Scheduling WebEx Meetings for Students

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As many of you know, UW-Whitewater has WebEx setup for all faculty and staff.  We have been getting a number of requests for student use of WebEx in conjunction with various classroom activities.  Students cannot directly schedule meetings in the WebEx system.  However, instructors can schedule the meetings for the students in a way that the instructor will not need to be present to start up the meeting.

The document below will walk through the steps of how to use the “Advanced Scheduler” to schedule a meeting where students can join, and present to their groups without the need for the instructor to be present.

It is important to remember that students should be using the VoIP audio option only. The option to connect to audio over the phone should not be used. If the phone option is used by students, any costs incurred will be billed back to the department.

The tutorial is available at: WebEx: Scheduling Meetings for Students

If you have any additional questions regarding this, please contact the Learning Technology Center.

PowerPoint Audio Narration Workarounds

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We have recently discovered that there is a known issue impacting PowerPoint audio narration on Mac computers. When recording audio narrations in PowerPoint, the audio can get randomly cut off. There are reported issues of this happening in Office 2004, 2008 and 2011. Currently, we have a few workarounds for those mac users who are looking to record audio narrated PowerPoint’s.

The best solution for the problem is to record your PowerPoint audio narrations on a PC.  This is by far the easiest solution, and you can continue using the same audio narrations function in PowerPoint to handle the recording.  UW-Whitewater Faculty and Staff are welcome to contact the Learning Technology Center for assistance.

  1. Do not save the slide timings when recording.  After you are done recording your narration, PowerPoint will prompt you if you would like to save the slide timings.  Click “No” to this box.  The down side is that the user will need to manually click through the PowerPoint.
  2. Record one slide at a time. Some users have had luck inserting the audio slide by slide, instead of using the built in audio narration functionality.  To do this, click on the “Insert” menu, choose “Audio” and select “Record”.
  3. Use a 3rd party application. Audio can be recorded in applications like Audacity or GarageBand and exported as a MP3 file.  Each slide would need to be recorded and added into the PowerPoint separately.

If you have any additional questions regarding this, please contact the Learning Technology Center.

D2L Known Issues List

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On the Instructional Technology wiki, a page is available that lists known issues with the current version of D2L. These are issues, bugs, or errors that Desire2Learn is aware of and have plans to correct in future Service Packs and updates. This Known Issues list wiki page is available here.

As Service Packs and updates are applied to D2L, we will update this wiki page with information on what the Service Pack has fixed.

Register today for “iPad Uses in the Classroom”

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Have you considered incorporating iPads into your teaching?  Would you like to learn more about how other instructors have leveraged iPads in their teaching?  If so, please join us for a webinar on September 27.  Topics include classroom and project use of iPads, as well as the logistics of buying and setting up an account.  Case studies on how iPads were used in Math instruction and Digital Storytelling will also be discussed.

Bring your lunch and join us for the webinar iPad Uses in the Classroom on Thursday, September 27, at 12:00pm-1:30pm in UC 261. Register through my.uww.edu/signup.

Jointly sponsored by Andersen Library and the Learning Technology Center, this webinar will explore examples of successful iPad integration as well as offer suggestions on technical issues. (iPad image from flickr.com Some rights reserved by sucelloleiloes.)

Message from LEARN@UW on D2L Performance

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Faculty, Staff and Students:

On behalf of our Learn@UW Executive Committee, I/we want you to know that we are taking steps now to improve the performance of Desire2Learn (D2L) systems at all UW campuses.

We are aware that many of you have experienced slow or delayed responses in D2L over the past few days. After D2L was upgraded to version 10 this summer, we noticed some occasional performance issues. Immediately, Learn@UW technical staff (the entity at UW-Madison’s Division of Information Technology that manages the D2L System) and D2L staff began working on solutions to improve performance. Later, Microsoft experts were engaged to help solve the problem.  Numerous patches to the system have been applied. However, these efforts have yielded only temporary success, and the root cause of these performance problems has not yet been identified. This is not uncommon in a complex environment like ours, but it is still very, very frustrating.

We will not tolerate this level of performance. While technical experts continue around the clock to resolve the issues, the Learn@UW Executive Committee is exploring alternatives. We are consulting with top D2L executives to determine what assistance D2L can provide beyond finding the problem and what viable alternatives exist.

We are confident that we are receiving the best attention possible from both vendors. Top leadership at UW System, Learn@UW Utility and Desire2Learn are engaged in this process.

As we work through this we ask for your continued patience, and we will continue to keep you posted on our efforts to restore the level of performance that faculty, staff, and students deserve.

Thank you.
Chris Clements, Chair
Learn@UW Exec Committee

Lorna Wong
Director, Learning Technology Development
University of Wisconsin System Administration