New Ways
to Communicate
We
have adopted several new
communication tools which will,
we hope, improve communication
with our community and drive the
adoption of technologies that
can improve teaching and
learning. They are:
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our Facebook group
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our training screencasts on our YouTube
channel
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eReaders & Tablets for Checkout
We
now have a number of eReaders (from Amazon, Barnes &
Noble, Sony, Kobo) and tablets (Amazon, B&N, Samsung,
Apple, Dell) for checkout. The idea is to give you
hands on experience with the various products before
making your own purchasing decisions, or, to see what
your students are seeing on their devices. Because
supplies are very limited the checkout period is for two
weeks without possibility for renewal.
We are especially interested in spreading the eText
gospel, and you may be wondering which eReader (or
eReader app) to purchase/use.
Click here for
details.
Laptops for Checkout
We
now have two Dell laptops for checkout to faculty members.
The idea behind this program is to checkout for one week, with a
possible one week renewal, laptops to faculty members who need
them to attend a conference or do a short-term presentation or
project where the faculty member otherwise does not have access
to one. Click here for
details.
Topical Webinars
Beginning on Tuesday, January 17 at
2:00 PM, and at the same time on each Tuesday
throughout the semester (excepting spring break Tuesday, March
20) we will be offering 1-hour webinars (i.e., you login from
your computer, from on or off campus). When the time for
the webinar arrives (give yourself five or ten minutes befor the
time to make sure you make a successful connection)
click
here to login. For a full list of the topics
available,
click here.
POET and the Online Teaching
Checklist
As
part of the recent Western Association of Schools and
Colleges (WASC) accreditation process it was identified that
Palomar College lacked a way to validate that our online
instructors were prepared to teach online.
Our solution was to develop
Palomar Online Education Training (POET), driven by the
“Validation
of Preparedness to Teach Online” Checklist [PDF]. The
Checklist was approved by the Senate, TERB, and the Academic
Technology Committee. In compliance with the accreditation
recommendation, POET validates that our instructors have
received online training.
POET takes about 10 hours to complete, but since it is
modular, it does not need to be completed during any one
semester. PD hours may be listed as variable hours. POET is
open entry/exit, so if you missed the orientations to the
training, contact Lillian Payn (lpayn@palomar.edu
or ext. 3626) to get started. If you want to use the
checklist to evaluate your existing or planned online
classes, please download the pdf
here.
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 through four
modules: 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.
Blackboard Training DVDs
Available Through PC Library
If
you do not have time to attend our in-person training, or
come in to meet with the Blackboard techs, you can still get
excellent Blackboard training by checking out a lynda.com
training DVD "Blackboard 9.x Essential Training for
Instructors" from the library.
Academic Technology has placed 2 copies of
the DVD for faculty/staff only checkout behind the circulation
desk on the 2nd floor of the San Marcos campus library.
"In this course, Dr. Patrick Crispen teaches the ins and outs of
Blackboard 9 so that educators and trainers can get up-to-speed
in the system quickly—even if they've never used Blackboard
before." The DVD course is worth 6.5 hours of PD credit,
which can be claimed through the PD Office.
WordPress DVDs Also Available
Most
new web sites and all new blogs at Palomar College are using our
installation of WordPress. WordPress makes site/blog
management so easy that after initial setup—which in itself is
easy—all you need do is type your content and add your graphics
or other media. It all works well, but if you are
completely new to WordPress, or simply curious about what
WordPress can do and how it does it, you might want to view one
of the lynda.com training DVDs we have made available through
the library.
Here is the course
description from the lynda.com web site: "In WordPress
3 Essential Training, author Morten Rand-Hendriksen shows
how to use WordPress 3 to create feature-rich blogs and web
sites. The course covers both WordPress.com and self-hosted
WordPress.org web sites and includes a walkthrough of common
tasks in WordPress, from setting up an account to launching
self-hosted sites. Also included are tutorials on inserting
media, installing plugins, creating custom themes, and
incorporating search engine optimization. Exercise files
accompany the course."
Video Storage Solution in Place
As
many are aware, at the beginning of the fall 2011 semester we
had run out of space on District media servers for streamed
academic video and audio content. We asked instructors at
that time to hold off on brining new video or audio projects to
us until the space problem could be solved. Our friends in
the IS department have now come up with a solution that doubles
the storage space available to us, so please, if you have been
holding back on bringing in projects for us to digitize, encode
and stream, feel free to bring them in. In fact, now is
the ideal time to bring projects, along with
TEACH
Act authorization or other copyright clearance, for
digitization for spring 2012 semester.
Blackboard 9 has been upgraded
Blackboard version 9 has been
upgraded at Palomar College and
fall 2012 courses are live in it.
Blackboard was upgraded to version 9.1,
Service Pack 7 Hot fix 1 on January 3-4, 2012. The
upgrade went smoothly. See a
fuller description of this patch
here. Remember, your students cannot see your
course materials until you
make the coures available.
If you have not yet received training,
be sure to visit our "Teaching with
Blackboard" tutorials page to learn the
basics. Another valuable resource
is the
Blackboard On Demand Learning Center. If you
wish to explore more about Blackboard,
please attend our fall 2012
Blackboard
online
training workshops. Sign-up now by contacting
the
PD Office, (760) 744-1150 ext. 2250.
The next scheduled Blackboard upgrade
window is June 4-7, when we will upgrade
to SP8.
Camtasia and SnagIt
Licensing
We
have been able to license
TechSmith's Camtasia and SnagIt products
for the new semester. Camtasia is
the easiest and fastest way to create screen videos, convert
PowerPoint to video, create mp3 audio files, or edit
multiple videos and static images into a continuous video
using such sophisticated editing features as multiple
soundtracks, text overlays, screen effects like spotlighting, highlighting,
picture-in-piecture, and pan and zoom effects. SnagIt
is the world's premier screen image capture program with an
easy to use but powerful image editor to add callouts,
images, stamps and other effects to the output. The licenses
are available for any full-time faculty or staff member at
the college to be installed on District-owned computers.
To arrange for installation call the Information Services
help desk at ext. 2140, or send email to
helpdesk@palomar.edu.
TechSmith has a wonderful series of video tutorials and
documentation for these products for those who wish to get
up to speed quickly.
Click here for the Camtasia learning center, and
here
for the SnagIt learning center. We are licensed for
the current versions of both products, Camtasia version 7
and SnagIt version 10. We will be offering workshops
on
Camtasia and
SnagIt next semester.
The
library has funded
NBC
Learn for the next calendar year, so it will be available as
a stand-alone database accessible through the
library's web site,
and integrated into Blackboard, through December 2012.
NBC Learn puts a whole spectrum of
easily embedded video content from the archives of NBC at your
fingertips for use within your Blackboard courses. The methods
of applying this material are fairly straightforward, and
Blackboard provides
a “how-to” video demonstration on using the NBC Learn
content in a course site.
The library also maintains subscriptions to other streaming
video resources, including
Videatives, a
web-based streaming service of over 200 short video clips
demonstrating scenarios in child development and education,
Films on
Demand, over 6,000 current, educational streaming videos
(produced by Films for the Humanities) covering a variety of
disciplines and subjects. For questions about the NBC
Learn subscription, or any of the library database
subscriptions, contact
Tamara Weibtraub.
For information
on how to integrate NBC Learn materials into
your Blackboard courses, contact us.
WordPress has arrived
 For
a couple of years now we have been blogging on
WordPress.com. We have enjoyed it so much that we
wanted our own, locally hosted version of
WordPress, so that Palomar faculty and staff
members could blog or use WordPress to construct
web sites. It makes it easy, and looks
good too. We are in the process of
developing training materials for WordPress, so
do not want to formally "release" it to our
community yet, but for those of you who have
used WordPress—or any blogging platform,
reall—you can get going by simply logging in to
our WordPress
Central site. That site will also keep
you up to date on WordPress themes and plugins
that we continue to add. For now, call (x2862)
or
email us for assistance. It will soon
be public. In the mean time, take a look
at our
Academic Technology @ Palomar College
blog, to get the flavor.
Elegant Themes Available for
Palomar sites & blogs
Themes allow you to change the look (and
sometimes the behavior) of your site with just a couple clicks
of the mouse. There are over a thousand themes available for
free at WordPress.org. Many of them are very attractive and easy
to use. For those who are looking for something even better, I
am happy to announce that we now have all 72 of the premium
themes offered by ElegantThemes available for use on our Palomar
hosted WordPress sites.
Click here for details.
Hardware Checkout
We have handheld
camorders,
microphones,
digital voice recorders,
webcams,
and, coming soon, eReaders available for faculty checkout.
Please contact us if you need any of these devices for class
projects.
Purchase of Microsoft,
Adobe and Dell
Products for Home Use
Microsoft, Adobe and Dell have a great many
new and updated products that can be
purchased at reduced prices for home use
through the Foundation for California
Community Colleges. Proof of
employment will be required. Very low
cost offers include Windows 7 ultimate,
Office 2010 Pro Plus, and a variety of Adobe
CS5 bundles.
Click here to begin the process.
 
MSDN
Academic Alliance - Low Cost or
Free
Microsoft Software for Students, Faculty
and Staff
Microsoft MSDNAA allows students to
purchase Microsoft Computer Science and Business
software at very reduced prices. We maintain
an MSDN portal for registered Palomar students.
Click here for more information.
Respondus & StudyMate No Longer Licensed
Because of limited budgets and vendor increases in price we
no longer license Respondus and Studymate. Copies of these
programs will be available on faculty workstations in room
LL-111.
New Streaming Media Catalog
We have a new TEACH Act
Agreement which must accompany the media you wish us to
encode/stream. By signing the agreement, or clicking "I
Agree" on our video
catalog (requires Palomar login) instructors are certifying
that the media being duplicated meets
TEACH Act Requirements.
Remember, if a video exists in a digital format (DVD or
online streaming) we cannot encode from a VHS (or analog)
original.
If Fair Use, rather than the TEACH Act is being used as the
authority to copy, we also have
resources to Fair Use materials and a helpful Fair Use
worksheet to help instructors determine if their materials meet
Fair Use standards.
Copyright Clearance Resources:
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