Good Morning Developers,
I have had a chance to review all of your course developments for 50% completion and have sent each of you my feedback. Overall things are looking great! If you have questions on any of my feedback, please let me know.
As we move toward 75% and then 100% completion, please remember that not only are your 12-week courses due at the 100% point but the 10-week conversions are also due at that time, so you will need to plan accordingly. When you think your 12-week master is at 100% completion I will then make a copy of the course for you to work in the course conversion in preparation for the 10-week Early Fall quarter.
This week's audio enhancement topic I'd like to introduce you to is UC Berkeley's online webcast and free video resources. With topics ranging from computer science to mathematics to psychology to marketing and beyond, UC Berkeley has made specific course lectures as well as campus-wide special event speakers, such as President Clinton's recent address to the campus community, free to the online community. This site, as well as YouTube's UC Berkeley Channel, offers a wealth of audio enhancement opportunities for you. And you'd be surprised how engaged our students become with these lectures.
I've used a Berkeley lecture as part of an assignment in one of my courses for a few quarters and I am always amazed at how evident it is that students have truly watched the entire 1 hour video each time. Students have responded so well to this video that they have even asked for more!
Below are links to the UC Berkeley site directly as well as to their YouTube channel. Check these out and consider incorporating 1 or 2 into your courses as an audio-enhanced lecture!
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/
http://www.youtube.com/user/UCBerkeley
Have a great rest of the week!
Heather
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
March 24, 2010
Good Morning Developers,
We are nearing the 50% completion date of March 29 for your new developments and I am anxious to take a peek at how things are progressing. Monday morning I will begin to review your course developments and will be in contact with each of you individually with feedback. If you anticipate not being able to meet the 50% deadline, please let me know ASAP. Particularly with needing to convert the courses to the 10-week masters in preparation for Early Fall roll-out, it is essential that the developments stay as closely on track as possible.
Also, please remember that the Blackboard system will be offline for system enhancements next Tuesday, March 30, starting at 3:30 a.m. and will be down until 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 31. So plan your development work accordingly, but if you do plan to work on your courses offline during this time, please remember that copying and pasting from a Microsoft Word document into Blackboard does not work well. It negatively affects font layout and overall HTML coding.
Now for my discussion topic of the week. As you know, a primary focus this development cycle is the incorporation of audio lectures and up to this point I've shared various resources for voice lecture with you. But have you thought of the role or impact music and visuals could play in making a concept or idea that much more engaging and thought provoking for students? A great resource available to you is Animoto.
You are probably asking, what is an Animoto. Well, Animoto is a Web 2.0 tool that allows us to make amazing videos to the beat of music. It does all the work of timing and "popping" the pictures to the tune for us and is an excellent way to illustrate through pictures, text, and sound, what a term or concept means to us. If there is a particularly abstract concept you are trying to get students to think about in a new way, this is a great option. For example, how might visuals of a marketing campaign illustrate in a new way a specific marketing strategy?
Click here for a sample Animoto on the concept of culture. And to start your own Animoto presentation, simply go to the Animoto site. This Jing Training on Animoto is also a great tool as you are using this resource.
Incorporating Animoto into a discussion board topic or an assignment is another great idea that requires students to take a concept or idea and demonstrate their understanding or perspective of it in a new and unique fashion. It has been used in our intercultural communications courses for a couple of quarters and students have responded very well to it, and as an instructor I've really seen the critical thinking and processing heightened as they work on the assignment.
To give you an idea how this is being used in the classroom as an assignment, here is the actual assignment for intercultural communications. Please note that there is a reflection component that students must also complete so they not only create the Animoto but they also reflect upon the experience and what they learned as a result, which brings critical thinking to the next level. I could see this approach being condensed to serve as a great discussion board topic as well.
Sample Assignment:
Cultural Values
Based on what you have learned in this unit, what does the term "Value" mean to you? What can we learn about a culture based on values? How are values expressed and made known?
Values are subjective and as such this assignment is designed to give you the opportunity to define Cultural Value from what you have learned in this unit. To do so you will be creating a short-length Animoto demonstrating what the term Cultural Value means to you.
You are probably asking, what is an Animoto. Animoto is a Web 2.0 tool that allows us to make amazing videos to the beat of music. It does all the work of timing and "popping" the pictures to the tune for us and is an excellent way to illustrate through pictures, text, and sound, what a term or concept means to us.
So, once again, for this assignment, you will be creating your own short-length (12-15 slide image) Animoto defining/expressing/illustrating the concept of Cultural Value.
To help you in the creation of an Animoto video, please access the Jing tutorial found in this unit's Additional Learning Resources folder. This Jing training does a fantastic job of showcasing the step by step instructions of how to set up a video!
In the Additional Learning Resources folder you will also find a sample Animoto video representing the concept of Culture. I hope you find it helpful.
Once you have created your Animoto video, please copy and paste the video web address link in the below view/complete assignment message board as well as a brief reflection on what you learned about Values as a result of the creation of this video.
As always, if you have any questions on your course development work, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll be in touch individually next week after I've had a chance to review your course development progress.
Thanks and have a great rest of the week!
Heather
We are nearing the 50% completion date of March 29 for your new developments and I am anxious to take a peek at how things are progressing. Monday morning I will begin to review your course developments and will be in contact with each of you individually with feedback. If you anticipate not being able to meet the 50% deadline, please let me know ASAP. Particularly with needing to convert the courses to the 10-week masters in preparation for Early Fall roll-out, it is essential that the developments stay as closely on track as possible.
Also, please remember that the Blackboard system will be offline for system enhancements next Tuesday, March 30, starting at 3:30 a.m. and will be down until 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 31. So plan your development work accordingly, but if you do plan to work on your courses offline during this time, please remember that copying and pasting from a Microsoft Word document into Blackboard does not work well. It negatively affects font layout and overall HTML coding.
Now for my discussion topic of the week. As you know, a primary focus this development cycle is the incorporation of audio lectures and up to this point I've shared various resources for voice lecture with you. But have you thought of the role or impact music and visuals could play in making a concept or idea that much more engaging and thought provoking for students? A great resource available to you is Animoto.
You are probably asking, what is an Animoto. Well, Animoto is a Web 2.0 tool that allows us to make amazing videos to the beat of music. It does all the work of timing and "popping" the pictures to the tune for us and is an excellent way to illustrate through pictures, text, and sound, what a term or concept means to us. If there is a particularly abstract concept you are trying to get students to think about in a new way, this is a great option. For example, how might visuals of a marketing campaign illustrate in a new way a specific marketing strategy?
Click here for a sample Animoto on the concept of culture. And to start your own Animoto presentation, simply go to the Animoto site. This Jing Training on Animoto is also a great tool as you are using this resource.
Incorporating Animoto into a discussion board topic or an assignment is another great idea that requires students to take a concept or idea and demonstrate their understanding or perspective of it in a new and unique fashion. It has been used in our intercultural communications courses for a couple of quarters and students have responded very well to it, and as an instructor I've really seen the critical thinking and processing heightened as they work on the assignment.
To give you an idea how this is being used in the classroom as an assignment, here is the actual assignment for intercultural communications. Please note that there is a reflection component that students must also complete so they not only create the Animoto but they also reflect upon the experience and what they learned as a result, which brings critical thinking to the next level. I could see this approach being condensed to serve as a great discussion board topic as well.
Sample Assignment:
Cultural Values
Based on what you have learned in this unit, what does the term "Value" mean to you? What can we learn about a culture based on values? How are values expressed and made known?
Values are subjective and as such this assignment is designed to give you the opportunity to define Cultural Value from what you have learned in this unit. To do so you will be creating a short-length Animoto demonstrating what the term Cultural Value means to you.
You are probably asking, what is an Animoto. Animoto is a Web 2.0 tool that allows us to make amazing videos to the beat of music. It does all the work of timing and "popping" the pictures to the tune for us and is an excellent way to illustrate through pictures, text, and sound, what a term or concept means to us.
So, once again, for this assignment, you will be creating your own short-length (12-15 slide image) Animoto defining/expressing/illustrating the concept of Cultural Value.
To help you in the creation of an Animoto video, please access the Jing tutorial found in this unit's Additional Learning Resources folder. This Jing training does a fantastic job of showcasing the step by step instructions of how to set up a video!
In the Additional Learning Resources folder you will also find a sample Animoto video representing the concept of Culture. I hope you find it helpful.
Once you have created your Animoto video, please copy and paste the video web address link in the below view/complete assignment message board as well as a brief reflection on what you learned about Values as a result of the creation of this video.
As always, if you have any questions on your course development work, please let me know. Otherwise, I'll be in touch individually next week after I've had a chance to review your course development progress.
Thanks and have a great rest of the week!
Heather
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
March 17, 2010
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Hopefully with the sun we are seeing here in Minnesota that means there will be a touch of green in the grass soon too.
As you continue working on your new course developments, please also continue to be thinking of ways to incorporate audio presentations into your courses. Please remember that I'd like to see a minimum of 3 audio lectures/presentations in your development projects.
The resource I'd like to discuss this week as an audio option is Elluminate Live! Many of you are familiar with this resource as it is the Webinar format used for online faculty meetings. But have you thought about using this resource as part of a lecture or even as part of a course assignment option where students do a presentation themselves? While it may be problematic to require students to complete their own Elluminate session, offering it as an assignment option is a great opportunity and students have responded really well to this choice when it has been given to them.
The following links will guide you through the process of getting starting with doing your own Elluminate Live! recorded presentation as well as directions on how to direct students to use this tool.
Click here to view how you as the developer or how an instructor would access and use Elluminate Live to record a presentation.
Please click here for a short demonstration on how students would use Elluminate Live
One important note when recording Elluminate Live! sessions, you will need to select "Share" or "Public" when setting up your parameters so that it can be easily copied when courses are copied for future quarters.
If you have any questions on how to use this resource, please don't hesitate to ask.
Have a great rest of the week, and once again, Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Heather
As you continue working on your new course developments, please also continue to be thinking of ways to incorporate audio presentations into your courses. Please remember that I'd like to see a minimum of 3 audio lectures/presentations in your development projects.
The resource I'd like to discuss this week as an audio option is Elluminate Live! Many of you are familiar with this resource as it is the Webinar format used for online faculty meetings. But have you thought about using this resource as part of a lecture or even as part of a course assignment option where students do a presentation themselves? While it may be problematic to require students to complete their own Elluminate session, offering it as an assignment option is a great opportunity and students have responded really well to this choice when it has been given to them.
The following links will guide you through the process of getting starting with doing your own Elluminate Live! recorded presentation as well as directions on how to direct students to use this tool.
Click here to view how you as the developer or how an instructor would access and use Elluminate Live to record a presentation.
Please click here for a short demonstration on how students would use Elluminate Live
One important note when recording Elluminate Live! sessions, you will need to select "Share" or "Public" when setting up your parameters so that it can be easily copied when courses are copied for future quarters.
If you have any questions on how to use this resource, please don't hesitate to ask.
Have a great rest of the week, and once again, Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Heather
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
March 10, 2010
Good Evening Developers,
This week I've enjoyed taking at peek at your developments up to this point and I've already received a couple of PowerPoints to add some audio lectures to using Adobe Presenter, so great work everyone!
This week I'd like to introduce you to a great tool to record short screen demonstrations, which can be very useful as audio lectures/presentations in online courses. You may have already heard of Jing, and I will be exploring this tool specifically in a later blog, but a resource similar to Jing that does not require any software download and is also free to use is something called Screenjelly. Screenjelly allows you to record a computer screen demonstration with a simple click of a button. I encourage you to check it out by clicking here to access the demonstration link on the home page.
To show you just what Screenjelly can do, click here for a demonstration that Brian James, Network Director of Instructional Technology, created to show how instructors can access Instructor Resources on Sharepoint, which I also encourage you to take advantage of (double the resources this week).
As always, please let me know if you have any questions as you work on your course development(s).
Have a great rest of the week!
Heather
This week I've enjoyed taking at peek at your developments up to this point and I've already received a couple of PowerPoints to add some audio lectures to using Adobe Presenter, so great work everyone!
This week I'd like to introduce you to a great tool to record short screen demonstrations, which can be very useful as audio lectures/presentations in online courses. You may have already heard of Jing, and I will be exploring this tool specifically in a later blog, but a resource similar to Jing that does not require any software download and is also free to use is something called Screenjelly. Screenjelly allows you to record a computer screen demonstration with a simple click of a button. I encourage you to check it out by clicking here to access the demonstration link on the home page.
To show you just what Screenjelly can do, click here for a demonstration that Brian James, Network Director of Instructional Technology, created to show how instructors can access Instructor Resources on Sharepoint, which I also encourage you to take advantage of (double the resources this week).
As always, please let me know if you have any questions as you work on your course development(s).
Have a great rest of the week!
Heather
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
March 3, 2010
Good Afternoon Developers,
If you live in Minnesota, I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather as much as I am! And if you live elsewhere, I hope you too are getting some beautiful March weather. It is hard to believe it is already March! And that means the 25% completion date for new course development is just around the corner. For most of you, I will be going into your courses on Monday, March 8th, to see how the developments are progressing and to offer feedback and assistance. If you believe you won't be able to meet this 25% completion date, please let me know right away.
As I've previously mentioned, one primary focus in this development cycle will be the implementation of a minimum of 3 audio lectures within the course(s) you are developing. Last week I talked about how you could transition a static PowerPoint presentation into an audio-enhanced, flash-type presentation using Adobe Presenter (once again, I will take care of the recording for Adobe Presenter for you; I simply need a PowerPoint and an accompanying script). This week, I'd like to introduce you to a great resource where you could bring "guest lecturers" into your course(s) through the use of TED.
Who is TED you may be asking. Well, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives.
This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free (a huge opportunity for us to bring experts into our online courses). More than 200 talks are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a creative commons license, so they can be freely shared and re-posted.
If you haven't had a chance to search around the TED website at http://www.ted.com/ I encourage you to do so. The videos that are shown are very "real life" and "relevant."
Several of you are working on media and technology courses currently, so this resource would be a perfect option for you in implementing various audio lectures, since this was the initial base of the program. In fact, if you click here you will be able to view many of the technology topic videos.
However, because of its success and growth, even if you are teaching a course not in one of these areas, I strongly encourage you to check out the various TED listings as the videos also include the disciplines of Business, Science, and Global Issues.
By incorporating TED lectures into your course development(s) you are adding in both video and audio, thus reaching audio and visual learners. The more learning styles we can appeal to in our courses, the more effective we will be.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions on your development work. I look forward to reviewing your courses starting on Monday!
Have a great rest of the week!
Heather
If you live in Minnesota, I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather as much as I am! And if you live elsewhere, I hope you too are getting some beautiful March weather. It is hard to believe it is already March! And that means the 25% completion date for new course development is just around the corner. For most of you, I will be going into your courses on Monday, March 8th, to see how the developments are progressing and to offer feedback and assistance. If you believe you won't be able to meet this 25% completion date, please let me know right away.
As I've previously mentioned, one primary focus in this development cycle will be the implementation of a minimum of 3 audio lectures within the course(s) you are developing. Last week I talked about how you could transition a static PowerPoint presentation into an audio-enhanced, flash-type presentation using Adobe Presenter (once again, I will take care of the recording for Adobe Presenter for you; I simply need a PowerPoint and an accompanying script). This week, I'd like to introduce you to a great resource where you could bring "guest lecturers" into your course(s) through the use of TED.
Who is TED you may be asking. Well, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives.
This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free (a huge opportunity for us to bring experts into our online courses). More than 200 talks are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a creative commons license, so they can be freely shared and re-posted.
If you haven't had a chance to search around the TED website at http://www.ted.com/ I encourage you to do so. The videos that are shown are very "real life" and "relevant."
Several of you are working on media and technology courses currently, so this resource would be a perfect option for you in implementing various audio lectures, since this was the initial base of the program. In fact, if you click here you will be able to view many of the technology topic videos.
However, because of its success and growth, even if you are teaching a course not in one of these areas, I strongly encourage you to check out the various TED listings as the videos also include the disciplines of Business, Science, and Global Issues.
By incorporating TED lectures into your course development(s) you are adding in both video and audio, thus reaching audio and visual learners. The more learning styles we can appeal to in our courses, the more effective we will be.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions on your development work. I look forward to reviewing your courses starting on Monday!
Have a great rest of the week!
Heather