January 12, 2007 Contents Technology and Download News Briefs Training Opportunities The Blackboard Feature of the Week:      "Please Hold On to the Bar" Teaching with Technology: "xxxxx" Tech Talk Topic: "What's New for Spring 2007" For more, visit our podcast notes page for Episode 46.

TurnItIn Available   Palomar has purchased an annual license for the TurnItIn anti-plagiarism service.  See the Tech Talk Topic below to learn how to use it.  We also have new voice tools and a new instant messaging client for use with Blackboard  this semester.

Technology and Download News Briefs

• We are extremely pleased to announce the birth of Chloe Rei Phillips to Shay and Irene Phillips on December 23, 2006.  Shay is our valued Academic Technology Blackboard and systems technician, Irene, at one time, worked in our Academic Technology labs.  They have now had a blessed event.  Chloe is healthy and all are doing well.
   
• Our Blackboard system has been updated with the latest fixes.  The fixes addressed a problem we had seen related to using the Blackboard visual text box editor on Mac OS X using Safari 2.  It is now possible to use the visual text box editor on that platform.
   
• The power shutdown to the north end of campus that we were expecting January 13 has been canceled until further notice, according to the Facilities Office.
   
• CCCSAT is making a call for entries in its 2nd annual student film and video festival.  "California Community College faculty and students are encouraged to submit their best student produced work to compete for top prizes in the 2nd Annual Student Film and Video Festival. CCCSAT will recognize and reward students for achievements in video, film, broadcasting and animation. Entries must be postmarked no later than January 31, 2007 and submitted to CCCSAT with the official entry form."  Click here for entry rules, prizes and further information, or email Chris Brown with questions.
   
• As many people know, our PCTV department has a world-class studio, and they are happy to produce faculty videos for those who want to advertise their classes, explain concepts in a brief video, even record an entire lecture series.  Now Bill Wisneski, PCTV Producer, has created a very helpful video on what you need to do before showing up to tape your session.  To play it, click the link below (Windows media player required):

Play

• "At the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft previewed its long-awaited Windows Home Server (WHS) product, a Windows Server 2003 R2-based server for consumers that dispenses with the complexities of most Windows Server versions and provides the core storage, sharing, and remote access functionality that digital media and home networking enthusiasts require" (Supersite for Windows).  Are you ready to become a home server manager?  According to Microsoft, it's "simple enough even for Mom."  Home network tasks like backup, sharing photos music, and video.  The product should begin shipping commercially at the end of 2007. 
  
  Click here to watch the Bill Gates keynote, announcements and demos (Windows media player requires) from the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.  Click here for the Microsoft at CES blog.
   
• Meanwhile, at MacWorld in San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced two exciting new Apple products: the iPhone and AppleTV.  Click here to watch the Steve Jobs keynote, announcement and demos (QuickTime player required).
  
  The iPhone comes in two configurations, a 4 GB model that will retail for $499, and an 8 GB model for $599.  AppleTV (a device to stream downloaded videos to your televisions) will retail for $299.  Lost in the hoopla over those impressive announcements was a new AirPort Extreme capable of 802.11n speeds.  Jpbs also announced that the iTunes store has surpassed sales of over 2 billion songs, 50 million TV shows, and 1.3 million feature length movies.  Finally, it was also announced that Apple Computer Inc. is changing its name to simply Apple, Inc. to reflect the more generic consumer electronics nature of their business.
   
• From the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a new report reveals that "More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites, according to a new national survey of teenagers conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
  
  "The survey also finds that older teens, particularly girls, are more likely to use these sites. For girls, social networking sites are primarily places to reinforce pre-existing friendships; for boys, the networks also provide opportunities for flirting and making new friends."   Click here for a PDF version of the report [10 pages].

• Security updates of note this week from Microsoft included a VML (Vector Markup Language) vulnerability for IE7 (KB929969).  Click here for details and download instructions.
   
• A new podcast directory called "PodcastBlaster" is now available.  Alpha browsing, category browsing and search all work well.
   
• Flexible electronic paper (you know, like in the Philip K. Dick short story Minority Report where bullet train passengers' newspapers change contents before their eyes revealing Tom Cruise--who is on the bullet train--as the fugitive) will be mass produced by 2008.  "UK-based Plastic Logic has just secured $100 million in financing to build the world's first large-scale factory for the production of flexible electronic paper parts...Frontplanes have always been quite flexible, but Plastic Logic's key innovation was making the backplanes flex like a plastic binder cover. The backplane is an active-matrix, thin film transistor (TFT) display, and Plastic Logic has developed a production method that allows it to "print" the displays by depositing them from a solution" (ars technica).  With the look and feel issue resolved, it is only a matter of time and reduced prices until the dead tree versions of paper disappear.
   
• If you will recall, in episode 42 we announced an opportunity to vote in an online poll for the Merriam-Webster word of 2006.  The results are in, and the word is the Stephen Colbert invention "truthiness." 
  
  1. truthiness (noun)
  1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)  2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."

  One suspects click fraud on the part of Colbert fans.  
  
  The more erudite (?) American Dialect Society selected "plutoed" as the word of the year, meaning "to demote or devalue something or someone, as happened to the former planet Pluto when the International Astronomical Union decided the ninth planet no longer met its definition of a planet."  Click here for the full press release from the A-D-S.

The Blackboard Feature of the Week - David Gray

Please Hold On to the Bar

This week has been, metaphorically, filled with the “click-click” of the chain lift on the first hill of a roller coaster. (Actually that sound is due to the Anti-rollback device, according to Wikipedia.) Everyone’s about to plunge into the twists and turns of Spring 2007, but first let’s take a moment and be sure all things Blackboard are ready.

Old Blackboard Courses:

• Remain available to instructors for one year after the semester ends.
• Cannot be accessed by students two weeks after the class ends.
• Should be Archived, just in case something “unusual” happens. (Instructions for archiving your course may be found here ).
• May be removed from your “My Courses” list in Blackboard if you wish. (Instructions for removing courses from that list may be found here [PDF]). 

New Blackboard Courses:

• Must be made available before students may access them. (Instructions for making a course available may be found here ).
• May need materials copied in from prior semester courses. (Instructions for copying course contents may be found here ).
• And, looking into the distant future, Summer 2007 courses will be available for faculty use in Blackboard in mid-March.

Some tips to consider at semester start:

• Post an announcement of welcome and general information in your course.
• Email all your students, with the text of your announcement, as well as instructions on how to log in to Blackboard.
• If you are teaching an online class with an orientation, mention where and when the orientation will be taking place.
• If you are teaching an on-campus class, mention where and when the first class is taking place, too. (Some people forget to check the schedule, so… why not?)

If you have any problems using Blackboard, contact atrc@palomar.edu  or (760) 744-1150 x2862. Otherwise, welcome to Spring 2007 and enjoy the ride!

Note:  To get to David's vodcast site, click here.

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Tech-Talk-Topic - Terry Gray

What's New for Spring 2007

Within the Blackboard environment we have four new tools this semester which should have broad appeal.

TurnItIn.  We are pleased to announce that Palomar has purchased an annual subscription to the TurnItIn anti-plagiarism service.  Use it by creating a TurnItIn assignment within your Blackboard courses.  We have created a brief screen video describing how to do this:

• How to create a TurnItIn Assignment in Blackboard   
• Click here to access the brief (6 pages) TurnItIn instructor's manual [PDF].

Voice Tools.  Two new Horizon Wimba Voice Tools have been added to Blackboard: the voice presentation tool and the "Wimba Podcaster." 

The voice presentation tool makes it possible for instructors to display URLs while simultaneously, audibly narrating them.  They are ideal for conducting web tours or explaining web page contents to students and can be configured to allow audible/textual student replies.  Replies can also be public or private.

The Wimba Podcaster is the easiest way to create a podcast aimed at your Blackboard course students.  Record and save your audio right within Blackboard.  Each podcast contains auto-generated RSS subscription buttons for 1-click subscription via iTunes or subscription in any RSS reader.  Now, if your students subscribe (and subscription couldn't be simpler) they will receive all your audio podcasts via iTunes (or their podcatcher of choice) without having to login to Blackboard.  Wimba podcasts are limited to 20 minutes.

The two new tools join the four tools implemented last semester (voice recorder, voice email, voice board, and voice direct) to provide Palomar faculty members with the ability to create new and engaging learning content over the web.

• Click here for a description of these two new voice tools from Horizon Wimba [PDF].
• For detailed instructions on creating a podcast using the Wimba Podcaster, click here.
• Click here for a flash demo of the Wimba Podcaster (flash player required).
• For a flash demo of all the voice tools, click here.
• The complete Horizon Wimba user's guide for Live Classroom and the voice tools can be found here [PDF].

Pronto.  Also from Horizon Wimba, Pronto is a stand-alone, course specific instant messaging client.  Each student can download and install (PC or Mac) the Pronto instant messaging client.  When they login to Pronto they will see all the other members of their class who have installed the client, including the instructor.  Students can study together this way.  Instructors can hold online office hours, or make themselves available for student questions.  Group assignments, or just plain social networking can also be accomplished as with any instant messaging tool.  Pronto has voice-over-IP support, so conversations can be audible or textual.  Once the Pronto client has been installed, the user does not have to be logged into Blackboard to use it.  User contact lists are automatically populated by all other members of the user's classes who have installed the Pronto client.

• Click here for a Pronto flash demo.
• A general description of Pronto can be found here.

In addition to these four new tools, we continue to support the innovations introduced last semester, including checkout of RF personal polling devices (clickers), CPS RF polling software downloads, checkout of digital voice recorders, Respondus and StudyMate software, PCPDF, our web-based PDF conversion service, our own podcast solution, the host of new features in Blackboard, the faculty technology center, and many other items.

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