Author Archives: Aaron Axelsen

2013 Online/Blended Summer Workshop Registration Open

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The Learning Technology Center is pleased to announce the fourth annual summer faculty development opportunity on “Online/Blended Course Design and Best Practices.”  If you need to design a new (or refresh an older) online or blended/hybrid course, please consider participating in this unique opportunity to collaborate with other UW-Whitewater instructors and explore proven course design strategies and best practices.

This highly-interactive summer workshop demonstrates teaching best practices using a variety of teaching methods and technology tools, and topics are presented in an experiential learning model format. The structure of this course not only allows you to explore new teaching and course design methods, but it also enables you to participate in activities that provide you with experience in being an online “student.”

The workshop consists of an online component conducted via Desire2Learn (D2L), face-to-face meetings, and webinars. The online portion begins on May 24 and ends July 30. There are also five, “in-person” face-to-face sessions scheduled for May 30, June 24-25, and July 29-30 as well as webinar-style meetings throughout the course. For more details, to register, and to listen to what participants have to say about what they learned from participating in last year’s workshop, please visit the Online/Blended Workshop Blog.

This workshop is sponsored by the by the UW-Whitewater College of Letters and Sciences, the LEARN Center, and the Learning Technology Center.  If you have questions or would like more information, please contact the Learning Technology Center (LTC) at ltc@uww.edu or call 262-472-1004.

Media Lab Specialty Printing

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Starting on May 28th, 2013 the iCIT Media Lab will only be accepting purple points for faculty and staff specialty printing (color prints, poster prints, and laminations).  The ability to charge departmental and project org codes will still be available.

We have produced a short video that explains the changes and also the general printing process.

Additional information is available on the Media Lab website.

The Media Lab printing services are available for use by all students, faculty and staff.  Any questions regarding this can be directed to: medialab@uww.edu

Feb 22nd Keynote: Evidence-Based Approach to Multimedia Learning

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As part of the 2nd Annual Northwest Regional Instructional Technology Showcase, Dr. Richard E. Mayer’s will be giving a presentation titled “What Instructors Should Know about Taking an Evidence-Based Approach to Multimedia Learning”.

Mayer’s presentation will be streamed LIVE tomorrow Friday, February 22, from 9 a.m. to 10, CST. Participants MUST register prior to the presentation.

To register for this event, please take the following steps:

  1. Click on the following link: https://uwstoutevents.webex.com/uwstoutevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=665333438
  2. Click “Register” on the left-hand side of the screen.
  3. Enter your “First Name, Last Name, Email Address,” and then “Confirm Email Address.” Click “Submit.”
  4. Read the Confirmation page and click “Done.” You will receive a confirmation email shortly thereafter. Follow the directions in the email to enter the event.
  5. The Event Password is: nwritkey

Please contact Nathan Castillo at castillon@uwstout.edu if you experience difficulties getting into the event.

Desire2Learn Service Update (November 2012)

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While we were all enjoying the Thanksgiving vacation, Desire2Learn (D2L) was hard at work deploying Service Pack 5 (SP5).  This update brings some important bug fixes to our D2L system!

Most importantly, some of the annoying bugs users were experiencing with dropbox submissions running through TurnItIn. All dropbox submissions since January 2012 will be reviewed and automatically processed if they are still in queue for TurnItIn.

In addition, some other important changes to note are:

  • Gradebook: Logging now tracks who creates, deletes, and restores grade items.  Instructors can restore, review and recover all deleted items and student grades from the Event Log, accessible through “Manage Grades.”  Also, a confirmation dialog box now displayed when a user clicks “Clear” from the Grade Item page to avoid accidental clearing and saving of grades.
  • TurnItIn Submissions: Two bugs that have prevented some Dropbox submissions from processing through TurnItIn appear to be fixed in SP5. Some submissions not processing because of a third error are still being investigated by Desire2Learn support.

Winterim Instructors:  D2L is scheduled to be unavailable on the first day of Winterim classes beginning at 9:30pm on Wednesday, January 2nd 2013 until 10:30am on Thursday, January 3rd 2013 for file server storage migration.  Please plan your work accordingly.  There will be more information and a formal campus announcement are in the works for the coming weeks.

Course Request Application:  We have overhauled the course request application and a number of new features are available.  For more information see: D2L Course Request Enhancements Now Available.

Winterim & Spring 2013 course requests are now available.  To request for your courses, go to: D2L Course Request Application.

Streaming Video Updates:  We have updated the underlying code that powers the streaming videos produced by the Learning Technology Center to now support playback on iOS devices.  For more information see: Streaming Video Support for iOS.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Weekly Email Updates Available

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The Learning Technology Center (LTC) now has a new weekly email digest powered by MailChimp! With this feature you can now receive a summary of new workshops, teaching tools and software right in your inbox! Get connected with us and Sign Up today!  Emails are sent every Monday morning.

Subscribe to the Email updates.

If you have any questions regarding this, or suggestions on how you would like to receive information updates, please contact the Learning Technology Center.

Streaming Video Support for iOS

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Over the past years, the Learning Technology Center (LTC) has streamed and produced a large amount of video for courses.  We have relied on the Adobe Flash technology to playback the videos that have been produced in Desire2Learn and other various websites.  Effective immediately, the underlying code that powers these pages now supports playback on iOS devices!

What does this mean?  It means that all videos produced or processed by the LTC in the last 2 – 3 years can be viewed on iPhones, iPods and iPads.  The videos continue to work as they always have on computers and other devices supporting Adobe Flash.

Do I have to do anything?  No!  We have designed it in such a way that the change was retroactive to all of the video pages sent out by the LTC.  Your videos should now work on iOS devices.

What if my video does not load on iOS?  Please contact UW-W D2L Support and include the specific course, module and topic link where the video is located.  If the video is in an older format we may need to convert it to a H.264 (mp4) format before it will work on iOS devices.

How does it work? (Warning: Technical Response)  We have updated our underlying code that generates the flowplayer page to utilize Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) which was implemented by Adobe in their Flash Media Server.  Using HLS, we are able to deliver the same quality of video, at multiple bitrates for varying internet connection speeds to iOS devices.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please contact UW-W D2L Support.