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Academic Technology Webinars This Semester

Academic Technology will be offering Tuesday afternoon, 2:00PM webinars throughout the spring semester (with the exception of spring break week). Webinars are web-based meetings that use software for the presenter to present and for attendees to interact with the presenter. We will be using the Blackboard Collaborate tool, but you do not have to login to Blackboard to attend one of our webinars. You simply go to a web page and click the login button when the time for the meeting arrives. We hope your will try it.

A list of the topics and schedule may be found on the ATRC website. Faculty seeking Professional Development credit should add the session to their PD contract. If you’re unsure about your computer’s readiness for this session, you can go to the “Blackboard Collaborate webconferencing” page. That page has a utility to check your operating system and Java versions, to confirm that they are ready to go. It's a good idea to login a few minutes early each Tuesday to be sure your equipment is working correctly (i.e., your speakers and microphone). If you want to review a recording of a past webinar (we've done two so far this semester) check our Webinar Archives page.

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.

Upcoming Training

Our training schedule is in full swing now, and we encourage faculty members who want to improve existing or develop new technology skills to attend our workshops. In addition to the weekly webinars mentioned above, we offer online self-paced workshops, and in-person instructor facilitated workshops. Over the next few weeks we will be offering:

Date	Workshop	Time	Room
Friday Jan. 27	PowerPoint 1: Creating Basic Presentations with PowerPoint 2010	9-11am	LL-109
Friday Jan. 27	Introduction to Palomar Online Education Training (POET)	9-11am	LL-104
Thursday Feb. 2	Getting Started with WordPress	2-4pm	LL-109
Friday Feb. 3	PowerPoint 2: Advanced PowerPoint Techniques	9-11am	LL-109
Wednesday Feb. 8	Strategies for Retention in Online Classes	3-5pm	LL-109
Thursday Feb. 16	Using Google Earth	1-3pm	LL-109

Our complete training descriptions can be found here, and our tabular schedule of events here.

iPad app of the month
Free is better than for-pay any day, and when it comes to iPad apps it is surprising how many excellent free ones there are. 3D Brain, from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is one such. 3D Brain opens by default in whole-brain view, the view being rotatable, of course, and its Structures index allows for display of 29 different rotatable structures. Illustrated below is a view of Temporal Lobes with the Labels feature turned on and part of the overall structures menu showing.

The information button (the T tool on the illustration above) varies with each structure, and provides 1) an Overview description of the structure; 2) famous case studies related to the structure; 3) associated functions of the structure; 4) associated cognitive disorders; 5) other associated disorders; 6) related sub-structures; and, best of all, 7) links out to Pubmed articles and links. These external links (which display in the Safari browser on the iPad if touched) are naturally very limited, but might be a logical starting place for student research. For example, the Limbic System display suggests links to seven important articles, linked and cited with Pubmed numbers, related to pathologies or medical discoveries. The app ingeniously contains a great deal of specific information in a pleasing interactive interface, and as such is fully searchable.