LTDC Online News

http://www.educause.edu/E2009

http://www.campustechnology.com/virtual

http://www.onlineteachingandlearning.com/

http://www.nmc.org/2009-future-symposium

ICS is hosting free one-hour demos to introduce you to the features and uses of Elluminate Live!. You can participate from your desktop using Elluminate with just your Internet connection and Internet audio — no phone conference is necessary. Registration is required and seats are limited, so register early to secure your place.

Please go to http://www.uwex.edu/ics/elluminate/demo/index.cfm to register for an upcoming demo.

• Two faculty members, Mark Fenton (Business) and Michael Lawler (Psychology), have recently completed the Quality Matters Peer Reviewer Training, since the initial Applying the Quality Matters Rubric Training, hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County.
• Learning Technology Services is in the process of expanding their collection of D2L-related tip sheets and video (Camtasia) tutorials as just one attempt to prepare for a potential pandemic. Tutorials and videos include all D2L tools, features, and functions for beginner, intermediate, and advanced user levels. Tip sheets and video tutorials will also include design, teaching, software, distance education, Web 2.0, and video themes. All tip sheets and video tutorials will be posted on the new Learning Technology Service website, once it is complete. In addition, regarding the complete Pandemic Flu Plan, it can be viewed under the H1N1 Updates for Campus heading at: http://tinyurl.com/l9fjml.
• Learning Technology Services (LTS) recently added an additional Echo 360 room on campus, giving Stout a total of four rooms for faculty to record lectures and other electronic inputs during a class period. These “recordings” can then be streamed to the Web to be view asynchronously.
• The Nakatani Teaching and Learning Center has added a theme-based Word Cloud to their website. Each “theme” leads the user to an archived, faculty member video interview, which includes dialogue on that particular topic. To access the Word Cloud, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/lloknz
• D2L usage for web-enhanced and online courses increased 6% for 2008-2009 school year. In other words, 82% of all course sections at Stout used D2L. This is a total of 3,509 sections.

Recent UW-Stout Instructor Publications Related to Technology and Learning

• The latest Tech Tips for Educators from Stout’s School of Education, edited by Karen Franker, was published on September 11. It can be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/mth478.
• Four faculty from the School of Education have written books that were recently published, or are forthcoming. They are: Ann Bell, Kay Lehmann, Lisa Chamberlin, and Susan Manning. Book images and product details can be viewed using the corresponding Amazon.com links, listed below.

Exploring Web 2.0: Second Generation Interactive Tools – Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, Networking, Virtual Worlds, and More by Ann Bell
http://tinyurl.com/lwb582

Making the Move to eLearning: Putting Your Course Online by Kay Lehmann and Lisa Chamberlin
http://tinyurl.com/ko4l28

Online Education for Dummies by Kevin Johnson and Susan Manning
http://tinyurl.com/lcspru

Submitted by Jamison Olson, UW-Stout

At UW-Stevens Point, faculty are helping evaluate tablet computers as teaching tools, and additionally whether a tablet and projector can be used in the classroom to do much of what they would be able to do with a SmartBoard.  

A tablet computer is similar to a regular laptop but additionally allows the user to manually write and draw using the accompanying stylus/pen. The screen can be rotated and then folded down so the tablet flattens and can be held when writing, much as a clipboard or paper notebook would be held. Handwriting can be saved to a document, though handwriting can also be converted to typed text and then inserted where a cursor is placed.

Being able to manually write and draw digitally helps to eliminate some of the barriers instructors face when attempting to translate what they traditionally do in the face-to-face classroom, or with pen and paper, to the online environment.

Outside of the classroom the tablet’s portability also allows instructors to record more in-depth audio and screen-capture explanations of course material, using the tablet stylus to draw symbols and characters. In the office or at home they can download student papers from D2L or from their email, and use the tablet stylus to hand-write comments. Once graded, the graded assignments can then be sent back to the students – no paper needs to be printed.

UWSP’s tablet initiative is offering up to 12 instructors the opportunity to explore the use of a tablet PC for a semester to enhance instructional objectives. 

Examples of how tablets are being used at UWSP:

• In physics, a tablet is being used as a virtual whiteboard in the classroom.
• In foreign languages, special characters, written more fluidly on a tablet, are captured with accompanying instructor audio using Camtasia Relay to provide reviewable segments of class lecture.
• In mathematics, a tablet is being explored to record voice and equations written to the tablet screen to create brief, in-depth explanations of particularly difficult concepts.
• In history, a tablet is being used to grade student papers digitally, using the tablet’s stylus to do editing similar to that done on hard-copy documents.
• In forestry, a tablet is being used to generate notes to construct a tree inventory out in the field.

Tablets are also being introduced on the UWSP campus through the Help Desk’s equipment check out program. Tablets are included in the list of equipment available for up to a two-week check out period.  Their availability helps to slowly introduce this new technology to the UWSP campus.

Submitted by Mary Mielke
UW-Stevens Point

The UWS LTDC (Learning Technology Development Council) is proud to announce a new online series to showcase notable accomplishments and best practices on using technology in teaching and learning. This series features past LTDC’s Curricular Redesign and Emerging Technology grant awardees presenting the outcomes of their grant projects, as well any faculty from UW campuses willing to share their expertise and experience. Any faculty interested in presenting on a technology topic is cordially invited to contact the campus LTDC representative.
View the e-pedagogy sessions at: http://www.uwsa.edu/olit/ltdc/epedagogy/index.html

UW-Parkside is joining several UW System schools in launching the Qualtrics Survey System. We’ve conducted training sessions this summer for both Brand Administrators as well as user training with a pilot group of faculty and staff. Our next steps include internal marketing—letting our users know about this great new tool, and setting up an ongoing training schedule for new users to get acclimated with Qualtrics.

Also, UW-Parkside is in the final stages of launching Extensis Portfolio to manage university photos, images, logos and other graphics and design projects. Previously, if a user wants to gather university images for use in printed or web materials, he or she might need to visit several offices and look through many, many binders of images and proof sheets. Extensis moves that entire process online, letting users explore and download approved images right from their desktops or web browsers, and allowing University Relations to easily change and update the images allowed for public use. The first online catalogs will be launched in the early fall semester with more to follow.

Finally, we are in the very first stages of organizing our new Learning Technologies Group. Under the leadership of our new CIO, Jose Noriega, this group is being formed to support learning technology initiatives, and to centralize technical support for our students, staff and faculty.

Submitted by Pat Eaton
UW Parkside

Podcasting is one of those terms, like Kleenex or Xerox, that actually refers to something specific, but which people tend to assign to a variety of similar things. In this case, podcasting has been associated with putting just about any kind of media on the internet. In it’s specific form, podcasting means to put media files, either audio or video, on the internet so an RSS feed that will show up in Apple’s music management software, iTunes, enabling students to listen to the files on an iPod. In an even more specific form, capturing a live lecture (for review by students who have actually attended the lecture, he said carefully) is a common association. That’s the specific idea I’d like to talk about.

This has been possible to do for as long as iPods have existed, but two developments brought this to where it was a practical idea.

The first was Apple’s development of iTunes U, free storage space provided to higher education institutions by Apple (how can you resist something that’s free?) with a fairly simple set of routines for uploading files and automatic generation of RSS feeds so a student gets notification of new uploads without having to search for them, and if they set it up in iTunes correctly, the files are downloaded directly to their iPod when they sync it. One of the major ideas is that students are using iTunes to manage their music libraries anyway, so why not leverage this for academic purposes? I should clarify right away that students can listen to podcasts with iTunes on any computer whether they have a iPod or not. iTunes is a free download. This does take a little administration on our Learning Technology staff, but not much. The main trick is to keep the materials matched with courses and linked in D2L with a custom widget.

The next development was to make recording a lecture easy enough so faculty were willing to do it. If you’ve ever been in a classroom before and after class, you probably know that the prof is usually surrounded by students asking questions, so anything that’s going to take critical concentration isn’t going to get done.

When we first started this we relied on two methods.

In our larger lecture halls, we have wireless microphones installed. We found a system called Podcast-in-a-box. This required putting an older computer that otherwise was destined for surplus (without a keyboard or monitor) in the classroom in addition to the computer used for presentation, and connecting the audio output to this podcasting computer. The real beauty of Podcast-in-a-box is the in-class simplicity. The instructor was given a flash drive which only contains a small text file that specifies the instructor, course and the path to the course on iTunes U. To start the recording, the instructor puts on the microphone, plugs in the flash drive, and when they’re done with class, they remove the flash drive. The recording is then uploaded directly to iTunes with all the proper links and RSS feeds created. I should mention there’s a back end server involved but the users have no interaction with it.

The other method, used in smaller classrooms without the installed public address systems, was to give the instructor an iPod with a voice recording attachment and an inexpensive lavalier mic. Starting and stopping the recording is a one button affair on the iPod. After class, the instructors connected the iPod to their computers, the recording downloads to the their local iTunes library, and with two more clicks can be uploaded to iTunes U ready for the students.

Both of these methods had their quirks but the biggest issue was batteries, on the wireless mics in the lecture halls, and on the iPods for the others.

We’ve gone through several variations, but our current method relies on wireless mics that connect to the computer and are charged over the USB port. We’ve installed powered USB hubs to make sure the batteries get charged even when the computer isn’t on. The software that negotiates this is part of the Macintosh Operating system called Podcast Producer. All of the computers now in our classrooms are Macintoshes that can boot into either Windows or the Macintosh operating system. This led to one little surprise. When using Podcast Producer while presenting on the Macintosh OS, the instructor can choose to capture the computer screen with whatever presentation or other software they’re using, while with the Windows starting the remote Mac option, only audio could be recorded. Just about every instructor who had been presenting with Windows switched to presenting with the Macintosh in order to utilize this screen recording function. Actually quite important in courses where a lot of illustrative material and equations are involved.

One question everyone wonders about is “Do the students listen to the recordings?” The only way we have of knowing is by looking at the server logs iTunes provides (We did survey the students and ask them the first semester and got a whopping 10% response rate). LIke any analytic on the web, we can only tell if they clicked on the link. Class size, and the number of recordings vary quite a bit from course to course, but the server logs show that on average, each lecture was downloaded 32 times, and each student downloaded 7 lectures. This is consistent with the idea that students were accessing the lecture to clarify and review difficult points in the lectures. Graphing the downloads for a specific course by date and looking at the peaks easily reveals when the tests in each course occurred.

The other question often asked is whether students still come to class if the lectures are available on line. We have at least two instructors who record and post every lecture, and they report no effect on attendance. These are both upper level biology courses, however. In a conversation with one of the instructors who is recording all her lectures, we surmised that what was happening is that we were giving boost to the better students who really wanted to learn, and that’s really not such a bad thing to invest time, money, and effort into.

Most of these recordings are restricted to class members, but some instructors have chosen to make them available to anyone. You can see the list by going to http://www.uwosh.edu/itunes and clicking on the link at the right of the pages. That will launch iTunes and take you to Oshkosh’s iTunes U directory.

Submitted by Nick Dvoracek
UW Oshkosh