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Palomar College Academic Technology Resource Center

August 29, 2008

Contents
  • Technology News
  • Training Opportunities
  • Tech Support Roundtable:
    "Frequently Asked Questions in Week 1"
  • Tech Talk Topic:
    "PowerPoint for the Web"
  • For more, see podcast notes for Episode 90.


Bb Course Availability

Remember to make your Blackboard courses available.  Until you do, your students cannot enter them.  How?  Click here.

For help or questions:
online: help ticketing system
email: atrc@palomar.edu
or (760) 744-1150 ext. 2862
 

Technology & Download News Briefs

  • Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 is now available for public download.  Click here for the download site (English, German, Japanese and Simplified Chinese only at this point).  (Note: not recommended for Palomar College production computers).  Accelerators, Web Slices, InPrivate browsing, tab Session restores, SmartScreen Filters, color-coded tab groups, security enhancements and other new features already in production in Firefox and Safari are now in IE 8.  Click here for a CNet overview, here for the general FAQ, and here for a set of get acquainted videos.  IE8 outdoes, but only slightly, some of the new features in Firefox 3, and underperforms on others.  As usual it is a Microsoft catch-up effort aimed at consumers who admire the new features in Firefox and Safari, which Microsoft hopes can be leveraged into continued market dominance by virtue of their OS monopoly.  Neither the IE8 beta nor Firefox 3 are certified for Blackboard use, so download and use at your own risk.
     
  • Faculty members, staff and students can purchase Adobe software at very reduced prices from the Foundation for California Community Colleges (FCCC).  Click here to access their Adobe sales sponsored site via Computerland.  The Adobe CS3.3 Production Premium suite, for example, which includes InDesign CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, Flash Pro CS3, Dreamweaver CS3 and Acrobat Pro 9, and a group of common applications can be purchases for $314.00.  The package retails for $1,799.00.  Click here for the FCCC Collegebuys web portal.
     
  • Also from Microsoft this week, Photosynth was released for public use.  We first reported on photosynth in episode 63.  It was (and is) a Microsoft research project that takes numerous photos of the same object and combines them into a navigable, 360-degree view of the object.  It is the "something between" a photo and video.  It makes more sense when you see it.  Click here to access the photosynth home page which contains several examples.  (Note: You must install the photosynth software to view the examples, and there is no version for Mac yet).  Below I have linked to a sample "synth" of the national archives in Washington DC, composed of 169 original photos.  Note that you can drill deeply enough to actually read the documents and see the pictures in the display cases.


National Archive Synth

Remarkably, photosynth can find similarities in a multitude of pictures and determine the vantage point from which they were taken and stitch them together, blurring surrounding pictures while focusing on a single central picture.  Try it for free.  Build one with ease.  To prove that this is simple to do, our own David made a synth of his office in less than half an hour, including photography time.  Click here to access it.

  • Extra-terrestrial virus discovered, computer virus, that is.  "NASA has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG." (BBC).  In fact, NASA even admits it is not the first time that it has happened.  The virus traveled to the International Space Station last virus on NASA laptops, though how those were initially infected is anyone's guess (but not a tough guess, since they apparently all came configured to autorun inserted media).  Gammim.AG is a low-threat worm designed to steal sensitive data from various online games, and presents no actual threat to the systems on the ISS.  Talk about getting out into the wild, however...
     
  • A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project report showed strong support, among the Internet Governance Forum (who met recently in Rio de Janeiro) for an Internet Bill of Rights.  "Respondents indicated strong support for the establishment of a global internet users Bill of Rights. Some 66% of those participating in this survey agreed with the statement: "A global internet Bill of Rights should be adopted." Only 6% disagreed...Some 76% of respondents supported freedom of information as a core ethic of online life and 75% agreed that such a policy ensuring freedom of expression on the internet should be adopted."  Click here for a PDF version of the report.

  • If you have heard about geotagging but wondered what it actually is and what it's good for, click here to access a document from Educause which discusses "7 things you should know about Geolocation" with a focus on teaching and learning [PDF].

    If you are wondering about cameras that have builit-in Geo-imaging, here are a few, with a Sony device that can add Geotagging metadata to select Sony cameras:
  • For those making use of the amazing new "SmartArt" in Office 2007, there are 7 new free downloads from Microsoft to add to your SmartArt collections.  Click here for descriptions and to download.
     
  • File under "The rumors of my death...":  "An electronic gaffe at news outlet Bloomberg mistakenly sent an incomplete obituary for Apple CEO Steve Jobs over the wire on Wednesday afternoon, and a tipster promptly sent the soon-retracted file to gossip blog Gawker," CNet reported Thursday.  Jobs looked so gaunt at his recent appearance at WWDC that speculations about a return of his pancreatic cancer ran wild.  The speculations were denied, but when the cancer first appeared Jobs kept it a secret for months.  Apple stock fell at that time based on the rumor, so investors are naturally hoping that the Bloomberg mistake is just that, and not the result of some inside information.  It is hard to imagine a company whose CEO is more important to that companies future than Jobs is to Apple, not to mention Pixar and Disney.
     
  • Online video vendors are not yet ready to give up, like online music vendors (many of them the same people) and drop DRM (Digital Rights Management) in order to compete with Apple.  Sony, this week, introduced "Open Market" a new (sort of) domain-based DRM system that could control device interoperability while still restricting video "owners'" rights to transfer files to non-authorized devices.  If you like tortuous tales, here is a description of how it works:

"A user can put his desktop, laptop, phone, portable gaming system, and portable video player into the same domain, for instance, and purchased content could play on any of the devices. Users can link their identities to multiple domains, too. In a Marlin example, a college student can link her identity to a domain covering all the shared gadgets in a college apartment, but she can also link it to her parents' equipment at home. Purchased digital movies can be played on devices in either domain, then, but movies purchased by a roommate would work only on the shared apartment domain, not back at home." (ars technica)

Sound likely?  Not to me either.  If video vendors would simply drop the DRM we would all be happier and sales would increase.

  • If you are an Orwell fan (and who isn't) you simply must read his blog.  His what?  Yes, his blog.  The Orwell Trust has set up a wordpress blog with daily entries posted from George Orwell's diaries of exactly 70 years ago.  Click here to access the blog.  The entry for August 28, 1938, for example:

"Night before last an hour’s rain. Yesterday hot & overcast. Today ditto, with a few drops of rain in the afternoon. The hop-picking due to start in about a week."

While the link for "hop-picking takes you to an Orwell essay written for the New Statesman & Nation for October, 1931.

  • Featured Safari Tech Book Online: Head First Statistics, by Dawn Griffiths.  "Wouldn't it be great if there were a statistics book that made histograms, probability distributions, and chi square analysis more enjoyable than going to the dentist? Head First Statistics brings this typically dry subject to life, teaching you everything you want and need to know about statistics through engaging, interactive, and thought-provoking material, full of puzzles, stories, quizzes, visual aids, and real-world examples. Whether you're a student, a professional, or just curious about statistical analysis, Head First's brain-friendly formula helps you get a firm grasp of statistics so you can understand key points and actually use them." Palomar maintains a subscription to Tech Books Online, and the books can be accessed from any computer on the campus network without as login, or with your Palomar login and password from anywhere in the world.  Click here for more information about off-campus access.

Training Opportunities

  • Academic Technology Workshops

Tech Support FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Professor questions #1: How do I make my Blackboard course available to students?

A.  Login to Blackboard.  Click the link in the My Courses list to enter the course you want to make available.  Click the Control Panel link.  Click the "Settings" link in the "Course Options" box.  Click the "Course Availability" link.  Click the "Yes" radio button next to the "Make Course Available:" label.  Click Submit.  Click here for a demonstration video.

Once again, Click: Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability > Yes > Submit.

Student question #1: Why can't I access my Blackboard course?

A.  Your professor has not yet made it available.  See question professor question #1 above.

Student question:  I'm having trouble logging in to Blackboard.  What should I do?

A.  Login to student eServices and reset your password.  Then try again.

Professor question:  How do I copy my course materials from a previous semester's Blackboard course into the current semester's course?

A.  Content from one Blackboard course can be copied to another by using the “Course Copy” option in the control panel of the “source” course. Simply choose the destination, select the course materials you wish to copy, and click “Submit”. Once the copy process is complete, you will receive an email letting you know.

Professor question:  Why do I have to contact the HR office in order to change my Blackboard email address?

A.  This is a Palomar College administrative decision.  It used to be possible for instructors to set their own Blackboard email address in eServices. This is no longer possible. Now, all Palomar employees must contact Human Resources to change their email address.

Professor question:  I want to combine my various Blackboard course sections.  Can I do this?

A.  Yes.  Contact Richard Loucks in the Instruction Office and provide him with the details of the section numbers you wish to combine.  Please understand, however, that when you combine sections for Blackboard purposes, what happens is that your old courses are disabled and a new, combined course is created.  If you have content in the old, uncombined courses you will no longer have access to it.  Worse, if students have actually submitted materials once the semester is underway, and you request a new, combined class, access to the materials will be lost.  Therefore, the best time to make this request is prior to the beginning of a semester and before you have copied materials into your new courses.  If not, be sure to archive the course so that you can restore the information once the new course is created.

Student question:  How do I set or change my preferred student email address?

A.  You do this through student eServices.  Click here for detailed instructions. 

Student question:  I am having trouble playing a Real video.  Why?

A.  We haven't had a Real media server at Palomar for over two years, but a few professors do not realize that and have persisted in copying old, invalid links into new Blackboard courses.  Do not click the Real video links, but rather click the Windows media links.  They will work.

Corollary student question:  I have a Mac.  How do I play Windows media videos?

A.  Download and install the Windows media components for QuickTime plugin.  As the name implies, you will then be able to play windows media video and audio in your QuickTime player.  Get the Windows media componenets for Quicktime from either of the following sources:

Professor question:  I want to add a colleague to shadow me as I teach my Blackboard course.  How do I do this?

A.  Ask your department ADA to use the SIS sheet to add the other instructor as a secondary, non-paid instructor in the class.  All Blackboard teaching assignments are controlled through PeopleSoft.  When the SIS sheet is processed, your colleague will have instructor access to the course.

Tech-Talk-Topic - Terry Gray

PowerPoint for the Web

There are a bewildering number of ways you can save a PowerPoint presentation for the web, and more specifically for Blackboard.  Here is a quick "let me count the ways" laundry list, with pros and cons:

  • You might simply place the PPTX (or PPT if you are using PowerPoint 2003 and before) as a link in Blackboard;
     
    • Pro:  a) Simple.  Upload and link to a single file.  b) Animations within PowerPoint will display correctly.
       
    • Con: a) Requires students to own either PowerPoint or the PowerPoint viewer, complicated by the differences between PowerPoint 2003 and 2007, and the need, if the student doesn't own PowerPoint, of downloading and installing the correct viewer.  b) This can also be confusing for the instructor if the presentation contains linked, rather than embedded resources, like audio or video files, flash objects, and so on.
       
  • If you have included linked files in your presentation (audios larger than the embed limit, videos, other files such as PDF documents) you might zip the files together with the PPTX file and place them in Blackboard with instructions to your students to unzip them.
    • Pro: a) Linked media will be included for student consumption.  b) The presentation will display as you intend.
       
    • Con: Same as above, with the additional problem that you must now include instructions to your students on how to 1) download the zip file; 2) extract the files it contains; and 3) play them with PowerPoint or the PowerPoint viewer.
       
  • If narrations, animations, and linked media objects within the presentation must be viewed over the web, you might convert the PowerPoint presentation to a Flash video that students could play back with the free Flash player.  (Note: there are variations on this scenario where you might use a product like Eluminate to present and then archive your presentation, but there are many such third-party solutions too numerous to discuss here).
     
    • Pro: a) This is the best "viewer experience" for the student because it enables the student to listen to you, the instructor, narrate the presentation as they are viewing it.  b) You, the instructor, control the pace of the presentation.
       
    • Con: a) You must use special software to capture and encode your presentation.  If you do not own this software, you must go to a campus lab to use it.
       
  • You might use PowerPoint's Save As... option and choose to save as a) a web page; b) a single file web page; c) an XML presentations; or d) any number of other style of presentations.
     
    • Pro: Solves problems with linked/embedded audio files.
       
    • Con: Since this will only work if students have certain versions of Internet Explorer web browser, it does not provide a reliable, cross-platform experience for users.
       
  • You might use PowerPoint's Publish option, and choose Package for CD, which will also work on the web.  In addition to saving the presentation and any linked files, the PowerPoint viewer will also be saved with the presentation, and installed on student workstations if they do not already have PowerPoint or the viewer installed.
     
    • Pro: This solves many of the problems of linked/embedded files, and solves the problem of the PowerPoint viewer too.
       
    • Con: Complicated instructions for student download and extract have to be providec.
       
  • You might save the Presentation as a PDF document.
     
    • Pro: a) Simple.  b) A universal format that does not depend on browser or computer operating system to display correctly.
       
    • Con: Animations or linked media files will not be included.  (Note, actually, linked media can be included, but this would require a lot of extra work using Adobe Acrobat.

It is, unfortunately, a rich tapestry. 

When narration, animations, or other embedded media must be experienced by the end user, in fact, special considerations must be made regardless of the format chosen.  It all boils down to what you, the instructor, want included in the version you are publishing for your students consumption.  In short, what your purposes are for placing the PowerPoint presentation in Blackboard in the first place.

We can think of three possible scenarios for placing PowerPoint within Blackboard.

1.  You simply want to provide a PowerPoint presentation to your students as learning material or study aid.  The presentation contains information--text, maps, or other graphics, that you want the student to view.  In this scenario, the narration you might provide to the presentation is not what you want to provide over the web, and any linked files, like audio or video files, are provided elsewhere in your Blackboard course.

If this is the scenario that describes what you want to do--simply provide the un-narrated PowerPoint presentation to students for the sake of the information contained on the slides--then your best solution is to save the presentation as a PDF file and link to it within Blackboard.

Example of a PowerPoint presentation saved as a PDF file.

2.  You want your student to experience the full presentation, including animations, your narrative and including any linked audio or video media.

Best: Use Camtasia by Techsmith to record your presentation and save it as a Flash object, that can be linked or embedded in Blackboard.  Academic Technology provides Camtasia Studio on three computers in the faculty technology center (room LL-111) for this purpose.

Example of a Camtasia recorded PowerPoint presentation.

A variation on this solution is to use the narration feature of PowerPoint itself, and then save the PowerPoint presentation along with supporting files to the web.  There are unfortunate complications, as indicated above, with this approach, however.

3.  Your want your PowerPoint presentations in Blackboard not for your students, but for you.  It is a central place to store them so that you can access them from whatever classroom you happen to be teaching in.

This can be a good strategy for central storage, but unsatisfactory for part-time instructors who will not have Blackboard accounts in semesters in which they are not teaching.  The best solution for centralized web storage is to take advantage of a "cloud" storage solution like Microsoft SkyDrive, Google gmail, Apple MobileMe, or the like.  The wise instructor will also carry her PowerPoint presentations along, wherever she goes, on a USB flash drive.

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