ITL-East  Wednesday 2pm & 3pm 30-minute Faculty TechTalks
Starting September 24, the ITL will run two (2) weekly 30-minute long in-person presentations and technology demonstrations every Wednesday at the new ITL-East, on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library.

A variety of topics of interest to faculty and teaching staff will be covered, both, from technical and from pedagogical points of view.  Check the ITL Blog for the upcoming TechTalks.

Wednesday, September 24th Faculty TechTalks

• 2pm Creating Class Materials, Easily, with LessonBuilder
• 3pm A Gentle Introduction to the Blackboard Grade Center

Wednesday, October 1st Faculty TechTalks

• 2pm Compressing Acrobat PDF, Images and other Educational Documents
• 3pm Creating Class Materials, Easily, with LessonBuilder

Wednesday, October 8th Faculty TechTalks

• 2pm Using Web 2.0 Blogs and Wikis in Class and for Personal Use
• 3pm Sharing Files and Folders, Selectively, with UIC WebDisks

ITL Weekly Webcasts - Next Tuesday 9/30: Active Learning, Grade Center
ITL Weekly Webcasts are a series of short 30-minute faculty-focused interactive Webcasts offered every Tuesday at 12pm and 7pm.  Next week (Tuesday 9/30) we will have two distinct Webcasts: Exploring Active Learning Opportunities at 12pm  and Introducing the Blackboard Grade Center at 7pm.  For more information on ITL Weekly Webcasts, including access to the on-demand archives of previous shows, please visit www.accc.uic.edu/workshops/webcasts.

Pronto class-based Instant Messenger
Pronto is a year-old text and voice chat instant messenger with one very attractive feature: Pronto automatically knows and conveniently aggregates students and instructors in Blackboard course sites.  (Don't worry, there is a stealth/invisible setting to be able to hide if necessary) 

Besides facilitating ad hoc class communication, Pronto can be very useful for student group meetings, for extending class office hours to students over the Internet, for mentoring activities done by instructors, TAs or anyone else, for beaming in (over the Internet) guest speakers and experts for a voice and/or text chat session, and even for offering live class oral examinations or interviews over the Internet.

To use Pronto for the first-time, login to any Blackboard site and click on Communication and then on Pronto.  Follow the instructions for signing up for Pronto and download/install the Pronto software on your Windows PC or Mac.  After that, use Pronto as any other instant messenger, regardless of whether you are logged in to Blackboard or not.  I have Pronto set up on my primary computer so it automatically start ups and is running at all times.  I tell my students (and everyone else on campus) I may not be able to chat with them even though my Pronto is running, and thus far I have not even had the need to use the stealth "make me invisible" hiding feature.

Pronto is very easy to use, but if you have any questions, as always, please contact the ITL by email (itl@uic.edu), by phone (312-996-9824) or in person at the ITL-East or ITL-West. [ITL Pronto Support Website]


Featured Reading: The Blackboard Grade Center Unmasked
The ACCC Blackboard Support Website offers a number of vendor-supplied and UIC-authored documentation, tutorials and narrated task-oriented mini-tutorials on using the Grade Center and other aspects of Blackboard.  We'd like to call your attention to a short, extremely useful and well-written instructor guide on using the Grade Center :: the Blackboard Grade Center Unmasked.

Please find it at the top of the Blackboard Documentation page - from the ITL home page, click Blackboard and then click on Documentation.

ITL UIC Resource WebDisk
The ITL UIC Resource WebDisk is a central repository of selected pedagogical, research and technology publications on teaching and learning technology, and on technology in general, in higher education.  Review any of the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) 7 Things You Should Know articles on Podcasting, Instant Messaging, Facebook and Twitter.  Read brand new ECAR research publications on The Impact of Social Networking in Higher Ed, Learners 2.0 or on Emergent Web 2.0 Collaboration and Enterprise Wikis.

A link to the ITL UIC Resource WebDisk can be found at the top right corner of the ITL home page, under ITL News.  Authentication is required, using your UIC netid and password.  

Teaching & Learning Conference (downtown) on Thursday - Friday, October 9-10
The University of Chicago (downtown location) is hosting the annual conference of the Midwest Blackboard Users Group (Slate) on Thursday-Friday, October 9-10, 2008.

This conference is not just about Blackboard; it covers a vast array of teaching and learning technology, pedagogy, curriculum design and development, faculty development, assessment, student engagement and retention, intellectual property and copyright, and other topics of interest in higher education.

Related links:

• Slate 2008 Conference Website
  http://slategroup.uchicago.edu/slateconference.html
  
  
• Slate 2008 Conference Program
  http://slategroup.uchicago.edu/pre_agenda08.html
  
  
• Registration - inc. UIC Group Discount: $120 through 9/30
  https://formulator.uchicago.edu/Submitter/EditSubmission.aspx?Id=24

 Deterring Plagiarism Easily with SafeAssign
ACCC runs a plagiarism detection system on campus :: SafeAssign.  Even if you don't use it, you should tell your students that you could use UIC's plagiarism detection system at any time to check their term-papers, and writing assignments against public Internet content, against subscription-based electronic document repositories and against a database of all UIC term-papers submitted in previous years.

Most instructors use SafeAssign automatically, by collecting term-papers electronically using Blackboard SafeAssign, which collects the documents and run them through the SafeAssign plagiarism detection system, which in turn produces SafeAssign Originality Reports with a plagiarism score and links to student's writings and same/similar writing found elsewhere. 

Any UIC instructor can run individual or sets of term-papers through SafeAssign, if you don't set up your electronic homework collection to automatically run a given assignment through SafeAssign and even if you do not use Blackboard at all.  If you have questions or would like a quick demo, drop by the ITL (without an appointment) during ITL-East and ITL-West Walk-in Hours on Monday-Thursday from 1-5pm, or on Thursday and Monday from 1-5pm, respectively. [ACCC SafeAssign Support Website]

Blackboard work sites :: Bb sites for group communication & collaboration
The Blackboard Learning System offers a rich teaching and learning environment, with lots of teaching tools, bells and whistles, many of which can also be put to use for non-teaching applications. 

Over 400 of the almost 3,000 active Blackboard sites this Fall, are used as continuous Blackboard work sites, i.e. not for classes, but for enhanced/private group communication and collaboration.  A Blackboard work site is typically a trimmed down version of a Blackboard course site, containing only announcements, a documents folder, one or more threaded discussion boards, a simple calendar, a blog, a wiki, a folder for external links, and an optional group WebDisk.

Think of a Blackboard work site as a small private Intranet for a committee, a research project, or any type of group collaboration.  To get a continuous Blackboard work site, request them as usual (see below) and simply state that you need it set up as a continuous Blackboard work site.

Not late for requesting Blackboard sites
Week 5 may be in progress, but it is never too late to start using Blackboard for your classes.  Please request new Blackboard course sites (or Blackboard work sites for non-teaching activities) by filling out our Blackboard Site Request Web form at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blackboard/request_site.shtml. We will create your Blackboard site as soon as possible and email you when it is ready for use.  Training for using Blackboard, creating class materials or other teaching and learning technology is provided by the ITL all year around.

This week's ITL Blog posting includes small blurbs on the following:

1. Availability of LessonBuilder — an easy-to-use Web authoring tool for teachers
   LessonBuilder is not on e-Sales yet; in the mean time, UIC instructors can get the software directly from the ITL. Just email itl@uic.edu to get the free installer for Mac or Windows.
   
   
2. LessonBuilder 30-minute training sessions starting in Week 6 (9/29)
   The schedule of east campus and west campus drop in sessions (on LessonBuilder and many other topics) will be posted here by the end of Week 4. 
   
   
3. Tell the Blackboard company to fix it and to make it better
   Blackboard is sending members of its Product Development team to UIC for a series of listening and group discussion sessions. This is a unique opportunity for us all to provide enhancement requests and affect future versions of Blackboard software.  Blackboard PD listening sessions will be held on Wednesday, October 8 at 10am, 12pm and 2pm.  If you are interested in attending, please email Ed Garay directly at garay@uic.edu.
   
   
4. ITL Weekly Webcasts :: 30-minute demos/presentations every Tuesday at 12pm and 7pm
   Please join us every Tuesday at 12pm or 7pm, from your office or from anywhere on the Internet, for a series of short 30-minute faculty-focused interactive Webcasts on teaching and learning technology, and on other uses of technology for university business. 
   
   Upcoming topics include: Using LessonBuilder, Exploring Active Learning Opportunities, Podcasting, Using Blogs and Wikis for Student Web Activities, Google Tips & Tricks, Facebook & Social Networking in 30 Minutes and Purchasing a Notebook Computer :: Things to Know.  For more information, see the Faculty-focused ITL Weekly Webcast  Web page.
   
   
5. Blackboard Grade Center mini-tutorials — now, with audio narration
   The ITL is practicing what we preach :: we have added audio narrations to these short self-service mini-tutorials on how to use the Blackboard Grade Center.  The mini-tutorials can be found on the Documentation page of the ITL Blackboard Support Website :: starting on the ITL home page <click> Blackboard (on the left) <click> Documentation.  
    

Information on attending the ITL Weekly Webcasts (on Tuesdays at 12pm and at 7pm) is available at www.acccc.uic.edu/workshops/webcasts.  You can also find this link under ITL News on the top right of the ITL home page at http://itl.accc.uic.edu.

If you have any questions, please call or email the ITL at 312-996-9824 or itl@uic.edu.