Month: January 2012

Blog about Blogging!

Many are trying one of Blackboard 9’s new features, Blogs so follows is an excerpt from a recent article regarding this tool!

5 Tips for Blogging

  1. Have a clear pedagogical purpose for incorporating blogs into the instruction, and clearly state the purpose and requirements of student blogging on the class syllabus. “Students need to see a purpose for the blog, and they need guidelines for entries and comments,” explains Stuart Glogoff, senior consultant in the Office of Instruction and Assessment at the University of Arizona. “In the cases where faculty have incorporated blogs without establishing their purpose, student participation has been uniformly low.”

  2. Blog contributions and comments should be a graded element of the course. “Your grade is your currency for your course,” explains Ruth Reynard, associate professor of education and the director of the Center Read more

What to do with . . .

All those videos you made in Camtasia?  Let me move them to our Mediasite server.  This will give easy access to all your class recordings in one place, security through Active Directory and management will be hosted by us.

Specifically, it allows faculty who create course content with Camtasia Relay to automatically upload their recordings to Mediasite’s centrally managed, scalable and secure knowledge library.

Camtasia,  allows instructors to easily record lectures from their desktop, capturing audio and screen content, and publish them for an on-demand audience.  [from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sonic-foundry-and-techsmith-announce-technology-partnership—camtasia-relay-content-now-managed-within-mediasite-lecture-capture-platform-104847694.html]

Idea?  Capture your lectures prior to class time, release to students to view and then use class time for discussion and exploration of topics covered.

Yammer, yammer, yammer!

Current buzzword around campus click here for a neat way to incorporate into your class.

From Yammer’s website  https://www.yammer.com/about/product#what-is-yammer ,  “Yammer is a simple real-time communication tool for organizations.  Yammer was created by people who wanted a better way to connect and share with people at work.  You and the other members of your organization each have a Yammer profile. Your profile information includes your photo, title, contact info, expertise and background. Yammer makes your organization a better place to work by making it feel smaller, helping people to find and meet each other, and busting silos between groups and departments. Also, because it’s a network, it becomes more powerful the more people that join.”

New Year’s Resolution!

Try something new in your classroom!  OET can supply you with tips and tools to stick with that resolution!

Let’s start with clickers, a/k/a Audience Response Systems and here at ECU we use Turning Point.

Students make their selection on a “clicker” and you project your “audience’s” response in your PowerPoint!  Audience Response System aka “Clicker Technology” is a great way to evaluate if your “audience” is getting it!  All classrooms at Allied Health have the Turning Point Audience Response System Software installed.  Our office has receivers and clickers for loan.  Put the two together and you have a great tool for content or test review.  They are used when discussing sensitive topics to students opinions and input.  Team challenges are another way to test students’ knowledge and comprehension.  They can also be integrated with Blackboard’s Gradebook for attendance and quizzes.

Stop by OET’s office for a demo of this easy to use and “fun” product!