Pam's Instructional Technology Blog

Google Apps for the University of Minnesota

If you haven't heard, the University of Minnesota has contracted with Google to provide the Google Apps suite to the University of Minnesota. To begin with, Google apps, such as Gmail, are going to be opt-in. UMM users should be able to opt-in towards the end of October. Beginning in Spring 2010, new students will automatically be set up with Gmail accounts.

Get acquainted with Google Apps for the University of Minnesota by visiting the Google Apps Collaborative Learning Space. This site includes step-by-step lessons including instructor-led video presentations.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions.

UMSurvey Launches

UMSurvey (LimeSurvey) is now available for use at the University of Minnesota. It is available for use by students, faculty and staff. UMSurvey is an academic online survey tool centrally managed by the Office of Information Technology which is available to current students, staff, and faculty at the University of Minnesota. Scenarios for its use include:

• Instructors delivering formative assessments


• Students learning about research design


• Departments and Service units can use for both of employee satisfaction as well as informal ad-hoc surveys of staff on preferences for office decisions, upcoming events, etc

The benefits of UMSurvey over other other free online tools available include:

• The professional appearance of an ad-free University branded service
• Assurance of data integrity and security
• Efficiency in using a single tool that comes with support staff, training and documentation, particularly in allowing faculty and staff to construct and collaborate in low-stakes on the fly surveys with no or minimal staff support

UMSurvey: http://www.oit.umn.edu/umsurvey/

Teach Without PowerPoint in the Classroom

José A. Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University, has challenged his colleagues to teach sans machines. Professors who strip high-tech gear out of their smart classrooms stand the best chance of keeping students engaged, he says.

This Chronicle of Education video drives home the point about making classroom discussion time really count.

"A Professor's Plea: Try Teaching 'Naked'"
http://chronicle.com/media/video/v55/i42/bowen/?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Related Article: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i42/42a00103.htm

Uses for Blogs Within a Course

A BLOG (WEB LOG) is a type of website where you can instantly post your writing. Using web based blogging software, anyone can easily publish their ideas on the Web from any computer with an Internet connection.

The best known use of blogs is for personal online journals. However, the educational community is now finding many uses for blogs. Blogs can be used in at least two different ways: as a group journal where all members can post; or each individual in a group can have their own blog with each linked from a single web page.

* Instructor uses the blog as an online course management tool where s/he posts assignments, announcements, information and summaries of lessons.
* A weekly topic is posted and each student posts their thoughts on the topic.
* Post articles relevant to the course.
* Students post their thoughts regarding articles.
* Class discussions on course readings and lectures.
* Students post their writing assignments and homework exercises.
* Students exchange information related to the course's subject.
* Students post comments, questions and advice about the course to Instructor and fellow students.
* Students post their thoughts on what they are learning.
* Students use the blog as a writing portfolio.
* Students read each other's rough drafts of writing assignments and give feedback.
* Students and Instructor discuss news related to the course's subject.
* Students discuss class activities.
* Online students can get to know each other by reading and commenting on each others blog entries.

Advantages to using UThink vs. Blogger

Why should I use the blog service at the University Libraries? Why not Blogger or LiveJournal?

Good question. You are free to use whatever blogging system you want, however you may want to check out what our system offers:

Advantages to using UThink vs. Blogger:

* No advertisements.
* Integration with the U of M Central Authentication Hub (x.500) for access to the system using Internet IDs and Passwords. This means no messy username/password maintenance for us, and easy access to the system for students/faculty/staff.
* Allows students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to create multiple blogs, really as many blogs as anyone wants.
* Allows blog owners to easily attach other authors to their blogs to create team blogs, class blogs, club blogs, etc. Blog authors can attach anyone that has an Internet ID and Password (including guest Internet IDs) to his or her blog.
* Allows blog authors to upload graphics and other multimedia (doc, ppt, pdf, etc.) to their blogs.
* Creates the necessary blog directories (the main directory and the archives directory) on the fly without any administrator intervention.
* Uses of one of the most popular blog software packages in the world: Movable Type.

Do You Know About the Creative Commons License?

"Creative Commons licenses let content creators keep their copyrights, but offer some conditional rights to the world to use what they've created. All Creative Commons licenses include attribution, meaning anyone using that content must give credit to the original author of the work. Then licensees can add conditions--say, allowing people to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, but not to gain commercially, not to base other works on it, or, if derivative works are allowed, to require them to use an identical license." MacLife, January 2009

Educause's "7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons"

creativecommons.org
http://creativecommons.org/

Specifics about the licenses:
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

Photoshop Elements 7

I just attended a workshop on Photoshop Elements 7 and have to tell you that I'm excited about using this software! I've used Photoshop for years, but wanted to learn about this "consumer version" of Photoshop. This isn't just a stripped down version of Photoshop, folks! Most of the tools you would ever want are included and Adobe has added many enhancements, including a wonderful organizer for your images and photos. The editor is fantastic, with many quick tools for enhancing and stylizing your photos.

Photoshop Elements is available for faculty and staff departmental use via the U of M's UTools licensing program.

Free 30-day trial

EDUCAUSE Forum for the Future of Higher Education

EDUCAUSE and the Forum for the Future of Higher Education announced the launch of the Forum's new website. The Forum is a community of academic leaders and scholars from around the country who explore new thinking and ideas in higher education.

http://net.educause.edu/forum/

It's coming....it's coming....iTunes U!

The University of Minnesota has created an access-restricted iTunes U site for students, faculty, staff, and guests. The access-restricted iTunes U site will provide University affiliates with access to audio and video recordings of campus

* course sessions,
* faculty lectures,
* interviews,
* music, and
* sports events.

These can be played on your computer, iPod, or other portable device.

The University is launching a public iTunes U site. The public iTunes U site will provide the University with a dedicated presence in iTunes, allowing a worldwide audience to view and download our digital academic content.

UMM will have its own section on the iTunes U page. Start getting your podcasts and vodcasts ready!

Check it out at:

http://itunes.umn.edu

Have you thought about offering online office hours?

Adobe Connect -- referred to as UMConnect at the U of M (formerly Macromedia Breeze) -- is a web conferencing and data collaboration tool. It provides you with a virtual meeting/classroom environment for sharing your presentations, images, and desktop applications with remote participants. You can also take advantage of features like a digital whiteboard, text chat, polling, and audio/video broadcasting. To attend your web meeting, your students need only a Web browser with the Flash plugin (almost all computers have this already) and a broadband Internet connection.

Here's a link to an informative and idea-generating video that was created at Purdue University. Faculty describe their use of Adobe Connect.
http://streamer.ics.purdue.edu/koshea/adobe_connect.wmv

If you'd like to get started with UMConnect, please visit:
http://umconnect-support.umn.edu/

Enable New Forms of Communication and Engagement in the Classroom

By relying on the familiar ways students use communication tools on their own time, with their friends, faculty can engage students in the classroom. " Easily accessible and user-friendly, collaboration tools allow students to explore, share, engage, and connect with people and content in meaningful ways that help them learn." (Educause Learning Initiative, August 2008, "Collaboration Tools").

Easily link to class materials and create announcements for your students

The new myUMM Faculty Technology Selector allows University of Minnesota teaching faculty to easily provide web links and class messages for their students. The links and messages will appear to students when they are viewing their myCourses tab in the myUMM portal. Below is a link to a simple instruction sheet for using the tool, and a link to a document containing screenshots of the tool.

Faculty Technology Selector Guide
Screen Shots

The Power of Wikis in Higher Education

Have you thought about how wikis can be used to enhance learning? Stewart Mader has staked his career on the power of wikis. Mader first worked on wiki adoption in the IT department at Brown University and now is with his own company as a consultant. He says that in higher ed, there are really three ways he thinks a wiki can be useful: teaching, research, and administration.

Read more of the Campus Technology article at:

http://campustechnology.com/articles/66505/

Check out the University of Minnesota's supported wiki tool, UMWiki, at http://wiki.umn.edu

University-Wide Anti-Plagiarism Tool

An announcement will be coming out soon from the U of M regarding U-wide licensing for SafeAssign -- an anti-plagiarism tool that is now included in the course management system, Blackboard/Vista.

See information about SafeAssign

Clickers - Turning Point Student Response Systems

Clickers: Spring 2008 Update for TurningPoint Student Response Systems

TurningPoint Student Response Systems (SRS) are small handheld devices coupled with receiving hardware and presentation software. The system allows an instructor to present questions, usually via a computer projector, and collect student answers immediately during the lecture.

WebVista Powerlink is Live!

At long last the powerlink has been added to allow us to integrate clickers into WebVista. In addition to being an alternative way to get your students' clicker IDs into a class list on your laptop, WebVista will allow you to upload session files and give more immediate feedback to your students.

Version Confusion Prevention

* Be aware that the version of Microsoft Office you are using dictates which version of TurningPoint you will use and which receiver.
* If you use Office 2003, then you need TurningPoint 2006 (with 2008 drivers).
* If you use Office 2007, then you need TurningPoint 2008 and you also need a receiver with an updated license.
* If you are comfortable using the version of TurningPoint you have already used in previous semesters, then there is no reason to update.
* Please don't hesitate to contact me (x6376) if you need help sorting this out.

Wimba Voice Tools

I've been practicing with the Wimba Voice Tools plug-in for WebVista. Some of our foreign language faculty have begun using these voice tools, and I wanted to become more familiar with them myself. In my previous blog entry, I introduced Jing. I've used Jing to create a video to demonstrate how easy it is to add a Wimba Voice Discussion Board to a WebVista course.

Here is the URL to that demonstration video:

http://screencast.com/t/b7ZY9l0h9LS

Faculty Fears of Podcasting

Perhaps the biggest threat to podcasting is fear -- on the part of faculty who know about the technology, but haven't the foggiest notion how to use it. To confront and overcome this obstacle, some educators have developed podcasts geared for those of their colleagues who might not understand how podcasting works.

For example, there's Kathy Schrock, technology administrator at Nuaset Public Schools in Orleans, MA. Schrock's podcasts (http://www.nausetschools.org/podcasts.htm) include short interviews with teachers and administrators about such things as how they use technology in the classrooms.

For more on the fundamentals of creating and locating educational podcasts, visit:
http://www.learninginhand.com/podcasting

ePortfolios

We all have this wonderful tool available for our use -- the U of M ePortfolio. The University provides individualized content for each of us, including a photo (UCard photo), contact information, college and major, transcript, graduation information, and so on. We can think of this as our electronic file cabinet in which we can store information by and about ourselves, such as writing samples, photographs or design samples, video clips, music clips, resumes, internship experiences or mentors. As owners of our information, we can choose to share either part or all of our portfolio with other individuals.

You can see your ePortfolio at http://portfolio.umn.edu. Log iin using your InternetID and password.

Portfolio provides an efficient way to document and reflect upon personal information, educational accomplishments, career goals, skills development, professional practices, and recognition received. We can retrieve and view our documents at any time and organize components into folders for others to access. We are allowed to keep our portfolio for life, as long as we access our account at least once every six months. Storage allowed is 5 gigabytes.