ATRC - What's New

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What's New in Academic Technology