 |
|
Thomas Carlyle |
Next week is the final week of classes, then
finals week, then we are done for the semester.
Dave is back at work this week, and has sorely been
missed. Elaine is getting ready to depart for
Thailand on the 9th with the Toys for Thailand
effort, the rest of us are hard at work. We
are planning an upgrade to Blackboard--Blackboard
7.1 App pack 1--immediately after commencement.
We are also planning to install the Wimba voice
tools in Blackboard and to develop our training
schedule for Fall 2006.
Our show today features downloads, upgrades and
tech news for those at Palomar, a Blackboard feature
of the week, looking forward to version 7.1, a
teaching with technology segment from Haydn, my tech
talk topic on training, and the gizmo of the week.
Campus Tech News
- StudyMate has been updated to version
1.5.5a. If you are a StudyMate user, click
Help > Check for Update > Get Update. On
exiting the update will be automatically
applied. If you have never used StudyMate,
and want to install it,
click here. You will need your Palomar
username and password to access this site.
- Windows XP desktop search has been upgraded
to version 2.6.5.
Click here for the download. The beta
of version 3 of desktop search has also been
released.
Click here for information and download.
Remember this is beta software.
-
Current passwords for off-campus access to the
library’s
online research databases expire on May 21,
2006. Beginning this Friday, May 5, Palomar
College
faculty and staff may request new
passwords. Most new passwords won’t
actually work before May 21, however, so
continue to use your old passwords until then
(if you are requesting passwords for the first
time, you will receive two sets of passwords –
one that expires on May 21, and one that is
valid after that date). You can register
for passwords by completing the
online registration form, or in person or by
phone at the Library Circulation Desks of the
San Marcos campus (x2614) or the Escondido
Center (x8113) during
normal operating hours.
- CCC Confer announced this week a free
webinar by Bob Bramucci, Dean of the Open Campus
at Riverside CC, who will speak on "What you
really need to know about Distance Education."
The webinar will be on May 17 from 2-3pm.
Click here for more information,
here to register, or call CCC Confer at
(760) 744-1150 ext. 1537.
- Google Calendar is now available, a free,
online shareable calendar service. A gmail
account is required.
Click here for an overview. If you are
a Google calendar yser, you should know that
Prof. Carey Carpenter has placed the
Spring 2006 through Spring 2007 academic
calendars into a public calendar. To find
it, enter "Palomar College" in the "search
public calendars box while in Google calendar.
- The Google page creator is now also
available. It was deployed several weeks
ago, but the demand was overwhelming so they
shut it down and took signups. Now it is
ready for operation.
Click here for more information. A
gmail account is required.
-
The Concert Hour
for May 11 will be the final
concert hour until next Fall, and will feature
the honor recital for Palomar music students, 12:30pm room D-10, or live on the web.
Upcoming Training Workshops
-
We have completed our training for the spring
semester, and are now planning a schedule and
approach for Fall 2006. See the tech talk
topic below.
-
@ONE and
FCCC have free online eLearning.
Microsoft and
Adobe both have excellent free training
materials online.
Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray
We are planning to upgrade to Blackboard version 7.1
App pack 1 after the end of the spring
semester--immediately after. There will be
some changes new to intersession and summer
instructors. Nothing earth shaking, but some
significant changes in the discussion board.
Dave talks about the upcoming changes in this week's
feature.
Click
here for a written summary of the major changes. To hear
David Gray, discuss the changes, click the speaker icon:
Listen to this segment
[mp3 - 7.8MB - Play time
= 16:30]
David's discussion
was taken from
episode 16
of the Academic Technology Podcast series, originally available the
week of May 4.
Teaching with Technology - Dr. Haydn Davis
Today Haydn discusses two topics: 1) identifying
the at-risk distance learning student; and 2)
Resources for Online Instructors.
Links
Tech-Talk-Topic
Technology Training
We are in the throes of planning our training
schedule for Fall 2006, and we want to make some
rather broad changes in the way things are done.
See the Carlyle quote above.
In the past, we have usually trained to the
product. That is, we have held workshops
in PowerPoint, FrontPage, Photoshop, StudyMate,
and so on. Focused, naturally for
teaching/learning uses, but heavily dependent on
product features. The sort of click here,
click there training that is so common. We
want to move to a more inclusive approach with
more complete offering in concept areas.
Rather than PowerPoint 1, we want to offer a
series of workshops in presentation skills.
Of course, certain workshops will be dedicated
to PowerPoint, because it is the pre-eminent
presentation tool and we are site licensed for
it, be we also want to do a workshop dedicated
to presentation techniques, both technical
(projectors, wireless mice, speakers, mics, etc)
and pedagogical (the use of polling devices,
rich media tools, etc).
We also want to improve attendance, make the
training more effective in translating into the
classroom, electronic and otherwise, and extend
it to those who cannot attend in person.
Here are the broad training areas we are
thinking to focus in:
- Technology Essentials
- Presentation Skills
- Document Preparation Skills
- Communication Skills
- Assessment
- Teaching and Learning Strategies
We will also continue the dedicated
Blackboard Certificate program, where a cohort
of newbies go through a series of in-person and
online meetings to learn Blackboard and produce
an actual course site.
Within each of the broad areas listed above,
we hope to offer a set of workshops that cover
the topic fairly exhaustively from the
technology point of view, and allow optional
sign-up for one, several or all workshops in a
technology area. What will make this more
effective, we feel, is to include a Blackboard
component for each workshop within each area
that will contain all reference materials,
resources, and a workshop assessment. We
are contemplating a single Blackboard course, in
which all faculty are enrolled, and which
contain all the training materials categorized
as indicated above. Needless to say, the
course will have a great deal of content.
We also plan to use
CCC Confer to deliver some of the training,
and use it within some areas of the training
also.
We need to produce our workshop schedule by
next week, for the Professional Development
catalog, so I will report next week on the
results. If you have suggestions, please
contact
tgray@palomar.edu in the coming week.
Listen to this segment
[mp3 - Play time
= 7:25
Gizmo of the week
The
Beerbelly. "A removable spare tire that
serves a stealth beverage." "If you don’t care
if you have a big belly or not, and would like an
innovative way of carrying around your beer (or
other beverage) - this one is for you. It’s the
Beerbelly! The beerbelly bladder is made out
of polyurethane, and it holds up to 80oz. You can
also purchase an optional freeze pack that holds
your drink cold for hours. The combined Beerbelly
and freeze pack is yours for just over $60."
Link:
The Beerbelly.
(Source:
Fosfor gadgets)
Music
The
music for today's show was provided by
Magnatune.com, and is used through their
Creative Commons license for podcasts. Today's
album was
Wild Wood by
Shira Kammen, who we also featured on our St.
Patrick's day show (episode
10), part of Magnatune's Folk and Medieval
collections.
We
used tracks 1: "Shetland Set;" 3: "Chi Mi Na
Morbheanna;" 4: The Petticoat Set;" 6: "Pat Do
This;" 8: "Lord May's Set;" 11: "Pasa Viene;" 12: "Eu
Chorea;" 14: "Stone and Flax;" 16: "Girl's Night
Out."
Visit
magnatune and reward them for their generosity,
and if you like this album, buy it. Magnatune is not evil!
"Sometimes I
think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not.
In either case, the thought is staggering."
--R. Buckminster Fuller
Subscribe |
How? -
Podcast Help |
ATRC Podcast Index
|
ATRC News
Podcast
for May 4, 2006 - Episode 16
