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February 28, 2008
3/10 BrownBag - Digital Alternatives to Writing (or Drawing) on a Chalkboard
Tired of having to write or draw big so your students can see your notes, formulas or diagrams on the chalk or dry erase board? See how you can use digital alternatives that can be projected on a big screen--and even captured, narrated and replayed in Blackboard. Faculty-led demos will include:
* Hitachi StarBoard Input Screens (available in LH 7 & 8)
* Tablet PCs (like the IBM Lenovo X61 currently available in AV Services)
* Wacom Graphic Tablet (http://global.wacom.com/index2.cfm)
* Document Cameras (currently installed in all but two lecture halls: LH1 & LH3)
* AceCad Digimemo "Digital Paper" Pads (http://www.acecad.com.tw/products.html)
With most of these options, if you have some kind of screen capture tool like Camtasia (www.techsmith.com/camtasia), you could also capture the screen movements and audio narration for later display in a password-protected space like Blackboard.
For more information or to register, visit www.umbc.edu/brownbag.
Posted by darnold at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 25, 2008
UMBC Joins Two National, Online Learning Faculty Development Networks
On behalf of the UMBC community, the Office of Information Technology has recently joined QualityMatters and the Sloan-Consortium, two national, online learning networks that specialize in faculty development, online training and research-based "best practices." Membership in both organizations is made possible through a partnership with the University System of Maryland (USM).
Established in 2003 with a three-year, $500k grant from the Fund for Improvement to Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), QualityMatters is a nationally-recognized initiative by MarylandOnline that focuses on defining and evaluating best practices in quality online or hybrid course design--not instructor delivery.
Last year, OIT staff and selected faculty participated in several USM-sponsored course design and peer reviewer training workshops by QualityMatters, which is now an institutional subscription service supported by more than 100 colleges and universities in 31 states who have voluntarily adopted the QM course design and peer review standards. UMBC's own Alternate Delivery Program also adopted the QM standards as part of the Hybrid Course Design Workshop.
Now that UMBC is an institutional QM member, all faculty may access summary or annotated versions of the the highly regarded rubric (or "check list") of 40 course design characteristics that educational research literature identifies in good online courses. An interactive version of the rubric, as well as a form to request peer review by QM trained reviewers, is also available. Send email to John Fritz at fritz@umbc.edu to receive your userid & password for the interactive QM services.
Note: Two Education faculty members, Zane Berge and Greg Williams, are QM certified "peer reviewers," as are Jack Prostko, Director of the Faculty Development Center, and John Fritz and Bob Armstrong from OIT.
Known for its research-based course design rubric--which takes a lot of the guess work out of developing or evaluating online courses--QM does offer face-to-face and online training workshops, but also frequently partners with the Sloan-Consortium, which specializes in online faculty development in all aspects of online learning.
As 2008 institutional members in Sloan-C's "College Pass" program, UMBC has a total of 100 free "seats" to be used toward any online workshop (including how to use the QM rubric) and 50 additional "seats" in select workshops. UMBC also has ten (10) $50 registration discounts toward Sloan-C's highly regarded Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks in Orlando, Florida (Nov. 5-7).
For now, OIT will manage the "College Pass" registration codes on a "first come, first served" basis. To receive a Sloan-C "College Pass" code, click here.
Finally, faculty are reminded that UMBC has also been a member of the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) since 2006. While ELI does not focus exclusively on online learning, it provides excellent resources, including free webinars on timely topics, a very popular "Seven Things You Should Know About . . ." series, and the annual Horizon Report that looks at new and emerging technologies likely to be adopted in the next one to five years. The Horizon Report is also a partnership with the New Media Consortium, which UMBC also belongs to.
For more information about any of these opportunities, contact John Fritz at fritz@umbc.edu or 410.455.6596.
Posted by fritz at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 20, 2008
Change to Weekly Blackboard Maintenance: Fridays, 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Starting this Friday, February 22, OIT will change the weekly, scheduled maintenance window to Fridays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Last semester, OIT announced the need for scheduled, weekly maintenance when Blackboard could be unavailable. If OIT plans to use the new weekly maintenance window, we will post a "Down for Maintenance" notice users will see when they attempt to login.
While rare, OIT found some classes were actually held on Saturday mornings during the Fall 2007 semester. The new Friday evening maintenance window also works well because overall usage has been historically low during this time.
Note: As it did last semester, the Faculty Senate's Computer Policy Committee approved the new change in weekly Blackboard maintenance at its February 12 meeting. For more information, contact CPC Chair Ant Ozok
Posted by fritz at 9:55 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
February 15, 2008
Mac Office 2008 is Here!!
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac was released on February 14, 2007 for Faculty and Staff at UMBC. Faculty and Staff can obtain the media by visiting myUMBC
Students who want to purchase MS Office for the Mac should visit the UMBC bookstore.
Posted by mikec at 1:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 14, 2008
VPN Upgrades Will Support OSX 10.5 (Leopard)
This Sunday February 17th at 8:00am we will be upgrading the software on our web based VPN. We expect VPN service to be unavailable for approximately 10 minutes. On the first login after the outage you may see a message pop-up that it is installing a new version of the VPN client. This process should not need any user intervention and should appear seamless. This upgrade will offer full support for Mac osX 10.5 (Leopard) as well as some other minor big fixes.
Posted by mikec at 4:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
3/10 Brown Bag Workshop: Digital Alternatives to Writing (and Drawing) on A Chalkboard
Tired of having to write or draw big so your students can see your notes, formulas or diagrams on the chalk or dry erase board? Then see how you can use digital alternatives that can be projected on a big screen--and even captured, narrated and replayed in Blackboard. This Teaching Learning and Technology (TLT) Brown Bag Workshop will be held on Monday, March 10, at noon in Lecture Hall 8.
Faculty-led demos will include:
- Hitachi Smart Board Input Screens (available in LH 7 & 8)
- Tablet PCs (like the IBM Lenovo X61 currently available in AV Services)
- Wacom Graphic Tablet (http://global.wacom.com/index2.cfm)
- Document Cameras (currently installed in all but two lecture halls: LH1 & LH3)
- AceCad Digimemo "Digital Paper" Pads (http://www.acecad.com)
With most of these options, if you have some kind of screen capture tool like Camtasia (www.techsmith.com/camtasia), you could also capture the screen movements and audio narration for later display in a password-protected space like Blackboard.
Light refreshments will be provided for registered participants. To register, visit www.umbc.edu/brownbag.
Posted by fritz at 1:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 9, 2008
3/7 Hybrid Teaching Workshop & Faculty Presentations Brown Bag
OIT and the Faculty Development Center will again sponsor a day-long Hybrid Course Design Workshop on Friday, March 7 in Engineering 023. It includes a lunch-time "Brown Bag" presentation of "learning objects" designed by faculty who have participated in previous hybrid workshops, and are now completing requirements for a one-time, $1,500 course development stipend sponsored by the Office of Summer, Winter and Special Programs (OSWSP).
Workshop 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. For more information, visit www.umbc.edu/oit/hybrid/training.
During lunch, faculty in the Summer 2008 Alternate Delivery Program (ADP) will present the first of two required "learning objects" that address the pedagogical problems (or opportunities) a hybrid or online course solves (or creates). A review panel of faculty who have taught online or hybrid courses will hear the presentations, which are open to the campus and will be videotaped (past presentations are also available on the Hybrid Course Design Workshop Blackboard site, and in the Teaching and Learning section of UMBC's iTunesU service). Lunch will be provided to registered participants.
These lunch-time SU2008 ADP faculty presentations are a great way to see how faculty apply their training in online or hybrid course redesign approaches.
Note: Currently registered Hybrid workshop participants do NOT need to register for this brown bag. It is included as part of the workshop.
Posted by fritz at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 1, 2008
Matlab 2007b is now available.
Matlab 2007b has been made available on OIT's GL and Research Systems (both Linux and Solaris). The license has also been renewed and updated for another year.
The default 'matlab' is still 2007a on these systems, but 2007b can be run directly out of AFS via - /afs/umbc.edu/software/matlab/r2007b/bin/matlab for those that want to try it out.
We are working with Mathworks currently to successfully add the symbolic toolkit into the 2007b version, but the previous version of that toolkit is available in the mean time. Everything else we are licensed for is available in the 2007b version.
The Windows version of 2007b has also been installed in OIT supported labs. The software is now available via MyUMBC.
Posted by laura at 9:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack