When Students Can't Compute

Interesting article by Dian Schaffhauser, and published by Campus Technology, about the technical barriers many community college students face that prevent them from being successful in online education. The article discusses access issues, availability of computer labs, broadband issues, and students who are digital non-natives.

"Online education promises learning opportunities for all, but too many community college students lack the tech skills--and the access-to take advantage of those resources."

Read the full article: When Students Can't Compute

SoftChalk Short Courses in October

Do you want to learn more about specific features of SoftChalk Create? Then these Short Courses are perfect for you! These live, one-hour webinars include a presentation and examples, as well as an opportunity for you to ask questions and receive assistance from the instructor.

Interactive Learning Activities - The Presentation Group: Monday, October 14, 1:30 - 2:30 PM EDT
Learn how to create and modify presentation learning activities in SoftChalk Create. Both text and graphics-based activities will be shown. Activities that will be covered include the Charts activity, Did You Know activity, Timeline activity and many more. You will also learn a method to place a PowerPoint slide deck as a slideshow activity within SoftChalk Create and how to “Import” a PowerPoint slide deck into a SoftChalk Create slideshow. Click here to register.

Interactive, Scorable Learning Activities: Monday, October 21, 1:30 - 2:30 PM EDT           

Learn how to create and modify the scoring learning activities in SoftChalk. Crosswords, Drag-N-Drop are only a few of what will be covered. Click here to register.

Creating, Importing and Modifying Tables: Tuesday, October 22, 1:30 - 2:30 PM EDT      
Learn how to create and modify tables in SoftChalk Create including how to import and modify a table from Excel or Word. Click here to register.

The StyleBuilder and eCourseBuilder: Thursday, October 24, 1:30 - 2:30 PM EDT              

Learn how to use the SoftChalk Create StyleBuilder tool to create your own personal “Style” including how to import and export your style and apply it to your lesson. You will also learn how to create an e-Course using the SoftChalk Create eCourseBuilder tool. Click here to register.

More Short Courses will be scheduled soon so keep checking their full Short Course schedule.

The National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) is pleased to announce that it will be offering three FREE webinars on course redesign in the coming months.

 Fall 2013 Webinar Series

 Each hour-long webinar features an NCAT Redesign Scholar, the project leader of a highly successful course redesign, describing the redesign project with a particular focus on its distinguishing characteristics. After a presentation, the lead faculty member is available to answer questions and provide additional specifics about the redesign. Each hour-long webinar will occur at 1 pm eastern time:

• October 8, 2013: Redesigning American History and European History at the State University of New York at Potsdam presented by Jim German, featuring the effective use of undergraduate learning assistants.
• November 19, 2013: Redesigning Principles of Chemistry at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore presented by Jennifer Hearne, featuring active engagement in science education at a historically black institution. 
• December 10, 2013: Redesigning statistics at Niagara County Community College presented by Dan Miller, featuring the transferability of a statistics redesign to developmental math.

Registration is required, but there is no registration fee. To register, go to http://www.theNCAT.org/Webinars/2013Webinars.html.

Videos of prior webinars may be accessed at http://www.theNCAT.org/Webinars/2013Webinars.html.

• Redesigning General Psychology at Frostburg State University
• Redesigning Computing and Information Literacy at Arizona State University 
• Redesigning developmental math at Cleveland State Community College, Chattanooga State Community College and Northwest-Shoals Community College.

NOTE: You will need to register before viewing each webinar.

SoftChalk Professional Development Opportunities

SoftChalk Short Courses now available!

Do you want to learn more about specific features of SoftChalk Cloud and Create? Then these Short Courses are perfect for you! These live, one-hour webinars include a presentation and examples, as well as an opportunity for you to ask questions and receive assistance from the instructor.

 Textpoppers, Images and Hyperlinks in SoftChalk Create

In this one-hour Short Course you will learn how to insert and modify pop up text annotations. You will also learn how to insert, optimize and modify images within a lesson page and within a text popper. You will also learn how to create and modify hyperlinks on a lesson page and within a text popper. You will see how easy it is to use the Media Search tool to look for and insert graphics, and you will see how to insert a graphic stored in the SoftChalk Cloud.

Monday, September 16                12:30 - 1:30 PM EDT         Click here to register.

Navigation Features and Sidebars in SoftChalk Create

Learn how navigation works within SoftChalk Create, including how to make a topic part of the navigation, how to change the appearance of the on-page navigation, create a table of contents and create new pages. You will also learn how to create a sidebar and place internal navigation within the sidebar

Wednesday, September 18         12:30 - 1:30 PM EDT   Click here to register.          

 
 More Short Courses will be scheduled soon so keep checking our full Short Course schedule.

Conference on Distance Education in Bowling Green

Western Kentucky University Distance Learning and the Association for Distance Education and Independent Learning (ADEIL) are proud to announce ADEIL 2013:

 "Committed to the Race" - October 10 - 12, 2013-Bowling Green, KY

Meet us in Bowling Green, KY, home of the Corvette, for the annual ADEIL conference at the Knicely Conference Center. Take advantage of the opportunity to discuss topics and issues relevant to the realm of distance education and interact with other education professionals to gain new concepts or share your own.

Dr. James Selbe (KCTCS) is the keynote speaker on Friday. Click here for more information. (http://www.wku.edu/eps/adeil/index.php) 

Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series-Free Professional Development for You!

The Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series (BITS)

Did you know that Blackboard offers free weekly training opportunities for educators and instructional designers? The Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series (BITS) is a training initiative to help augment internal training efforts. Harnessing their community of Blackboard users, BITS will share the top strategies and pedagogy for both increasing educator efficiency and improving learning outcomes. You can watch past BITS’ webinars on their YouTube Playlist. To register, please go to www.blackboard.com/BITS.

Upcoming webinars include:

• Setting Up Your Course in Blackboard Learn Without a Template presented by Phoebe J. Ballard, University of Toledo on September 19th at 1pm ET
• Organizing Your Course in Blackboard Learn presented by Matt Acevedo of FIU Online on September 26th at 11am ET
• BITS Office Hours: Course Design, September 30th at 11am ET
• The Online Collaborative Experience presented by David Flora, Ericka Hollis, and Xavier Scott of Morehead State University on October 7th at 11am ET Accessibility Matters! - Part Two presented by Beth Stinson and JoAnna Hunt of Blackboard on October 17th at 11am ET

High-Tech Cheating and How to Prevent It

Great article by John K. Waters on the proliferation of high-tech cheating and what educators can do to prevent it. The focus is on the K-12 environment, but many of the recommendations apply to two-year colleges. The article also includes information on proctoring.

Click here to read the article published in the August 2013 online edition of 'the JOURNAL'.