Want to get to know SP 10 before the upgrade? Blackboard is offering a free workshop covering the many great features with SP 10. To register, click on the title below:
This is the last week of the KCTCS Online Training for Fall 2012. 4 sessions will be offered the week of November 12th: Monday, Nov 12 @ 1 pm (eastern): Using Authentic Assessment to Increase Student Success Wednesday, Nov 14 @ 1 pm (eastern): PowerPoint on Steriods: SlideRocket and More! Thursday, Nov 15 @ Noon (eastern): Extreme Course Makeover: Spicing Things Up Friday, Nov 16 @ 1 pm (eastern): Copy, copy or copy! Which do I Use? To register, click on the link posted in the Blackboard Training Module when you log in to Blackboard.
Don't forget you can earn PD by attending these sessions. When logging in, enter your first and last name to verify your attendance. Then, after the session (or watching the archive) email Paige Brooks-Jeffiers with the session title and date attended/watched for a certificate of participation.
A Prezi can be a great way to share information with your students. For an idea of how you can use a Prezi as a teaching tool, watch a Prezi recapping the US Presidential election. Prezis can be a great and creative resource tool for student presentations.
Are your students demanding instruction that can be accessed from a variety of devices including tablets and smart phones? Learn how you can meet these challenges and more by learning about the best practices in an upcoming SoftChalk webinar. Mavis Sacher, the Principal of Sunchild E-learning Community in Alberta, Canada will share how their program has met the challenge and increased online course completion rates in each of its 12 years of operation.
Teaching Diverse Communities of Adult and Student Learners at a Distance - Wednesday, November 14, 4:00pm ET- Register today!
Wednesday, Nov 7 @ Noon (eastern): Extreme Course Makeover: Keeping it Clean -
Thursday, Nov 8 @ 1:00 (eastern): Delivering Tests with Extra Time
The image shows you how to access the training sessions.
Don't forget you can earn PD by attending these sessions. When logging in, enter your first and last name to verify your attendance. Then, after the session (or watching the archive) email Paige Brooks-Jeffiers for a certificate of participation.
This week is National Distance Learning Week:November 5 – 9, 2012. The USDLA (United States Distance Learning Association) is promoting distance learning with national attention. See their site for more information and this week’s webinars: http://www.usdla.org/webinars/
BGTC faculty members will be offering sessions on teaching, learning, and advising in the KATI Conference Room on Friday, November 2, 2012 from 9 am to Noon. There are 7 different sessions covering such topics as using Prezis in the classroom and incorporating SafeAssign as a teaching tool. Each session runs 20 minutes.
What is KOLTS? KOLTS is the KCTCS Online Learning & Teaching Support. Its mission is to support KCTCS faculty in teaching and learning by providing resources on eLearning technologies. Check out this great new resource created just for you. The website contains information on teaching and learning resources as well as professional development opportunties. Check it out and let us know what you think!
KCTCS eLearning Services offer many training opportunities throughout the semester on best practices using Blackboard. Don't forget you can earn PD by attending these sessions. When logging in, enter your first and last name to verify your attendance. Then, after the session (or watching the archive) email Paige Brooks-Jeffiers for a certificate of participation. View the training schedule.
Led by Katherine Dowdell of Des Moines Area Community College, this complimentary webinar is designed for faculty members by faculty – regardless of your know-how or experience using Blackboard or other learning management systems. Register to learn more about how you can encourage active participation and peer-to-peer learning among your online students.
Using the Blackboard Exemplary Course Program (ECP) Rubric as a guide, this open course will provide both theoretical concepts and practical tools for instructors to recognize, organize, and build online courses for both blended learners and online learners. Who Should Sign Up?Educators in K-12, higher education and continuing education environments who teach web-enhanced, blended, or fully online courses.
KCTCS Learn On Demand program is in the news! Read what Eric Stoller, the Learn on Demand Student Success Coaches’ NACADA recommended consultant, wrote for Inside Higher Ed about dedicated Student Success Coaches entitled “High-Tech, High-Touch Academic Advising.” (click on title to view article.)
Great news! The Blackboard app will soon be available for ALL iOS and Android users! Starting September 10th, you and your students can use your iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch®, and Android® devices on any carrier or network to access and update announcements, discussions, content, and much more with the Blackboard Mobile Learn app.
To use Blackboard Mobile Learn, you will be prompted to subscribe to the app via one of two options:
$1.99* for 1 year of access
$5.99* for unlimited access
You can find the app by searching for “Blackboard Mobile Learn” in the App Store or Google Play store, or by scanning the codes below:
As we settle in to a new semester, you may have time to take some workshops, offered by KCTCS, to enhance your Blackboard and online skills. When you log in to Blackboard, be sure to click on the Fall 2012 training link, as illustrated below, to see topics, dates, and times the workshops will be offered through Blackboard Collaborate this fall.
The information listed below is from the article posted on the Chronicle of Higher Education's Wired Campus:
"Bill Gates challenged college leaders to reinvent their institutions with technology in a speech today in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the law that created the nationwide system of land-grant colleges. At the event, sponsored by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the Microsoft founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also urged college officials to focus on making their institutions accessible to a broad range of students, rather than just measuring themselves by how selective they are." (Young, Jeffrey R., June 26, 2012) For more information, see Jeffrey R. Young's article covering Bill Gates' discussion on the role of higher education in an article posted on Wired Campus on June 25, 2012.
There are good reasons why online exam integrity has become a critical success factor for a number of accreditation and distance education expansion initiatives. Online test integrity and student authentication issues can halt the expansion of an institution’s online program and potentially threaten its reputation and accreditation status.
Discover how the University of West Alabama and the University of South Alabama implemented a secure testing environment across its online programs and how technology solutions are a key part of their re-accreditation strategy. These solutions added security measures such as biometric identity verification and remote proctoring technologies to online learning initiatives.
Key takeaways from this presentation:
How amendments to the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) can affect your institution’s accreditation of its online learning program(s)
Safely securing the online testing environment, protecting the integrity of distance learning
Additional security measures to preemptively address the future revisions to HEOA policies
The report by the American Association of Community Colleges, Reclaiming the American Dream: A report from the 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges, is available for free PDF download online. Although the focus of the report is not on distance learning, it is about transformation and innovation at two-year institutions; topics certainly related to online learning. The report outlines the challenges facing our country and educational institutions, and the measures needed to reclaim the American dream.
From the report:
“The premise of this Commission can be summarized in three sentences: The American Dream is at risk. Because a highly educated population is fundamental to economic growth and a vibrant democracy, community colleges can help reclaim that dream. But stepping up to this challenge will require dramatic redesign of these institutions, their mission, and, most critically, their students’ educational experiences.” (AACC, 2012, p, vii)
Suggested citation:
American Association of Community Colleges. (2012, April). Reclaiming the American Dream: A report from the 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges. Washington, DC: Author. Available from http://www.aacc.nche.edu/21stCenturyReport
From the website: "Traditionally, the Connect conference has brought educators from Learning House partner institutions together to share their experiences in developing, managing and growing online education programs.
Together, our keynote speakers and dozens of others from Learning House and our partner institutions will present the latest information regarding:
The future of online learning
State authorization and joint ventures
Starting an online program from the ground up
Student recruitment and retention strategies
Developing and improving online courses
And much more!
Last year, more than 100 educators attended the Connect conference, and we expect the turnout to double this year. Don’t miss this opportunity to network with colleagues from across the country at Connect 2012!"
You are going to love the new features and enhancements in Blackboard Service Pack 8. From cross course navigation to auto re-grading of tests, this is something to get excited about! Many of the items are "see what is new" or "see what it does now" types of changes so we are offering a show and tell session of what you are going to like and use. Please drop in at your convenience.
The session will repeat approximately every 30 minutes on the following dates and times on Main Campus, Building H, Computer Lab, Room 131:
·Tuesday, May 89:30-11 am
·Wednesday, May 99:30-11 am
·Wednesday, May 92-3:30 pm
The repeat sessions will also be offered at the KATI Campus, Computer Lab, Room 134:
Thursday, May 10 9:30-11 am
Reminder: eLearning Services will be installing Service Pack 8 the weekend of May 18, 2012.
Blackboard will be unavailable from Friday, May 18th at 5 pm to Monday, May 21 at 9 am.
Announcing a Free, Open Course With Dr. Curtis Bonk:
Instructional Ideas and Technology Tools for Online Success
Link to the landing page: http://events.blackboard.com/open (interest form) Blog Announcement: http://www.coursesitesblog.com/2012/04/16/empowering-you-through-openness-and-choice/ CourseSites Blog: http://www.coursesitesblog.com/ Host: CourseSites (from Blackboard) announces a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Audience: Thousands of Blackboard, CourseSites, and other online and blended learning instructors around the world. Description: Motivating students and creating community within blended and online learning environments is crucial to academic achievement and success. This open course will provide both theoretical concepts and practical tools for instructors to improve motivation, retention, and engagement within blended and online courses. Enrollment: Open Enrollment begins Monday April 23, 2012. Please fill out the interest form to learn more. Course Duration: April 30th- June 4th ( A total of 5 weeks) Course Objectives:
Identify and apply relevant motivational strategies and instructional techniques
Construct thinking skill options for different types of learners and subjects
Design and share innovative thinking skill activities as well as unique cooperative learning
Map and apply instructional models and ideas to online learning tools
Scheduled Sessions:Wednesday May 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30 at 4 pm EST (3 pm CST)
I am attending the KCTCS Distance Learning Peer Team Spring 2012 meeting this week where I have learned about some great resources for free or affordable textbooks as well as other open educational resources. Please take a look at these websites for ideas for student support.
Teaching Science Totally Online Using SoftChalk and Home-Based Lab Kits (LabPaq)
Wednesday, April 18
1pm PT | 2pm MT | 3pm CT | 4pm ET
In 2003, Ocean County College (OCC) was awarded a $458,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop a one day per week Nursing Program which allowed students to attend clinical training while the didactic portion was delivered online. Almost immediately, they realized that the value of the program would be limited if the students were required to come to campus at all. They needed to put science totally online! Attend this webinar to see how they managed to teach a hands-on subject like science totally online!
Presenter: Dr. Jim Brown, Associate Professor of Science at Ocean County College (OCC) and former Dean of Science, Engineering, Health Sciences and Human Performance.
Bloom's Taxonomy, Thinking Skills and SoftChalk
Thursday, April 26
12pm PT | 1pm MT | 2pm CT | 3pm ET
Bloom’s Taxonomy asks students to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate. So what does that look like in a SoftChalk lesson? Find out how Duke University Talent Identification program creates lessons for gifted K-12 students where higher-order thinking skills are a priority.
Presenter: Lyn Hawks, Coordinator of Independent Learning, Duke University Talent Identification Program
To register for these sessions or for upcoming professional development oppotunities from SoftChalk, click here.
Just a reminder that a hardware enhancement to the Blackboard infrastructure will take place during an extended maintenance period which means that Blackboard will not be available from:
Saturday, April 14th, 9:00 pm (EST) to
Sunday, April 15th, 9:00 am (EST).
All Blackboard courses will be unavailable during this time.
If you are teaching during this time, please alert your students and remind them to download any materials they may need.
Faculty:
You are going to love the new features and enhancements in Blackboard Service Pack 8. From cross course navigation to auto re-grading of tests, this is something to get excited about! eLearning Services will be installing Service Pack 8 the weekend of May 18, 2012. To help you prepare, we are offering 3 regional sessions in April showcasing the enhancements and improvements.
This isn't a brand new Blackboard, it just got a make-over, new outfit and manicure. Many of the items are "see what is new" or "see what it does now" types of changes so we will begin with a show and tell session of what's new. You will then have the opportunity for some hands-on if you are interested. What's new/show-and-tell This session will repeat approximately every 30 minutes from 10am - Noon. Hands-on During the afternoon from 1pm - 3pm stop by the computer lab to get a first-hand look and try out sp8. eLearning Services will be on hand to answer any questions.
We hope this flexible schedule will allow more faculty and staff from across the state to join us and get excited about Blackboard sp8.
Keynote Address: The End of Wonder in the Age of Whatever | May 15, 3:00pm-4:30pm | Crowne Ballroom
New media and technology present us with an overwhelming bounty of tools for connection, creativity, collaboration, and knowledge creation - a true "Age of Whatever" where anything seems possible. But any enthusiasm about these remarkable possibilities is immediately tempered by that other "Age of Whatever" - an age in which people feel increasingly disconnected, disempowered, tuned out, and alienated.
Such problems are especially prevalent in education, where the Internet (which must be the most remarkable creativity and collaboration machine in the history of the world) often enters our classrooms as a distraction device.It is not enough to merely deliver information in traditional fashion to make our students "knowledgeable." Nor is it enough to give them the skills to learn, making them "knowledge-able." Knowledge and skills are necessary, but not sufficient. What is needed more than ever is to inspire our students to wonder, to nurture their appetite for curiosity, exploration, and contemplation, to help them attain an insatiable appetite to ask and pursue big, authentic, and relevant questions, so that they can harness and leverage the bounty of possibility all around us and rediscover the "end" or purpose of wonder, and stave off the historical end of wonder.
Who is Michael Wesch? If you are not familiar with Mr. Wesch, he has a number of videos on YouTube that challenge our way of thinking about student learning, as illustrated in the video embedded below.
Registration is now open for the New Horizons Conference, May 14-16, 2012 in Lousiville, KY.
Visit the conference website to register and discover more about the newly renovated 2012 New Horizons Conference! Registration ends April 12 so complete yours today.
I am providing a link to another great article from Faculty Focus. They have gathered several articles on assessing online learning into one pulbication which will help all of us think more creatively about online assessment.
"When it comes to online education, one question still persists: "How do I know what my online students have learned?" While there are no simple answers, with a little creativity you will soon discover that the online learning environment opens up a host of new student assessment possibilities. And, just as with traditional courses, the trick is finding the right combination that works best for your particular course."
This comprehensive article from Faculty Focus will help you establish online instructor best practices and expectations, including explaining core behaviors related to:
Looking for more professional development opportunities? Here are some great opportunities from Blackboard and SoftChalk!
Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series
Blackboard is offering a faculty training webinar series entitled The Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series (BITS). This program will bring best practices and evolved online pedagogy training to you in a concise and effective series consisting of monthly training webinars that have been designed for faculty members and will be led by faculty members from higher education institutions around the country.
Click here to register for the great webinars listed below.
Wikis, Blogs, Forums, Journals—Which One Do I Use & Why?
Feb 27, 2012 12:00 pm
Real Examples for Using Adaptive Release
Mar 27, 2012 12:00 pm
Tips and Tricks for Utilizing Video and Media in Your Course
Apr 23, 2012 12:00 pm
Online Testing: How to Use Standard CMS Tools to Reduce Cheating
May 29, 2012 12:00 pm
What is My Role in the Online Classroom? Ways to Engage and Interact with Your Online Students
Jun 25, 2012 12:00 pm
Why and How to Best Use Rubrics in Blackboard Learn 9.1
Jul 24, 2012 12:00 pm
SoftChalk's Innovators in Online Learning Series Building Interactive Articles for Peer-Reviewed Journals with SoftChalk
Wednesday, February 22
12pm PT | 1pm MT | 2pm CT | 3pm ET
Teaching Well Online (T.W.O): Faculty Development Conforming to National and State Standards and Models
Check out how much time you'll save in Blackboard Learn's latest release with the Automated Regrading feature. Rest easy knowing that you can regrade a test answer in just one spot and automatic updates will happen across the entire system. Think of how much time you'll save once on SP8! Watch how easy it is to regrade a test question on the video.
There is a great new look and terrific faculty tools with the upcoming service pack upgrade to Blackboard during May 2012. Watch this video from Bb for a sneak peak of what is to come!
I do not know how many of you receive the Chronicle of Education's enewsletter, but there are some exciting developments for community college funding and programming if forthcoming legislation is passed. President Obama is seeking $8 billion dollars for job-training partnerships involving community colleges. Click here to read the full article.
Alright, I am going to veer off distance learning for this post because I think all of us should be aware of the new Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) Report. A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for Community College Student Success was just released and it is the first of three reports providing insights as to what works and what doesn't in helping students graduate. It draws attention to 13 strategies for increasing retention and graduation rates, including fast-tracking remedial education, providing students with experiential learning, and requiring students to attend orientation. We are all interested in student retention and the report highlights promising practices across the nation. From the Acknowledgments on page 1:
"Community colleges currently are experiencing perhaps the highest expectations and the greatest challenges in their history. Facing fiscal constraint, enrollment pressures, and summons to support economic recovery, these institutions also are rising to a new clarion call: the “community college completion challenge.” Never has it been so clear that the futures of individuals, communities, and the nation rest significantly on the ability of community and technical colleges to ensure that far greater numbers of their students succeed in college, attain high quality certificates and degrees, and transfer to baccalaureate institutions."
Since I posted the New Horizon Report 2012, I thought that I should also share with you the state report on improving the digital learning environment in Kentucky's P-20 schools published in December 2011. Click onDigital Learning 2020 to view the report. "Creating a top-notch system of education is not only a moral obligation, but essential to the development of the human capital that will drive this state." ~ Governor Steven L. Beshear
Click on the link, New Horizon Report 2012, to view this annual publication on higher education and the use of technology.This year's report recognizes the following key trends in education:
People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to.
The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized.
The world of work is increasingly collaborative, driving changes in the way student projects are structured.
The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators.
Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models.
There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning.
Are you ready to move your online instructional practices and courses to the next level? Using the Blackboard ECP rubric as a guide, this webinar will help participants prepare to develop quality online instructional practices and courses and evaluate existing ones. We will explore the ECP rubric and highlight some examples from the 2011 ECP winners. You will also learn how to successfully prepare a submission for the 2012 ECP.
Get recognized for your innovation at the 2012 Blackboard Catalyst Awards! Take advantage of a wonderful professional development opportunity and nominate your course or program for a Catalyst Award. We will be accepting nominations through February 29, 2012. To get started, visit www.blackboard.com/catalyst. There are six categories to consider:
Innovative Development - Recognizes those who give back to the community by sharing their development expertise with others
Community Collaboration - Recognizes those who share advice, insight, and best practices with others as they approach key challenges and opportunities in e-learning
Mobile Innovation - Recognizes those who have embraced the use of mobile technology to positively impact the educational experience at their institution
Staff Development - Recognizes those who use Blackboard solutions to support and enhance faculty and staff development skills that provide a better learning experience for students and faculty themselves
Communications Strategy – Recognizes those who use one or more Blackboard tools to support teaching and learning or campus engagement with innovative communications strategies
Exemplary Course - honors those course creators whose courses demonstrate best practices in four major areas: Course Design, Interaction & Collaboration, Assessment and Learner Support. A group of voluntary of Course Reviewers will use the ECP rubric to evaluate submitted courses.
No matter if you win or not, participants receive valuable feedback that gives them insight on how to better engage with students and elevate their teaching experiences. Past participants have reported that the experiences of evaluating their courses using the rubric improved their courses and made them stronger course designers.
