real, the latest Players for Windows, Real
and QuickTime, SPSS 14, PhotoStory 3, Producer
2003, Hot Potatoes 6.4, Respondus and StudyMate,
the Horizon Wimba voice tools, Audacity, and
many others.
- Q. How do I find out about the
latest plugins and browser versions that are
available?
- A. We conduct a
weekly podcast that details all of this.
Each podcast has a very detailed program notes page
associated with it that gives download links for the
latest software. We also maintain a
software download page, where we recommend
certain packages, most of them freeware.
- Q. Does Palomar subscribe to web-based
anti-plagiarism software, like TurnItIn?
- A. Yes. We have purchased an annual
license effective January 2007.
Hardware
- Q. Can I check out a digital voice
recorder from you in order to podcast my lectures or
make audio files for my students?
- A. Yes. We check out the Olympus
WS-100 digital audio recorder and Olympus ME15 tie
clip microphone for semester length classes or
one-time events.
Click here for the checkout request form.
- Q. I want better quality sound than
I can get with a little digital voice recorder.
What can I do?
- A. We have a Shure, wireless microphone
that can be used in conjunction with a laptop
computer to get better quality sound in the
classroom environment. In the studio, we have
a soundproof audio recording booth with a high
quality condenser microphone and a Euro audio mixer.
The audio recording booth is located in the
faculty
technology center. Contact Terry Gray, ext.
2877,
tgray@palomar.edu for details.
- Q. Can I check out a laptop computer from
you?
- A. No. The AV department is
responsible for faculty laptop checkout.
However, we do have two tablet PCs that we
check out to faculty for limited times (no longer
than 2 weeks at a time). Contact Terry Gray,
ext. 2877,
tgray@palomar.edu for details.
- Q. Do you have radio frequency
polling devices (clickers) that I can use in the
classroom?
- A. Yes. We have 64-each RF Polling
Devices, in two suitcases, with two base-stations
which can be checked out. We have also site
licensed the software for synchronizing your
questions or powerpoint presentations with polls you
may wish to use.
Click here for the checkout request form.
- Q. Do you recommend certain
hardware?
- Q. Can I bring my home computer in
to have you work on it?
- Q. Can I call for help with my home
computer?
- A. You can call ext. 2862 to report
problems you are having connecting to Palomar
College web resources. Our technicians will
try to determine if the problem has anything to do
with Palomar College servers or systems. If
they discover that it is a home computer
configuration problem, they may, depending on the
problem, advise you, but they cannot help you with
home networking, cable modem configuration, ISP
related issues, or home hardware failures.
Web Services
- Q. Academic Technology offers a large number of web
services. How do I find out more about them,
and how do I request them?
- A. Go to our
Services
web page. Click the links on
that page for a specific service.
- Q. I want my students to post their projects to the web,
will you set
up secure accounts for them?
- A. Yes. We will create ftp/web
authoring accounts for entire classes. Use
the web
form at the URL indicated above and send us the section
number. We will create the accounts and email you the access details.
Students can
update these pages by using a standard ftp program, like
SmartFTP.
- Q. I want to use an online bulletin board for my class to
carry on
asynchronous discussions and keep them informed. Can you set
one
up for me?
- A. We recommend you use the
Discussion Board built into Blackboard.
For more information about Blackboard, contact
David Gray (
dgray@palomar.edu ext. 2862).
- Q. I would like to put some audio or video on my web site,
but don’t
know how. Can you help?
- A. Yes. We maintain Real media and Windows media servers. We
can help with any or all of the process, including original
production of
the audios or videos. Contact Terry Gray (
tgray@palomar.edu
ext. 2877 ) for details.
- Q. I do not own Adobe Acrobat.
How can I convert my word processing and other
documents to PDF format?
- A. We maintain a service called "PCPDF."
Submit your document via a web form at the PCPDF
site. It will convert it to PDF format and
email it back to you as an email attachment.
It supports over 180 file formats, and usually
processes a document in seconds. A Palomar
College email address and email password are
required to login to the site.
Media Services
- Q. My duplication budget has been cut, so I now need to
place my handouts on the web. Can you help me?
- A. Yes. Contact Elaine Armstrong
(earmstrong@palomar.edu
ext. 2644) for help in placing your handouts on the web.
Depending on their nature, they can be placed either in your
faculty web space, or on our Blackboard server. The
TEACH Act of 2002 gives us fairly wide latitude
in placing audio and video materials in a secure
web space, but its provisions do not extend to
printed materials, except where those materials
would typically be displayed or performed in a
live class. Therefore any printed
materials placed in your Blackboard site must
pass a fair use test. More information on
copyright laws and fair use can be found at:
http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/atpolicies.htm.
- Q. I have 35mm slides I would like scanned and saved for the
web.
Will you do this?
- A. This is now done by the Audio Visual department. Contact
Lee
Hoffmann (lhoffmann@palomar.edu) at ext. 2640.
- Q. I would like a CD duplicated for my class. Can you do
this for me?
- A. In reasonable numbers (under 100 copies), yes. You must
supply
the blank CD-R media. We can master the CD for either/both
Windows
and Macintosh.
- Q. Will you also print labels for
the CDs for me?
- A. Yes, if you supply the paper stock.
- Q. Will you digitize audio or video files for me?
- A. Yes. If it is a large project (multiple hours/tapes) it
may take some
time. We will do it as quickly as possible. We now
encode for Windows media only, and have
discontinued our support for Real media except
by special request.
- Q. Can you teach me how to capture audio and video
to be
placed on
the web?
- A. Yes. Contact Terry Gray (
tgray@palomar.edu ext. 2877
). We offer TBA training on this topic for
which you can get Professional Development credit.
- Q. Can you place video clips on a DVD for me?
- A. Yes, as long as the disk is used according to US
copyright laws.
- Q. Can you help me make my own video?
- A. Yes. PCTV and Academic Technology are working together to
produce faculty videos and then placing them on the web.
Contact Terry Gray, ext. 2877 for details.
- Q. Can I podcast my lectures?
- A. Yes. We have two podcast
solutions in place.
Click here for details if you wish to conduct a
public podcast outside Blackboard.
Click here if you wish to podcast to your class
within Blackboard.
Training
- Q. What kind of technology training
do you offer?
- A. To find out about our
training, visit
http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/attraining.htm.
To see our current training schedule, visit
http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/attrainingschedule.htm.
We offer training for teaching online, web technologies,
Office productivity, as they relate to the classroom
experience, graphics, and streaming media.
In addition to Academic Technology training,
Palomar faculty and staff can take advantage of
a number of free training opportunities
available through the FCCC, the State of
California, or free vendor training. These
are described in more detail on our training web
page.
- Q. How do I sign up for your technology training
workshops?
- A. We work closely with the Professional Development
department
(
http://www.palomar.edu/pd
). Use their online registration form to sign
up.
- Q. Will you do custom training for a department or small
group?
Labs
- Q. Do you maintain computer classroom labs?
- A. Academic Technology maintains two classroom
labs (LL-104 and LL-109
see map).
Each classroom lab is equipped with 30 student
workstations and an instructor workstation.
We also maintain a large public lab (72
workstations) a faculty technology lab (5
workstations) and 2
wireless
mobile labs. We check out
laptop computers to students for use within the
San Marcos campus library building. For
more details on the labs,
click here.
- Q. How do I reserve time to bring my class into the
classroom lab?
- Q. How do I schedule one
of the classroom labs to teach
a semester length course?
- Q. Do you charge for printing in your labs?
- A. Yes. Lab users
can print to the black & white printer for 10-cents
per page, or the color printer for 30-cents per
page. To do so they must make a one time
purchase of a print card for 50 cents
(non-refundable) and then add value to the card on
the card vending machine on the ground floor of the
San Marcos campus library.
- Q. What is the general information number for your computer
labs?
- A. 760-744-1150 ext. 2657.
- Q. How can students save their work
in your labs?
- A. Generally speaking, they can
always save to a CD (all our computers have CD-RW
drives) or a Flash drive (all also have USB ports
accessible to students). If we have created
FTP/Web folders for the student's class, they can
save to that folder too. Finally, if a student
is using Blackboard, they can save work on the
Blackboard server in the digital drop box.
Students can always email work to their home
computers for storage, or use a Yahoo or other
web-based storage system.
- Q. A CD comes with my textbook. Can students use them in the
AT
labs?
- A. Almost always the
answer is yes. If the CD does not require a
software
installation, or if it requires one but does not require a
reboot after installation, they can. Any software installed will automatically be
removed after
the computer is rebooted.
- Q. Will you install
special software in your lab for my class for the
coming
semester?
- A. Yes. If you get it to us by the appropriate deadline: the
preceding
April 30 for the summer semester, June 30 for the Fall
semester,
November 30 for the Spring semester.
Wireless Labs
- Q. How do I reserve the
mobile wireless lab for my class?
- A. Fill out and submit the Faculty Reservation Form at the
mobile wireless lab web site:
http://www.palomar.edu/at/mobilelabs. You will receive a confirmation email from Academic
Technology within 1 business day. If you have
questions, phone Myrna at ext. 2657.
- Q. How far in advance do I have to reserve the mobile lab?
- A. We require 1-week's prior notice.
- Q. Do I have to have special technical knowledge to use the
lab?
- A. No. Just basic computer skills. The ATRC technician who
delivers the mobile lab to your classroom will hook up the
wireless access point(s) to the network port(s) in your
classroom and verify that network connectivity works.
- Q. What do I do if one or more of the laptops do not
function correctly in my classroom?
- A. Included with the mobile wireless lab will be an error
log for you to fill out so that the problem can be resolved.
- Q. What resources are available on the laptops?
- A. Internet connectivity is available. Further,
most of the
software that can be found in the Academic Technology lab is
installed, including the Office 2003 suite, most Adobe and
Macromedia software, all the media players, and many
specialized tutorials.
- Q. Can I check out the laptops to my students overnight?
- A. No. The mobile wireless labs are intended first for
rotating classroom use, and secondly to be checked out to
individuals working within the San Marcos campus library
building.
- Q. How do I return the mobile lab to Academic Technology
when my class is over?
- A. An Academic Technology technician will return to your
classroom before the scheduled end of the class to pick up
the mobile lab. You must never leave the laptops unattended.
- Q. Who is responsible if the equipment is damaged?
- Q. How do my students save their work? Can they save it on
the hard drive of the laptop?
- A. Students cannot store their work on the hard drive of the
computer. The computers are equipped with a program called
Deep Freeze, which returns them to initial state when they
are rebooted. Any stored work or temporary files saved
during a session will be lost on reboot. When you reserve
the computers you can choose whether you want them
configured with a CD-RW drive. If so, students can save to
this drive. They must provide their own media. If students
have a USB flash drive, they may also use this. Otherwise,
they must email their saved work to themselves and store it
temporarily on a mail server or, if you wish, Academic
Technology will create FTP accounts and drive space for your
class and the students can ftp their work to an Academic
Technology server. If you want FTP accounts created for your
class, use our FTP request form at the Academic Technology
web site:
http://www.palomar.edu/atrc. Allow at least
1-week's prior notice for creation of student accounts.
Finally, there are many web-based storage
services that your students might take advantage
of.
- Q. Can faculty members check out
the laptops?
- A. No. They are strictly
for classroom and student use.
- Q. Can I use my own laptop in the
classroom, while the students use the laptops from
the mobile lab?
General Questions
- Q. Where, physically, is Academic Technology located?
- A. On the ground floor of the
library (LL) building on the San Marcos campus
(see map).
-
Q. Are you the ones responsible for student email?
-
A. No. Contact student services for help, ext. 3143.
-
Q. Are you the ones responsible for faculty email?
-
A. No. Contact the IS helpdesk at ext. 2140.
-
Q. Where do I report PeopleSoft or eServices problems?
-
A. The IS helpdesk, ext. 2140.
- Q. How do I get help with
Blackboard, and how do my students get help?
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LINKS
