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October 31, 2007
OIT & FDC Present 11/16 Hybrid Training Workshop
The Office of Information Technology and Faculty Development Center are offering another Hybrid Course Redesign Workshop on Friday, November 16, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Engineering 023. Participants will learn the principles of good course design and apply them to a traditional, face-to-face (F2F) course that could be delivered as a hybrid (part-online, part F2F) course. Using hybrid delivery to demonstrate best practices of hybrid teaching, this workshop is open to any UMBC instructor considering teaching a hybrid course in any semester. Lunch wll be provided to registered participants.
The workshop will also help meet the WT2008 requirements for a one-time course-redesign stipend through the Alternate Delivery Program, which is sponsored by the Office of Summer, Winter and Special Programs. For more information and to register for the workshop, visit http://www.umbc.edu/oit/hybrid/training
Posted by fritz at 9:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2007
GES Faculty Show and Tell How and Why They Use Blackboard
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Karin Readel |
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Chris Swan |
In addition, OIT has published pilot reports for some of Readel's and Swan's recent courses showing student activity by final grade distribution:
While this kind of individual course report is not yet available (faculty can do it manually), OIT intends to provide this service to faculty who wish to view it privately (or eventually post it inside a Bb course for future students to monitor and benchmark their own activity).
OIT will also be publishing a similar, public report that summarizes student activity and tool use by grade distribution in the top 25, 50, 75 and 100 percentile ranges of all UMBC Blackboard courses. The goal is to see what difference, if any, exists in student grade distribution across a range of Bb courses and activity levels.
After watching Readel and Swan show how they use Blackboard in their actual course sites, faculty may want to check out why they do so in two new "Q & A" video interviews on UMBC's iTunesU service (for more information about UMBC on iTunes, see http://itunes.umbc.edu).
OIT plans to publish more "Show & Tell" (how) and "Q & A" (why) videos from faculty teaching active Blackboard courses in other disciplines, but if you or a colleague has an effective practice or insight you'd be willing to share, send email to fritz@umbc.edu. Please include a short description of the pedagogical problem that is solved or the new learning opportunity that is created in using Blackboard.
Note: To protect the work and identity of students who may appear in the "Show & Tell" videos, only UMBC faculty can access them with their myUMBC userid & password. These videos are intended for collegial, professional development only, so all faculty are reminded that any medium containing identifiable student academic information constitutes an "educational record" that is protected by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Posted by fritz at 4:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2007
OIT Staff Present Blackboard Reporting Project at MDBUG Conference
OIT staff members John Fritz, director of Instructional Technology & New Media (ITNM), and Jeffrey Berman (an ITNM graduate assistant) presented the UMBC "Most Active Blackboard Courses" Reports project at the Maryland Blackboard Users Group (MDBUG) conference on Tuesday, October 2, at the UMBC Technology Center.
Proceedings are not yet available on the conference website, but you can watch Fritz and Berman's presentation, "Why and How UMBC Publishes Its Most Active Blackboard Courses Reports," on the Blackboard reports site (Fritz handles the "why" and Berman explains the "how").
Other UMBC presenters included:
Anne Rubin (History): "Child Labor in the American South: Using a Bb Wiki for Historical Research"
Matthias Gobbert (Math/Stats): "Screen Capture of Mathematics with Voice Over using a Tablet Laptop"
Katie Morris (Social Work): "Social Work & Technology: An Unlikely Pair?"
Bev Bickel & Adriana Val (MLL): "Multiple Voices from Online EFL Teacher Education"
For more information about the Maryland Blackboard Users Group, including the opt-in email listserve, visit www.umbc.edu/mdbug.
Posted by fritz at 1:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack