ITL Blog

Youtube Closed Captioning and more

Ernie Duran — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:05:09 GMT

Google is experimenting with speech recognition technology to add captioning to YouTube videos. It currenly is only available for English-language speech, but it will eventual be available in 51 different languages. To learn more visit the NY Times article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/technology/internet/20google.html?_r=1

If you want to add closed caption to a video you have uploaded to YouTube, you can learn more from visiting the YouTube help site.

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=100079

While we are on the subject of closed captioning, the National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH has written guildlines for creating accessible iTunes U media. They have provided a collections of videos, please visit the following link to learn more.

http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/wgbh.org.2010579900

Blackboard Grade change question showing up in student's view

Ernie Duran — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:22:23 GMT

I made modifications to grades. For example, I may have modified a student's points from 15 points to 10 points. When I make the grades available for viewing in "My Grades", will the students see those modifications?

Yes, the student will be able to see the modified grade after you make it available for viewing through "My Grades".

Safe Assignment draft submission question

Ernie Duran — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:40:54 GMT

I submitted an assignment to Safe Assign as a draft, and then deleted it before I realized that I had to wait for the report to be returned. I posted it again without checking off submit as draft. Will the previously submitted version interfere with the check on the second submission?

No. The draft is only checked once and then discarded from future checks as the Draft is never saved in the institutional database of papers.

Top 10 reasons to use Blackboard 9 for your course site

Edward Campbell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:06:34 GMT

Top 10 reasons to use Blackboard 9 for your course site

Using Blackboard cuts down on the amount of unnecessary printed paper by providing digitally accessible versions of the content via the web (which can still be printed if necessary).
Blackboard enables faculty members to easily adapt to unforeseen circumstances and changes in order to quickly and easily make necessary adjustments for assignments, meeting times and more by using the announcements section, built in email or updating files directly.
Group activities allow for many student collaboration options including blogs, file sharing, and more so students can work together face to face as well as remotely.
Teach more, not less: discussions that are truncated in class may continue electronically via discussion boards, blogs, wikis, pronto instant messaging etc.
Various Blackboard tools, such as class blogs, allow classes to communicate as a whole regarding class projects, internship opportunities, gatherings and related resources and are a good way for classmates to get to know each other better.
Built in quizzing and testing options which are automatically graded and entered into the Grade Center to quickly and easily reference the students results.
Accept digital papers electronically via the Grade Center. Download student papers, edit with comments in Word etc., re-upload the paper for the student to view your edits and provide the appropriate grade all within the Grade Center.
Post grades for students on an ongoing basis so they know how well they are doing during throughout the course (and at the end of the semester you will not have over 100 students emailing, calling and stopping by to find out their final grade)!
Import interactive learning tools (using SoftChalk Lesson Builder) for students to better grasp hard to understand concepts and even pull these SoftChalk activities into the Grade Center for participation points or actual quiz grades using SCORM compliant standards.
Blackboard tools can facilitate participation for students who typically do not feel comfortable talking in a live group setting by using discussion boards, blogs, pronto instant messaging and more.

Embedding Media in SoftChalk LessonBuilder

Candace Woodson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:58:50 GMT

Can I embed video and audio into a lesson in SoftChalk LessonBuilder?

Yes, inserting media into SoftChalk LessonBuilder is very simple. SoftChalk LessonBuilder seamlessly
allows you to insert various types of media into your lesson, including sound, video and animation files.

Are all media formats supported in SoftChalk LessonBuilder?

Many file formats are supported. A list of the supported formats are shown below.

File Type	Formats Supported
Audio	aiff, au, mid, midi, mp3, ra, ram, rmf, wav, wma
Video	avi, mpeg, mpg, mov, wmv
Flash	swf
Shockwave	dcr
Web Movie	swf

How can I embed video/audio in SoftChalk LessonBuilder?

Open up your lesson in SoftChalk
Choose Insert -> Media (or right-click and choose Media)
Select the file type you are embedding: audio, video, flash, shockwave, or web movie. It is also
optional to add a description of the media.
Then select file or enter a URL.
Click OK.
Save and preview your lesson.

Can I link to a Streaming Web Movie (such as YouTube) and have it embedded in the page?

Yes, linking to a streaming web movie is very simple in SoftChalk LessonBuilder 5. Please follow the instructions below.

Go to the YouTube site (www.youtube.com) and find your movie.
Click in the Embed code (usually on the right side of the screen of the video).
Right-click and select Copy.
Within LessonBuilder, choose Insert -> Widgets.
Give the video a name, description, and paste the code.
Click OK.
Save and preview your lesson.

If you have any questions on embedding media into a SoftChallk LessonBuilder lesson, please contact the Instructional Technology Lab.

Centra aka ACCC eRooms Updated

Ernie Duran — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:24:38 GMT

On November 2nd we updates Saba Centra (ACCC eRooms) 7.6 from Service Pack1 to Service Pack 2.

Here is a list of the enhancements:

Technical Enhancements
• Core A/V Technology Upgrade — High-quality, 24 bit color appshare and video. Lossless compression.
• Support Firefox 3 and EI8, providing platform currency support.
• Support Mac Video — Extends the capability of the current Mac client, extremely important for the academic vertical. Developed using the same third-party technology used for Windows video.
• Accelerated Launch Process — Client launches immediately in incremental components. A shell loads first and incremental components of the shell load after. The splash screen has been removed so the initial client shell appears faster.

** You will be required to install a new version of the client.

You can always learn more by visiting http://itl.accc.uic.edu/erooms.

- Ernie Duran

Teaching & Learning Technology :: Designing Learning Space

Ed Garay — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:55:10 GMT

Teaching & Learning Technology at UIC
Designing Learning Spaces
October 2009

Teaching & Learning Technology at UIC - a Mid-Fall Update

Blackboard Learn 9 Next-Generation pilot underway
- for more info, visit ITL home at www.accc.uic.edu/itl
- click on Blackboard Learn 9 Next-Generation under ITL News
- click on Blackboard 9 Next-Gen faculty Intro sessions
new ACCC Flash Media Streaming Server (FMSS) - available campus-wide
- visit the ITL Flash Streaming Support Website
campus-wide access to the entire library of Lynda.com online training tutorials
- see www.accc.uic.edu/training.html
- see also www.accc.uic.edu/itl/lynda (unannounced)
new UIC Student Multimedia Lab (SML)
- essentially, an ITL for students
- SML Website: www.accc.uic.edu/sml (unannounced)
support for student Response Systems (aka "clickers)
- ITL support Website: www.accc.uic.edu/itl/clickers.html
support for campus-wide lecture capture systems
personal and group blogs and wikis (outside of Bb course sites)
- aka same Blackboard site blogs and wikis UI
- ITL support Website
Next up: ACCC Fusion (ETA: 1Q2010)
- a social networking environment for UIC faculty, staff and students
- akeen of a private, semi-private, semi-public or public Facebook
- providing a rich Web 2.0 communication & collaboration environment
- email itl@uic.edu if interested in testing it in January

Flash Streaming Media Server Supported File Types

Ernie BbSU Duran — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:15:24 GMT

With the transitioning from the Realmedia Streaming server to the Flash Media Steaming Media Server certain file types will no longer be supported.

Format	Type	Container	Flash Player minimum	Usual codec pairing
Sorenson Spark	Video	FLV	6, 7, 8, 9+	Nellymoser / MP3
On2 VP6	Video	FLV	8, 9+ Flash Lite 3	Nellymoser / MP4
H.264*	Video	MPEG-4: MP4, M4V, F4V, 3GPP	9,0,115,0+	AAC+ / MP3
Nellymoser	Audio	FLV	6+	Spark / On2
MP3	Audio	MP3	6+ Flash Lite 3	Spark / On2
AAC+ / HE-AAC / AAC v1 / AAC v2	Audio	MPEG-4: MP4, M4V, F4V, 3GPP	9,0,115,0+	H.264
AMF 0	Data		6, 7, 8, 9+ Flash Lite 3
AMF 3	Data		8, 9+

To find out more please visit the Adobe support page.

Expand Collaboration with Wimba Pronto

Candace Woodson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:14:57 GMT

What is Wimba Pronto?

Wimba Pronto is a first of its kind, academic instant messaging platform designed to bring informal learning settings online. Pronto encourages student engagement and collaboration. Wimba Pronto specifically benefits students, teachers, and educational institutions due to its unique features.

Why use Wimba Pronto?

Wimba Pronto is free and can be used inside and outside of Blackboard

The beauty of Pronto is that it knows what Blackboard sites you belong to and it automatically aggregates the students and instructors associated with each of the given Blackboard course sites, making it extremely easy for them to communicate and hold one-on-one and group text/audio chats.
Every teacher on campus should launch Pronto at least during Office Hours to give students another option to talk to instructors over the Internet. Face-to-face is best but it is not always possible or convenient.
Students use Pronto to collaborate on class projects either via scheduled Pronto chat sessions or ad hoc.
Some instructors (including Ed Garay) use Pronto to administer short real-time audio student assignments and quiz/interviews. Most of the students love it. IM and text messaging is their thing!
The ITL staff runs Pronto all day long to stay connected and provide yet another option for instant consultation & information exchange within the ITL staff.
The ITL and in particular the new Student Multimedia Lab (SML) plans to use Pronto Instant Messenger and Twitter to provide instant Tech Support and consulting whenever possible and as an alternate communication option to traditional email-based & phone methods.

How to download Wimba Pronto

Log into Blackboard.
Located under "Course Tools" click on "Pronto".
Click on "Register and Download Wimba Pronto".
A new window will open confirming that you want to download Pronto. From this screen you can choose which courses you want to appear in your Wimba Pronto client and as an instructor you can enable or disable Pronto for all participants in a specific course.
Once you have verified that the settings are correct, you can download Wimba Pronto. Just make sure you choose the correct Operating System (Mac OS X or Windows Vista, XP Windows 2000).
Choose run or save the file.
That's it. Start communicating with your students and classmates today!

After Wimba Pronto has been successfully installed on your machine, all you have to do is log into Pronto with your Pronto ID and password (UIC netID and general password).

If you have trouble downloading or using Wimba Pronto, please feel free to contact the Instructional Technology Lab either by email: itl@uic.edu or by phone: 312-996-9824.

Blackboard 9 Next-Gen arrives at UIC

Ed Garay — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:35:27 GMT

ACCC is pleased to introduce its new Blackboard Learn 9 Next-Generation Pilot System, available today.

Blackboard Learn 9 is a totally redesigned/rewritten Blackboard teaching and learning environment with an intuitive Web 2.0 interface, drag-and-drop simplicity, context-sensitive menus, notification dashboards, new collaborative learning tools, blogs, journals, enhanced homework assignment collection, personalized customization, opt-in email notifications, Facebook and iPhone alerts, and significant accessibility improvements.

We urge all UIC faculty and teaching staff to familiarize yourselves with Blackboard 9 this Fall, before we switch the entire campus to Blackboard 9 in late December. Blackboard 9 looks very different than all previous Blackboard systems you have ever used.

For more information, Blackboard 9 training and a demo site, please visit the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) Blackboard Learn 9 Next-Generation support Website at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/bb9.html or contact the ITL at itl@uic.edu, 312-996-9824 or preferably at bb9@uic.edu.

See also, Blackboard's own www.blackboard.com/release9 Website for on-demand system overviews and tutorials.

Blackboard 9 is really cool.

e-Rooms Troubleshooting Tips

Ernie Duran — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:23:45 GMT

ACCC e-Rooms (aka Centra) Web Conferencing - Troubleshooting Tips

What do I need to participate in an e-Rooms session?
You will need to install the Centra java client. The Centra java client is supported on Macs and PCs.

My Centra client software doesn’t load, what should I do?
If this is your first time, you will get a pop-up message asking you to install the Centra client software. If you did not receive a pop-up message, make sure you have pop-up blockers turned off for http://erooms.uic.edu.

Also, ensure that your Web browser is configured with Java and JavaScript enabled (this is true for most Web conferencing systems, for Blackboard and most other complex Web-based environments).

Windows Vista users, check to have “Access Control” to allow the Centra java client to load.

How do I participate in an e-Rooms session?
Most likely, you are given a participant's e-Rooms URL (which is the easiest) or instructions to find the event directly on the ACCC e-Rooms Centra server and self-enroll for the e-Rooms session using your CentraOne account.

Some intructors at UIC like to pre-enroll their entire class to their Centra sessions. If you need a CentraOne account and don't have one, create yourself an account at http://erooms.uic.edu. CentraOne accounts are not automatically created like you do with Blackboard.

Once logged in, you will see “My Schedule” that list any pre-enrolled sessions you are enrolled in. If none are listed, you can click on “Enrollment” and look for your instructor’s session.

I forgot my password, how do I retrieve it?
From the login screen click on the “Forget your password?” link to get an email of your lost password.

I cannot hear the presenter talk.
Everytime you launch the Centra client software, you must run the Centra Audio Wizard to check your speakers, headphones, microphone and/or headset with mic to verify that your personal computer's audio components are working correctly. Run the Centra Audio Wizard ahead of time, at least a couple of hours before the actual e-Rooms session, to allow time to fix your computer if necessary. Make sure you have not told Windows to mute your speakers either.

Why does my Centra client software keep crashing?
Close other CPU-intensive applications on your computer before participating in an e-Rooms session.

Also, use a hardwired Internet connection (especially, if you are one of the presenters!). Wireless network connections can flake out at any moment - hardwired network connections are best when using real-time continuous network applications like Web and video conferencing during extended periods of time (i.e. more than just a few minutes).

Blackboard SafeAssign Notice of Unavailability

Marius Horga — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:17:31 GMT

Blackboard SafeAssign will be intermittently unavailable while undergoing maintenance on Saturday, October 10th and Sunday, October 11th. Users will not be able to submit assignments to Blackboard SafeAssign, during this maintenance period. No action is required by users during this period of unavailability. This proactive maintenance will improve the stability, capacity and performance of SafeAssign following this downtime. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Best Practices for online quizzing in Blackboard

Edward Campbell — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:51:59 GMT

Best Practices for Online Quizzing in Blackboard

Information for instructors

Online tests (like Blackboard's) are not meant for high-stakes examinations!
Instead, think of online quizzes as short "open book, open computers, cell phones on hand" end-of-chapter exercises designed to give students and instructors immediate feedback or for emphasizing some key concepts. An ideal Blackboard quiz should have just a few questions, only take a few minutes to complete and only have a very small grade value. Offer little online quizzes as often as you wish but don't misuse the technology

Break a single long exam marathon into several shorter five-minute-long series of little online tests
Doing so, minimizes the risk of problems caused by distant learners intermittently losing their Internet connections (which happens frequent enough).

Do not use time limits on online tests at all
Research shows that time limits are useless and unnecessarily stress the students.
If a student grade shows up as an "!" mark or book icon in the Blackboard Grade Center, after the quiz is taken, it is probably because the student did not hit Submit or tried to back track on a question - students can not do this. If you continue to receive a "!" or book icon for multiple students consider using Blackboard's Multiple Attempts feature to display the grade for the last attempt (assuming the last attempt is not a locked "in progress" one.
If a grade is a book icon, it is because on the most recent attempt, a completed quiz was not submitted.
A Best Practice in online assessments is to allow enough time for students to finish the quiz without logging out.

Information to provide for students

Avoid using the Back button, once a test has begun.
Avoid using the navigation buttons on the left side menu once the test displays on your screen.
Do not hit the Back button on your browser. The Blackboard system works best by utilizing the navigational elements within Blackboard.
To move on to the next question click the arrowhead on the right bottom of the page (you do not need to hit Save).
Students should take the quiz while on campus or at a location with a fast Internet connection. Students with a slow (dial-up) connection may face difficulities submitting a quiz. If you use a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet, turn off call waiting. If you receive a phone call and call waiting is on, Blackboard will assume that you have completed the quiz and erase any answers you have entered.
Public Wi-Fi wireless connections are also extremely unreliable, expecially, when taking a long exam.
Make sure your browser(s) are up to date.
Avoid opening other browser windows while taking a Blackboard test.
To minimize the risk of connection interruption, students can:
- Open a second browser window and use it to generate some traffic every few minutes to keep the connection active. To open a second browser window go to the File Menu and select Open New Window. Open a site and then click in it every few minutes. That should keep your server from timing out.
Pop-up blocker software may block a quiz from opening. If an assesment is set to open in a new window, pop-up blocker software prevents a new window from "popping up."
To minimize the risk of connection interruption, students can
- Open a second browser window and use it to generate some traffic every few minutes to keep the connection active
- Contact their ISP to understand the time-out restrictions
- Refer to their modem or Dial-up Settings documentation to learn how to disable call-waiting or other services that may cause interruption
If the connection is terminated a student should
- NOT close the assessment browser window
- Attempt to re-connect immediately
- If the browser is not closed and the connection can be re-established, the student may be able to successfully submit the quiz. Obviously, this would not apply to a power failure or system crash.
A student may be locked out of a test if:
- the Internet connection fails
- your computer is accidentally turned off (e.g. power failure)
- you are inactive during the test for too long– After a period of inactivity the test will time out.
- you press the Back button on your browser
- you resize your Browser window
- call-waiting during the assessment
- any number of other errors occur
Obvious, but, after completing online quizzes, remember to hit Submit.

Weighted Grades in Blackboard Grade Center

Edward Campbell — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:25:33 GMT

A Weighted Grade is a Calculated Column that displays the calculated result of quantities and their respective percentages. Instructors control the visibility of the column in the Grade Center as well as controlling the release of the column to students and other users. For example, an Instructor may create a Weighted Grade column that calculates a quarterly grade (grade for one quarter of the year), in which each Category, such as Test, Survey, and Assignment are given a certain percentage of the final quarter's grade. Alternatively, the Instructor may create a Weighted Grade that is the final grade for a course, with the quarters and exams included in the Weighted Grade.

Instructors can create a Weighted Grade based on any column, or any Category in the Grade Center. Instructors can create any number of Weighted Grade columns, including Weighted Grade columns that include other Weighted Grade columns. For example:

(Quiz = 20%) + (Homework = 10%) + (Participation = 20%) + (Exam = 50%) = (Quarter Grade)
(Quarter 1 = 25%) + (Quarter 2 = 25%) + (Quarter 3 = 25%) + (Quarter 4 = 25%) = (Year Grade)

Best Practice: if you typically include multiple columns as a total percentage for a weighted total (for example there are a total of 20 columns for participation points) the best solution is to use categories and tag each of these columns as "participation". Then when you set-up your weighted total you can simply select the category "participation" and indicate the total percent this category will be worth based on 100% total.

ACCC e-Rooms Best Practices

Ernie Duran — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:59:15 GMT

ACCC e-Rooms Best Practices

Here are some tips to help you get a better experience out of using ACCC e-Rooms (aka Centra) Web conferencing:

The Centra client allows you to test out your microphone and speakers. It always best to make sure your equipment is running properly before a live event. Nothing distracts from things more when one is fumbling to get the audio working.
The eRooms sessions is readily avaible for use and testing up until the event session expires. What does that mean? Well, you can login and pull up the Centra client and practice your presentation if you were so inclined. You can also load up the presentation sides beforehand. This helps reduce the amount of time and effort in prep-work right before the event is about to start.
The presenter should always use a hardwired internet connection. Using a wireless network to present on can lead to fustration as the signal goes in and out.

Interested in using audio files for your class?

Edward Campbell — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:18:37 GMT

There are a variety of options available if you would like to incorporate audio into your online course:

1) Built in audio components within Blackboard (Wimba Voice Tools).

If you are using Blackboard maybe you are already familiar with some of these tools, if not take a minute to check them out because they are very easy to use and extremely useful.

Voice Authoring: to easily record and add audio file(s) to post for students
Voice Email: to record audio file to be sent via email through Blackboard
Voice Board: to create an audio enhanced discussion board
Voice Presentation: to create an audio presentation
Wimba Podcaster: to create an audio podcast directly within Blackboard

All of these audio options can be located from the drop down menu within a content area (Assignments for example). Record directly into the Blackboard system, all you need is a functioning microphone, and your students will hear the audio presented through the easy to use user interface tools within Blackboard and the given voice tool.

2) Record, edit and produce audio files independently from Blackboard (Audacity).

There are a large number of options available to work with audio. At the ITL we recommend a software called Audacity. It is a free download and allows one to record, import, edit and export necessary audio files which can be burned to CD/DVD, emailed to interested parties and even uploaded to a web server (including Blackboard).

The one important piece of information regarding Audacity is to know about the third party plug-in which allows you to export MP3 files. Without this plug-in you will only be able to export .wav files etc. and not the standard MP3 format which reduces file size dramatically. From the download page provided below, download and install the necessary version of software based on your operating system, but also note the "LAME MP3 encoder" which is required to export MP3 files. You can place this file anywhere you like (I typically place it in the software program file) just remember where it is so you can tell the Audacity where to locate the file later (this is only a 1 time chore).

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download

Use SoftChalk to play your PowerPoint lectures

Ed Garay — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:20:58 GMT

Having your PowerPoint presentations packaged right along with other lesson materials, simple student assessment activities, and so forth can be very useful. SoftChalk LessonBuilder lets you do this very easily.

Importing Your PowerPoint Slides into the SoftChalk Slide Show

There are several ways to bring the content from your PowerPoint files into a SoftChalk lesson. One way is to import the slides into the SoftChalk Slide Show.

If you have PowerPoint 2007, you can do the following:

1.       Within PowerPoint 2007, open a presentation.

2.       Choose Save As.

3.       At the bottom of the window for the Save as type, select JPEG (*.jpg).

4.       Click Save.

5.       At the next window asking what to export, click Every Slide.

6.       A folder will be created with each slide appearing as an image.

7.       Quit PowerPoint.

8.       Start LessonBuilder.

9.       Choose Insert/Activity/Slide Show.

10.     Click Select Folder.

11.     Select the folder with the slide images you created earlier. Click Open.

12.     Click OK to close the Slideshow Activity window.

OpenOffice & Microsoft Office

Ed Garay — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:14:17 GMT

What is OpenOffice?
OpenOffice is a good office suite (available as a free download at www.openoffice.org) that can do most of what is offered in Microsoft Office. OpenOffice equivalent components to Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Access are OpenOffice Writer, Impress, Calc and Base. (OpenOffice does not have an Outlook equivalent).

Microsoft Office and OpenOffice Differences
Newer features of Microsoft Office, particularly, multimedia-related features, spiffier templates, presentation transitions, document themes, and the like are the sorts of things OpenOffice lacks, but most people don't use those or will not miss them.

One Microsoft Office feature missing in OpenOffice that some instructors will miss is the ability for creating narrated presentations; that is, lecture presentations synchronized with voice narration, which add significant value over lecture presentations without voice.

On the other hand, OpenOffice HTML Export produces nice HTML, Web accessible HTML, built-in. For Microsoft Office, one needs to install the Illinois Web Accessibility Wizard for Microsoft Office, a free Microsoft Office add-on available to the UIC community at the university Web store - http://webstore.illinois.edu.

Also, since smartphones like the iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Palm devices do not have (today) built-in support for viewing OpenOffice document file formats, it is recommended to save OpenOffice documents in Microsoft Office file formats so they can be opened on smartphones.

The biggest difference, of course, is that OpenOffice is free, whereas Microsoft office costs money.

Campus units can purchase Microsoft Office from the Urbana General Stores, under the Microsoft Select program. Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition (Outlook, Word, Excel & PowerPoint) costs $45, whereas Microsoft Office 2007 Professional (MS-Office 2007 Standard Edition plus Access and Publisher) costs $55. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is also $45. Microsoft OneNote is $9.99.

Trying out OpenOffice
In general, most people who voluntarily want to play with or start using OpenOffice will do fine with it, especially, if they have access to Microsoft Office in case they run into compatibility or functionality issues.

Lynda.com, available to everyone at UIC, has several three-hour long self-service online tutorials on each of the OpenOffice components; for Lynda.com on-campus and off-campus access links for anyone at UIC, visit: www.accc.uic.edu/training.html.

Did you know you can subscribe to forums?

Marius Horga — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:26:35 GMT

Students can subscribe to a Blackboard discussion forum and/or thread. This would result in them receiving either a link to a discussion forum and/or thread post or the body of the new post in their email. The reason you might want to enable subscription for students when you create a discussion forum and/or thread is to simply provide students with the option of receiving email notices when new stuff is posted to Blackboard. In other words, students wouldn’t need to go to their Blackboard course site to see if anything new has been posted to a discussion forum. To enable the subscribe feature in a forum or thread, here’s all you need to do:

1. Go to Control Panel -> Discussion Board and then click your course discussion board (the same name as your course) to open it.
2. Click the +Forum button at the top left of the window to create a new discussion forum.
3. You will then need to name your discussion forum and decide upon how you want it to look and behave for your students. One of the choices is 'Subscribe'

By default, Blackboard has the “Do not allow subscriptions” radio box selected. However, you can choose between the following:

1. Allow members to subscribe to threads
2. Allow members to subscribe to forum (with the additional options of (a) include body of post in the email or (b) include link to post.

If you select “Allow members to subscribe to threads,” then any threads in that post will have a little button at the top right of the discussion thread view that says “Subscribe.” When the student clicks this button, they are automatically subscribed to that thread, with any new posts being sent to their email. If you select the second choice, “Allow members to subscribe to forum,” then that forum will have the “Subscribe” button for the student to select and all new postings to that forum would either be (a) posted in its entirety to the students’ email or (b) posted as a link (less text in the student’s email message, since it would just be a link to the discussion forum.)

Removing Students from Bb Course Sites after end of Add/Drop Class Period

Candace Woodson — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:00:13 GMT

Students who have officially dropped a class ...and... who are no longer listed on the official student class rosters of the UofI Banner student information system should no longer be re-enrolled/added to Blackboard course sites after the UIC add/drop period ends.

(Add a couple of days for the last adds and drops to make it through the systems)

Please double-check that the student in question has officially dropped the class by looking at the official Banner class rosters -- the ITL has a link to UIC Class Rosters on the top right of the ITL home page (www.accc.uic.edu/itl) under the blue tab labeled "UIC in Session!".

The last day to add/drop classes at UIC is the 10th day of instruction (last Friday 9/4 for this fall 2009 term).

I would imagine that by now (a week later) if you make a student unavailable or otherwise un-enroll/remove a student from your class because he/she has dropped the class, such a student should no longer be re-enrolled/added again automatically.

*** Be very careful when removing students from Blackboard course sites because doing so effectively deletes the students grades and any record of activities that the student did in the Blackboard course site. When one removes a student, Blackboard posts a warning message and asks that you type "Yes" just to make sure that removing students and erasing all their associated data is what you really want to do.

It is in fact better and recommended that instead of removing the students you make them unavailable for your course, preserving their student data.

To make a student unavailable for your course:

Click on the “Control Panel”
Click on “List/Modify Users” located under “User Management”
Search for the user’s name either by last name, user name (UIC NetId), or email and click “Search”
Click on the “Properties” button next to the user’s name.
Under “#4 Role and Availability” select “No” located under “Available (this course only)” and click “Submit”

Making the student unavailable is very useful because if you ever need to give the student access to the course in the future, all you have to do is follow the directions given above and change “No” back to “Yes” and everything associated with the student will still be available.

Blackboard related upgrades and fixes

Marius Horga — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:50:22 GMT

Our Oracle database was recently upgraded to a newer version, more secure, more reliable and much faster, also now correcting a bug which prevented creating empty forums/threads/posts.

The Campus Pack was recently upgraded to version 3, which fixed the current (and future) year setting, along with some useful improvements according to the official Learning Objects release notes.

The quiz timer bug was fixed last week for those that were using Internet Explorer 8 while taking quizzes in Blackboard. IE 8 will still remain not supported until we upgrade to Blackboard Learn 9.

Flash Video Player

Ernie Duran — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:24:06 GMT

With the addition of the Flash Media Server (FMS) we've been working on making the process simpler for people to use. First step was to make it easier for people to upload content on the server. We synced up a directory on WebDisk labeled "Streaming" to be paired off with a directory on the FMS. That way people wouldn't need to use an FTP program to load their content on the server. It also gives better control of who can modify the content in a particular directory.

We are currently working on creating a flash video player to playback a flv file (flash video file) on FMS. Typically a user has to use Flash CS4 Pro to created the swf file that plays back the flash video. We've been working on making a general use swf file that anyone can use by just specify the flv file in the HTML code parameters.

Here is a sample of what we've developed so far:

In the next week or two we will have a working version and will make it readily available for people at UIC to use.

Blackboard Faculty Intro & Web 2.0 Training

Ed Garay — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:33:21 GMT

The ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) is offering a number of Blackboard introductory and advanced training sessions for faculty and teaching staff, through the end of Week 4.

Advanced topics include using Web 2.0 tools for online student activities and delivering multimedia-rich educational content for traditional on-campus classes as well as blended and online learning.

To attend any of these sessions, simply email the ITL (at itl@uic.edu) indicating the session that you will be attending (session title, date and time). All sessions are being held on the East campus, at the ITL-East, located on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library in room LIB 1-310, south wing, facing SEO.

The following session schedule is also listed on the top right of the ITL home page (www.accc.uic.edu/itl), under ITL News:

Week 2 :: Week of Monday, August 31

Monday 8/31 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Monday 8/31 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Tuesday 9/1 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Tuesday 9/1 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Wednesday 9/2 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Wednesday 9/2 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Thursday 9/3 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Thursday 9/3 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics

Week 3 :: Week of Tuesday, September 8

Tuesday 9/8 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Tuesday 9/8 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Wednesday 9/9 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Wednesday 9/9 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Thursday 9/10 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Thursday 9/10 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Thursday 9/10 3-4pm East campus, ITL-East - Online Activities: SoftChalk LessonBuilder

Week 4 :: Week of Monday, September 14

Monday 9/14 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Monday 9/14 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Tuesday 9/15 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Tuesday 9/15 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Wednesday 9/16 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Wednesday 9/16 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Thursday 9/17 1-2pm East campus, ITL-East - Intro to Blackboard
Thursday 9/17 2-3pm East campus, ITL-East - Teaching with Blackboard: Advanced Topics
Thursday 9/17 3-4pm East campus, ITL-East - Online Activities: SoftChalk LessonBuilder

The ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) is available to UIC faculty and staff either by appointment or without an appointment during ITL-East and ITL-West Walk-in Hours:

ITL-East (East campus) Walk-in Hours - Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 1-5pm
The ITL-East is on the East campus, on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library (Room LIB 1-310), south wing, directly facing SEO.

The ITL-West (West campus) Walk-in Hours - Thursdays and Mondays from 1-5pm
The ITL-West in on the West campus at 1940 West Taylor, in Room 181 BGRC, on the first floor of the Benjamin Goldberg Research Center.

The ITL telephone number is 312-996-9824.

If ITL Walk-in Hours days/times don't work for you or if you need some highly specialized assistance, please request an ITL appointment by clicking on Making Reservations at the top left of the ITL home page -- www.accc.uic.edu/itl.

If you need disability accommodations to participate in an ITL event, please contact Edward Campbell at itl@uic.edu or 312-413-0331 one week in advance.

Build Interactive Activities Online

Edward Campbell — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 18:04:28 GMT

The Instructional Technology Lab and ACCC have a tool that allows you to quickly and easily to create interactive web pages for your e-learning course. It's easy, quick, and your lessons will look like a professional designer created them. You can engage your students with lessons including:

pop-up text annotations
self-assessment quizzes
and interactive learning games
- cross word
- drag and drop
- flash card
- hot spot
- labeling
- ordering
- photo album
- seek a word
- slideshow
- sorting
- timeline

You can then package your lessons for delivery via your Blackboard course site. Would you like to record the responses from the interactive games and automatically populate your Blackboard Grade Center? You can also do this using SCORM compliant exports and imports. To find our more information please visit our SoftChalk LessonBuilder page at:

www.accc.uic.edu/itl/softchalk.html

Impatica presentations and Java problems

Ernie Duran — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:48:15 GMT

With the start of the semester we are seeming some old problems begin to crop up again. One of them is the issue of Powerpoint lectures converted into an Impatica format.

Impatica converts a narrated Powerpoint presentation into a streamable Java presentation. The problem that arises is a result of users updating their version of Java. When the newer version is installed the Impatica presentations become useless. A user attempting to view the presentation will only hear audio and no lecture slides.

To get around this problem the instructor needs to get a new version of Impatica and re-impaticize the Powerpoint presentation.

In the case of an instructor not having a copy of the original we recommend that users instead revert to an older version of Java (Java 1.6.0_07). To download an older version of Java you can visit the following link older Java version.

Impatica has also documented a solution which you can find on their knowledgebase site.

Update:

Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) upgrade ships only with Java 1.6, which breaks narrated presentations compressed and packaged with Impatica.

Please advise Mac Snow Leopard upgraders to install Java 1.5 after the upgrade. A version of a Java 1.5 Mac installer can be found at:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/j2se50release4intel.html

Alternatives to the Digital Dropbox

Edward Campbell — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:35:31 GMT

The digital dropbox will be discontinued once we upgrade to Blackboard 9

so you may want to start using the alternative options now instead.

Option 1) Instead of having students upload files to the digital dropbox you can use the Assignment Manager (or Safe Assignment if you prefer to run papers through a plagiarism database as well). This way you can easily retrieve the digital files through the Grade Center and even grade, indicate errors etc. and re-upload the files for students to download and to view corrections.
Option 2) If you are truly looking for a "Digital Dropbox", or file storage repository, you can still create a similar function by using WebDisks and creating a folder for a particular assignment and providing access to the necessary parties (Class A, Registered Users, etc.). For more information please visit: www.accc.uic.edu/itl/webdisks

New Faculty Overview - Fall 2009

Ed Garay — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:03:33 GMT

Overview of the Academic Computing and Communications Center (ACCC) and the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) for new faculty members

Welcome to UIC!

Academic Computing and Communications Center (ACCC)
ACCC is a campus-wide service organization providing a host of services to UIC faculty, staff and students. ACCC runs the campus network, the telephone system, UIC email services, teaching and learning technology support, the Blackboard LMS, classroom technology support, Web services, general consulting, public computer labs and computer training workshops, among many other services, resources and facilities.
ACCC home page: www.accc.uic.edu
ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL)
The ITL provides in-depth teaching and learning technology support to all faculty and teaching staff, such as helping instructors create and make available all kinds of class materials, using the Blackboard learning management system and Web 2.0 technology for traditional on-campus face-to-face instruction, as well as online and blended learning.
Other areas of ITL support include faculty development, multimedia authoring and streaming, student response systems, collaboration technology, Web conferencing, social networking, mobile computing, Web accessibility and all other teaching and learning technology used at UIC.
ITL home page: www.accc.uic.edu/itl
ITL blog: www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blog
Email: itl@uic.edu
Phone: 312-996-9824

Also, see/print the ITL Services Brochure (March 2009)(PDF, 2 pages).
Blackboard teaching and learning system
Blackboard makes it extremely easy for instructors to have a class Website for posting class announcements, sending email to the class, making available syllabi and all sorts of class materials, maintaining a secure online gradebook, administrating end-of-chapter exercises and online assessments, collecting homework assignments, using blogs and wikis, running term papers through the SafeAssign plagiarism detection system, providing voice recordings, Podcasts, narrated PowerPoint presentations, links to external content and multimedia, and facilitating a number of Web-based student activities.

Blackboard support Website: www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blackboard
Requesting Blackboard course sites: www.accc.uic.edu/blackboard/request_site.shtml
Log into Blackboard at: blackboard.uic.edu
Getting help
The ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) is available to UIC faculty and staff either by appointment or without an appointment during ITL-East and ITL-West Walk-in Hours:
- ITL-East (East campus) Walk-in Hours: Mondays through Thursdays, from 1-5pm
- ITL-West (West campus) Walk-in Hours: Mondays and Thursdays, from 1-5pm
- The ITL-East is on the East campus, on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library (Room LIB 1-310), south wing, directly facing SEO
- The ITL-West in on the West campus at 1940 West Taylor, in Room 181 BGRC, on the first floor of the Benjamin Goldberg Research Center
- If ITL Walk-in Hours days/times don't work for you or if you need some highly specialized assistance, please request an ITL appointment by clicking on "Making Reservations" at the top left of the ITL home page.
- Blackboard Faculty Intro training sessions: www.accc.uic.edu/itl/bbintrofall2009.html
- ITL home page: www.accc.uic.edu/itl
  ITL blog: www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blog
  Email: itl@uic.edu
  Phone: 312-996-9824
Miscellaneous ACCC Services & Things To-Know
- UIC netids, computer accounts and passwords
  Everyone at UIC has a UIC netid and password to login to Blackboard, Webmail, the public computer labs, etc.
  www.uic.edu/depts/accc/home/ACCTS.html
  http://activatenetid.accc.uic.edu
  http://passswords.accc.uic.edu
- UIC Email, Calendar and Mass Communication
  http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/home/EMAIL.html
- ACCC Client Services Office (CSO)
  General-purpose ACCC computer consulting.
  www.accc.uic.edu/cso
  Email: consult@uic.edu
  Phone: 312-413-0003
  
  CSO Help Desks: BGRC 181 (West campus), SEL 2267 (East campus, main office), and at most computer labs.
- ACCC public computer labs
  www.accc.uic.edu/pclabs
- Reserving an ACCC public computer lab
  www.accc.uic.edu/pclabs/reserve
- Webstore site-license software and software sales
  Get free copies of SoftChalk LessonBuilder (easy Web authoring for instructors), Respondus (rapid online assessment editor), Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft Office, Symantec Antivirus, Secure CRT, SecureW2 (for UIC Wireless, Windows) and educational discounted software from Adobe, Microsoft and more.
  http://webstore.illinois.edu
- ACCC Computer Training Workshops
  www.accc.uic.edu/workshops
- Lynda.com online training tutorials -- free to all UIC faculty, staff and students
  www.accc.uic.edu/training.html
- FaCT :: Faculty Computer Trade-in program
  www.accc.uic.edu/hardware/fact/
- UIC Multimedia Classrooms & Lecture Centers
  classrooms.uic.edu
- Personal, class and departmental WebDisks
  WebDisks gives everyone at UIC the capability of storing and accessing files on the Web, securily. Files and WebDisk folders can be accessed privately or shared with others at UIC, shared with Blackboard sites, shared with people outside of UIC, or publicly shared with everyone on the Internet.
  www.accc.uic.edu/itl/webdisks
- ITL Student Response Systems (clickers)
  www.accc.uic.edu/itl/clickers.html
- Web Accessibility at UIC
  UIC campus site -- http://accessweb.uic.edu
  ITL Web Accessibility resource page -- www.accc.uic.edu/itl/accessibility
- ACCC Complete Directory of Consulting Services
  http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/home/HELP.html
- REACH :: Department Resident Computer Experts & ACCC Liaisons
  Reach members are assigned by department heads, deans and directors, to serve as liaisons to ACCC and as resident computer experts near you. Your Reach members can help you with all sorts of computer technology questions. Ask within your department to find out who your Reach members are.
  www.accc.uic.edu/reach

Online Forum for Teaching & Learning Technology

Ed Garay — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:05:22 GMT

Online forum for Teaching & Learning Technology at UIC

The ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) is pleased to invite all UIC faculty and teaching staff to stay connected (even during Summer) to discuss, post questions/answers and exchange information on using teaching and learning technology on campus :: what works, what's new, sound pedagogical use of learning technology, help for all computer users (novice to advanced), technology idiosyncrasies, work-arounds, and so forth.

Stay connected, communicate and collaborate with fellow UIC teachers and technologists by joining the ITL Virtual Conference social networking site -- login to Blackboard (at http://blackboard.uic.edu with your UIC netid and password), click the Courses tab, search for ITL Virtual Conference and click the Enroll button next to it.

Once enrolled, the ITL Virtual Conference site will appear on your myUIC tab everytime you login to Blackboard. Click on it to access the site, to post questions, answers, read what others have been discussing, and gain access to useful teaching and learning support content, on-demand archives to last week's live Webcasts, miscellaneous links, etc. all stored and kept in one central site for you.

Click the Subscribe icon on any of the discussion boards to get email messages with the text of what is posted and a convenient link to optionally reply back. That's one way to stay connected; otherwise, login every week (even during Summer) to stay connected, engaged and getting ready for Fall.

As always, if you have any questions, please contact the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) at itl@uic.edu or 312-996-9824, ..and follow the ITL on Twitter at www.twitter.com/itl

Collaboration Technology

Ed Garay — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:39:20 GMT

Collaboration Technology for Teachers & Researchers

Key points to consider

Asynchronous collaboration tools
Real-time collaboration tools
Campus tools vs. off-campus hosted (free) tools

Asynchronous collaboration tools

Listserv lists? – (UIC) ancient but proven email distribution lists
WebDisks – (UIC) Think of WebDisks as having flash/thumb drives on the Web with granular control for read-only and read-write sharing and saving files and folders with selected people at UIC, with non-UIC folks, with everyone at UIC and/or with the whole Internet at large. Everyone at UIC has a personal WebDisk. Additionally, faculty members and departments can get larger WebDisks (starting at 500MB) for teaching, research and other official university activities.
personal and group blogs and wikis (UIC and off-campus hosted)
Check and subscribe to the RSS feed of the ITL Blog at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blog
Twitter (off-campus hosted)
Podcasts (MP3 audio recordings), Flash Video streaming (UIC)
Off-campus tools: blogs, wikis, GoogleDocs, Google Sites, Adobe Buzzword
Social networking environments :: Blackboard work sites (UIC), Ning (off-campus hosted)

Real-time collaboration tools

MeetMe telephone conferencing (UIC)
Web conferencing tools: ACCC e-Rooms (aka Centra)(UIC)
others hosted off-campus: WebEx, Microsoft LiveMeeting, Elluminate
always consider the convenience of on-demand session archives
Pronto Instant Messenger
Automatic single sign-on (and seamless integration) with Blackboard course sites and Blackboard work sites, and used outside of Blackboard
Other Instant Messenger tools: Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL, jabber and GoogleTalk
Video conferencing
like Polycom video conferencing systems, supported at UIC
H.323 standards-compliant standard definition and high-definition

What is Twitter?

Ed Garay — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:08:31 GMT

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a simple social networking tool that lets you post and/or read other people's posts. Twitter posts are called tweets and can be at most 140 characters long. Your tweets aggregate (publicly) on your Twitter profile and are sent to other people who have chosen to follow you.

When you login to Twitter, Twitter shows you a list of all the tweets of the people that you follow. I, for example, follow a number of colleagues (around the world), news blurbs like UICnews, CNN and the Wall Street Journal, and various Twitter streams from vendors, special interest groups, other publications, and so forth.

A great Twitter feature is that you can selectively tell Twitter to send you the tweets from certain people or Twitter streams that you follow to your cell phone, as text messages (via SMS). You can also post your tweets, reply to tweets or send private (direct) tweets from your cell, via SMS. Typically, I tweet from my cell, I let just a few tweets from others hit my cell (I usually read those instantly). Then, several times a day, I check the whole aggregation of tweets from everyone I follow on the Web or via various cool Twitter apps available for personal computers and smartphones.

Besides the obvious modern communication (distraction) panacea, Twitter can and is used every day for an endless assortment of applications, from instant Q&A and alarm clocks to beaming yourself into meetings and Webcasts, or getting instant foreign language translation help from abroad.

Try it out today at www.twitter.com ...or look at www.twitter.com/itl :: www.twitter.com/uicnews :: www.twitter.com/cnn :: www.twitter.com/oprah

If you have any questions or need help, contact the ITL at itl@uic.edu, 312-996-9824 or... (dare I say) tweet us at @itl ;-)

Enjoy,

Email Security :: Managing Spam

Ed Garay — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:01:37 GMT

Email Security :: Managing Spam

Below, please find some simple things you can do to tame your Inbox, protect your personal computer and reduce your spam:

use Symantec Antivirus
- a free download for everyone at UIC at http://webstore.illinois.edu
- ok to install it at home and on all the personal Windows and Mac computers you own
- make sure you use its default setting, which scans your computer and desktop email client(s)
- make sure you use its default setting to refresh the Symantec recipes for detecting spam
run a firewall at all times
- Windows XP and Windows Vista include a very good built-in firewall
do not execute email file attachments unless you are sure they are save
- ACCC uses MIMEdefang to append .txt to certain file attachments
- IFF (if and only if) the attachment can be trusted, simply remove the .txt and use the file attachment
never give out your login IDs and passwords via an email message
- nor enter your login credentials on suspicious or unfamiliar Websites
avoid typing personal information except on known Websites
- do not enter things like your login passwords, UINs, social security number, etc. except on trusted Websites, like legit UIC and UofI Websites, on your financial institutions Websites and on trustworthy commercial Websites (like Amazon.com, cdwg.com, target.com)
- make sure these trusted Websites use URLs that start with https:// instead of just http:// (i.e. notice the s in https)
ACCC offers generic Anti-spamming filters
Consider further-customizing them; see ACCC Email Tools at http://www.accc.uic.edu/index.html/EMAIL.html
Also, consider using three (3) email addresses: your work (UIC) email address, another personal email address that you use for your banking and close friends and family messaging, and a 3rd more generic email address that you would use for signing into the Chicago Tribune, your favorite organizations and other Websites that may harvest your email addresses
Use filters in Eudora or email rules in Outlook to manage your email

Lynda.com online training tutorials available at UIC

Ed Garay — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:35:41 GMT

free online training tutorials
from Lynda.com

available during April 2009
to everyone at UIC

Dear UIC faculty, students and staff,

The Academic Computing and Communications Center (ACCC) is looking to expand and enhance its computer training workshops program. To that end, we are running a free campus-wide trial of the entire library of the Lynda.com online training tutorials during April.

Lynda.com has over 900 well-done easy-to-jump-around just-in-time self-service tutorials, available anytime, anywhere, with basic to advanced titles on Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Adobe Creative Suites, Flash, multimedia authoring, Apple Macintosh software, Google Docs, OpenOffice, Podcasting, Blogging, Web Accessibility, Databases, and much more.

Please tell your fellow students, faculty and staff!

Accessing Lynda.com tutorials

On-campus :: simply visit www.lynda.com, search for a title you wish to explore or take and click away to begin the tutorial(s).
Off-campus :: login with your UIC netid and password using the special UIC URL: http://proxy.cc.uic.edu/login?url=http://www.lynda.com and proceed as if you were on campus (see above)

Getting help
For more information, see www.accc.uic.edu/training.html, contact the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) at itl@uic.edu or 312-996-9824, or email ACCC Computer Training Workshops directly at workshops@uic.edu.

Please tell us what you think
Tell us what you think about these Lynda.com online tutorials. Direct your comments (good or bad) to workshops@uic.edu. A survey will be posted at www.accc.uic.edu/training.html by April 15.

Sincerely,

Ed Garay
Assistant Director for Academic Computing (ACCC)

Using Student Response Systems (clickers)

Ed Garay — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:15:19 GMT

Student Response Systems (clickers)

Wednesday 4/8 demo/presentations
East campus, Richard J. Daley Library
Room LIB 1-210

ITL Clickers Support Website

Student response systems (aka "clickers") can bring very effective dynamic interaction and instant feedback to classrooms and presentation rooms. Clickers are small devices (like remote controls) that students use to transmit their responses to questions asked by instructors and presenters. Responses are typically recorded for attendance and/or class participation credit.

UIC faculty and teaching staff are cordially invited to two clicker-related demo/presentations hosted by the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) on Wednesday 4/8, on the East campus, on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library, in room LIB 1-210 (right next to the ITL-East):

10:30am-12pm Using the eInstruction/PRS clickers at UIC
Susan Junior, eInstruction Corporation
Ed Garay, ACCC Instructional Technology Lab
1:30-3pm Using the iClicker at UIC
Liz Tassell, iClicker Corporation
Ed Garay, ACCC Instructional Technology Lab

Imagine surveying your class of 200+ students and instantly seeing how well they are understanding your lectures. Imagine modifying the rest of a lecture based on the immediate feedback from the class. Watch your class come to life whenever you spend a couple of minutes doing a handful of pedagogically sound clicker activities.

Today, these systems use wireless (radio frequency technology) for communication, the student response data is temporarily stored on instructors' hard drives, flash thumb drives or WebDisks, and later moved easily and seamlessly to Blackboard or to other class Websites.

For some time now, the ITL has been unofficially supporting two student response systems: i>Clicker and eInstruction/PRS. Today, the ITL is pleased to announce the official support of these systems. Several faculty from various colleges and departments already use clickers on campus: Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Math, Nursing, Engineering, Education, Medicine, Pharmacy, Latin American Studies, Kinesiology, Anthropology and Political Science.

The ITL looks forward to helping instructors use either one of these student response systems in class, helping instructors use the free clicker instructor's software for preparing the clicker activities ahead of time or ad hoc, as well as collecting the student response data for further analysis and/or seamless integration with Blackboard for attendance and/or other class participation purposes.

For more information, visit the ITL Clickers Support Website at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/clickers.html or contact the ITL at itl@uic.edu or 312-996-9824.

Lynda.com UIC campus-wide trial

Ed Garay — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:01:52 GMT

Lynda.com online training tutorials
UIC campus-wide trial
April 2009

Just a heads up that ACCC is on target to run a campus-wide trial of the whole library of Lynda.com just-in-time online training tutorials in April. Instructions for students, faculty and staff to access the online training modules will be distributed the week of March 30th.

Lynda.com has hundreds of cool, well-done easy-to-jump-around just-in-time self-service tutorials, including several essentials and other (intermediate/advanced) titles on:

OS Essentials: Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X (several versions)
Office Tools: Microsoft Excel, Access, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, OneNote, Grove, MS-Publisher and Microsoft Project; Adobe Acrobat (several versions), OpenOffice, Google Docs, WordPerfect; Apple Keynote, Pages and Numbers
Web Authoring: Adobe Dreamweaver (several versions), Cascading Stylesheets, GoLive, FireWorks, HTML Essentials, XHTML, XML, Flash, Web Accessibility Principles, Web ReDesign Strategies, Search Engine Optimization, MS-Expression, Apple Pages, Adobe Acrobat
Audio, Video & Multimedia: Adobe Premiere, Encore, Soundbooth, AfterEffects, Audition and Flash Video; Apple Garageband, QuickTime, iMovie, iDVD, FinalCut Express, FinalCut Pro, iTunes and DVD Studio Pro
Graphics & Image Editing: Adobe Photoshop (several versions), Fireworks, Apple Aperture and iPhoto, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, Painter, AutoCAD
3D Modeling: 3D Studio Max, Poser, Cinema, Maya
Scripting & Programming Languages: JavaScript, Ajax, Using perl/CGI scripts, php, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, Adobe Air, Flash ActionScript, Flash ActionScript for game Developers, Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft Access, FileMaker Pro, Bento, ColdFusion
Miscellaneous: eBay Essentials, Internet Searching, Podcasting, Blogging, Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Color Management, Adobe InDesign, Quark XPress

For more information, contact the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) at itl@uic.edu.

SoftChalk LessonBuilder :: new version

Ed Garay — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:33:49 GMT

New version of LessonBuilder 5
coming out this May

LessonBuilder is a very easy-to-use program for creating class materials for the Web. ACCC purchased a site-license of LessonBuilder so UIC instructors and teaching staff can download it at no charge from the UofI Webstore at http://webstore.illinois.edu. If you know how to use Microsoft Word, Eudora or Outlook, you can master LessonBuilder with little effort to create engaging educational content, with optional interactivity and multimedia without knowing HTML or anything complicated.

A new version of LessonBuilder is slated for release in May. So of the new features include:

direct publishing to Blackboard course sites
with the ability to re-open uploaded LessonBuilder lessons, edit and resave
seamless embedding of external widgets
so lessons could make seamless use of Web 2.0 tools like blogs and wikis or survey polls and videos
instructors will be able to optionally tell LessonBuilder to only display feedback to students after the entire online assessment or a group of questions is completed
LessonBuilder lessons can be combined into larger e-Course modules, with seamless navigation
various enhancements in creating simple assessments, student activities, content editing, accessibility and more
for more information, see www.softchalk.com/pdf/v5_flyer.pdf

LessonBuilder run on Windows and Macs, and is supported by the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab. For more information, contact the ITL at itl@uic.edu or 312-996-9824.

ITL Virtual Conference :: April 20-24

Ed Garay — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:05:53 GMT

ITL Virtual Conference :: Monday - Friday, April 20 - 24, afternoons
reviewing teaching and learning technology opportunities at UIC
an online conference for novice to tech-savvy faculty

Please mark your calendars to attend all or some of the presentations and meetings being planned for this Spring's ITL Virtual Conference, scheduled for the afternoons of Week 14 (April 20-24).

The conference will take place totally online, with live real-time sessions in the afternoons, and focused asynchronous discussions and social networking before, during and after the conference. All presentations will be recorded for on-demand playback. More information will be posted here, on the ITL Blog at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blog, regularly, starting next week (Monday 4/6).

Preliminary Agenda (subject to change):

What is new with teaching and learning technology on campus?
Getting started with Web technologies for instruction
Using Web 2.0 tools to facilitate class assignments and collaborative learning
Best practices for engaging students off the classroom
Email Security :: handling spam
Modern Avenues of Communication in Academia
Collaboration technology for teachers and researchers
Social Networking in Higher Education :: a gentle overview
Google Everything :: a review of various Google tools and technologies
Personal and group Blogs and wikis at UIC
Creating interactive online class materials, easily
Quick and easy narrated lecture synthesis and educational tutorials
Quick and easy Podcasting, for the rest of us
Creating simple multimedia-rich online assessments
Effective uses of video in the classroom
Authoring YouTube-like educational video content in minutes
Thinking about the mobile learning students in your class
Publishers' electronic content, e-Books, the Amazon Kindle & other electronic book options
Teaching & Learning with Technology :: A Students' Panel Perspective
Teaching & Learning Technology Outlook :: A Discussion Among Learning Technology Directors from Several Universities
Effective use of student response systems (clickers) in class
The New Lecture :: now that your lecture can be recorded, what else are you going to do with the extra time?
Teaching with BleedingEdge Technology :: Best Practices & Reality Check
The new Blackboard Next Generation :: coming to UIC this Fall
The Blackboard Grade Center :: a refresher workshop
Too-easy Podcasting and voice recordings in Blackboard
Best Practices for teaching with Blackboard at UIC
Supplementing Blackboard with other instructional technology

The ACCC Instructional technology Lab is looking for additional faculty members interested in presenting at the conference. Interested instructors should contact Ed Garay directly at garay@uic.edu.

Deterring Plagiarism in class

Ed Garay — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:21:38 GMT

Deterring Plagiarism in Class

Today's Inside HigherEd carries an interesting article on plagiarism detection technology.

As you know, UIC has a plagiarism detection system :: SafeAssign, which comes bundled with Blackboard, but could also use to run any document through it to produce originality reports.

Simply telling one's class that UIC has a plagiarism detection system and that at any time we can take a term paper and run it through the system, significantly deter plagiarism, even if we don't use SafeAssign automatically.

Often, it is just a matter of education and awareness. Many students don't know what plagiarism is or what might constitute plagiarism. Institutions should cover plagiarism at Freshman Orientation, and we should indeed expose students to what it is and what it is not, at least provide resource links. That one liner that our schools have plagiarism detection systems, somewhere in our syllabi can indeed be rather effective.

A large number of UIC faculty use SafeAssign. I particularly like having the option to give students the ability to run their term papers through SafeAssign, on their own, before they actually submit their term papers -- a very effective "teaching moment". Let them see what's flagged for plagiarism when compared to our institutional document repository, the public Internet, and various subscription-based digital content databases.

Anyway, the Inside HigherEd article is at www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/13/detect

The ITL support page on SafeAssign at UIC is at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blackboard/09e.shtml.

As always, if you have any questions or need any help, contact the ITL at 312-996-9824 or itl@uic.edu.

MS-Office 2007 File Compatibility

Ed Garay — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:50:54 GMT

Reading Microsoft Office 2007 files in Office 2003
Microsoft Office 2007 introduced new file formats for Word 2007, PowerPoint 2007 and Excel 2007, based on Open XML (hence, the new filetypes .docx, .xlsx and .pptx) which older versions, like Microsoft Office 2003 cannot open.
Fortunately, you can install a quick little MS-Office 2003 add-on called the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack, a free download from Microsoft to enable Office 2003, Excel 2003 and PowerPoint 2003 to open, edit and save (if really necessary) documents, workbooks and presentations in MS-Office 2007 file formats. The ITL recommends that you do not save your documents using the new MS-Office 2007 file formats; for best compatibility, continue to save your stuff using the regular, order .doc, .xls and .ppt file formats.
The link to download this very useful little file format converter is:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en
If you have any questions or need help, as usual, please contact the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab at 312-996-9824 or itl@uic.edu.

ITL Tips & Tricks - March 2009

Ed Garay — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:39:45 GMT

(1) Audio problems with Impatica narrated PowerPoint presentations
A new version of Java, which many people routinely install on their personal computers is causing audio problems with narrated PowerPoint presentations compressed and delivered via Impatica.

The preferred solution is to re-compress these narrated PowerPoint presentations with PointeCast Publisher, which uses Flash instead of Java. Flash playback is ubiquitous on today's personal computers (thanks to the popularity of YouTube and many other Websites using Flash technology). Flash can also support all animations, slide transitions and special effects in PowerPoint presentations. PointeCast Publisher can also output an MP3 Podcast-ready file containing all the audio of the narrated PowerPoint presentation created as a Flash presentation.

The ITL supports, both, PointeCast Publisher and Impatica for compressing and delivering narrated PowerPoint presentation via the Web. PointeCast Publisher is the newer/better tool, so we strongly recommend that you use that. A free trial of PointeCast Publisher is available at www.pointecast.com; PointeCast Publisher Lite sells for $99. The ITL-East and ITL-West has PointeCast Publisher Professional loaded on its ITL personal computers.

Other options for fixing the Impatica Java audio problems is to install or use the latest version of the Impatica program and re-compress and re-package the presentations as new a new Java Impaticized file (package). The least preferred solution is to tell your students to uninstall the latest Java software on their computer and install the older Java 1.5 software that does not cause the audio of certain Impaticized presentations to play incorrectly.

(2) Can't upload file attachments to Blackboard Discussion Boards?
You can add file attachments to Blackboard discussion boards ...if you type at least something in the body of the discussion board message. Type something like, "Enclosed is the attached file", and you will be able to attach files. ACCC Blackboard Tech Support has reported this idiosyncrasy as a bug on Blackboard.

(3) SafeAssign File Types
SafeAssign is an easy-to-use plagiarism detection system that allows instructors to either automatically collect homework assignments electronically and run through the SafeAssign plagiarism detection system, or instructors can manually submit individual documents or Zip packages containing multiple documents for plagiarism analysis.

SafeAssign supports a select number of file types; these are: Microsoft Word (.doc), Adobe Acrobat PDF (.pdf), HyperText Mark-up language (.html or .htm), plain-text-files (.txt) and Rich Text Format files (.rtf). Please instruct your students to save their term papers in one of these file formats, and to name their files with a filenames and filetypes; for example: week9.assignment.doc or final.project.pdf.

Also, when naming files, people should also stick to using alphanumeric characters, periods (.), hyphens (-), and underscores (_); do not use space characters, quotes, double quotes or other special characters in file names.

(4) Naming files, folders for Blackboard, WebDisk, LessonBuilder, etc.
Many systems and application software can have problems dealing with files and folders named with special characters. To avoid problems, use only alphanumeric characters, periods (.), hyphens (-), and underscores (_); do not use space characters, quotes, double quotes or other special characters in file names or folders.

(5) Blackboard Blogs & Wikis :: Date Idiosyncrasy
Blackboard allows instructors to create multiple blogs and wikis in Blackboard course sites. As usual, content creation, including blogs and wikis, can be further define to be available/visible during certain date periods, ...except that currently, our version of Blackboard blogs and wikis has a bug that does not show dates beyond 2008!

With the semester in progress, we decided not to upgrade the Blackboard wikis and blogs until mid May, so as not to disturb or otherwise run the risk of introducing other changes in the middle of the semester. As a workaround, simply don't set starting/ending display dates when creating blogs and wikis for instructors or students to use. Blackboard blogs and wikis, by the way, are a third-party application, i.e. not one actually written by Blackboard Inc. but by other people.

Let us know if you find these ITL Tips & Tricks useful, and please suggest other topics or questions to address on the ITL Blog. Thank you.

new Blackboard Next Generation - demo

Ed Garay — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:41:17 GMT

Please join us on Tuesday, March 10, from 11:15am-12pm (from your office or from anywhere on the Internet) for an interactive live Webcast demo of the new Blackboard: Blackboard Next Generation, presented by Melissa Anderson, from Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Learn 9 is the first release of a totally redesigned/rewritten Blackboard teaching and learning environment with an intuitive Web 2.0 interface, drag-and-drop simplicity, context-sensitive menus, notification dashboards, new collaborative learning tools, blogs, journals, personalized customization, Facebook and iPhone notifications, significant accessibility improvements, etc.

The ITL expects to have this new version of Blackboard in co-production for Fall 2009, with controlled/early access this Summer. For more information on Blackboard 9, visit: www.blackboard.com/release9.

Attending interactive ITL Webcasts
To attend next Tuesday's ITL Webcast, please click:
http://erooms.uic.edu/main/User/GuestAttend.jhtml?s_guid=000000c0890f0000011fd57aeb13803a

Make sure your Windows or Mac Web browser is configured to allow Java and pop-up windows. The first time you use the UIC Centra Web conferencing system, a very small Saba Centra java program will be installed on your personal computer. After the Centra java applet is installed, the Centra Audio Wizard will run to make sure your computer speakers or headphones are working.

Check your personal computer's speakers or headphones
You can run the Audio Wizard at any time after you have joined a Centra Webinar to make sure your computer speakers or headphones are working correctly -- you will need them to hear the presentation. Select Audio Wizard... from the Tools pull-down menu atop the Centra window.

Asking questions during the Web seminar
To ask questions during an interactive ITL Webcast, type your questions or comments in the Text Chat. Open the Text Chat by selecting Text Chat... from the Tools pull-down menu. Type your question and hit Send, then minimize the Text Chat window to continue watching the Web presentation. Re-open the Text Chat and type additional questions. The presenters will stop, from time to time, to read your questions and answer them. (ACCC e-Rooms' audience microphones are not used during ITL Webcasts)

Getting help to participate in ITL Webcasts
If you need assistance to participate in an interactive ITL Webcast, please call the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) at 312-996-9824.

This presentation/Webcast is part of the Annual Reach meeting. It will be archived for on-demand playback and added to the ITL Recent Webcast Archives page at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/webcasts_archive.html

Teaching & Learning at UIC / ITL Update presentation:
http://webdisks.uic.edu/~garay/talks/Reach2009/reach2009.html

Hope you find these interactive live Webcasts useful and convenient.

Blackboard Next Generation ships

Ed Garay — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:09:50 GMT

On January 27, 2009, Blackboard shipped Blackboard Learn 9, the first release of the totally redesigned Blackboard Project Next Generation teaching and learning platform.

April 2009 update: The ITL plans to have a non-production sandbox of the new Blackboard Learn system (for UIC instructors and teaching staff to play with) in June. In early August, the ITL will have a small Blackboard Learn system in co-production for a small/limited number of instructors interested in using Blackboard Learn 9 for their Fall 2009 classes. Faculty interested in using Blackboard Learn this fall should contact Ed Garay directly at garay@uic.edu.

The following link points to an excellent Blackboard Learn resource developed by the University of Texas. Except for UIC localized policies and procedures, including UIC netids and passwords, faculty and student tech support, and faculty course development and teaching and learning technology suppport by the ITL, everything else listed on the Texas wiki should apply to UIC as well: https://wikis.utexas.edu/display/bbsupport/Home

Original blog posting of February 2009:
Blackboard Learn 9 enhancements primarily include:

a modern interface for greater ease-of-use and Web 2.0 experience
drag-and-drop and contextual drop-down menus, everywhere
new blog and journal tools
enhanced work group collaboration
a new highly-customizable instructor dashboard showing tasks to be completed, assignments to grade, announcements and discussion board postings to read, student performance problem alerts, and so forth
optional email notifications
an enhanced Grade Center
all in all, a new modern look with a high degree of Web Accessibility

The ITL expects to have this new version in co-production for Fall 2009, with controlled/early access this Summer.

For more information, visit: www.blackboard.com/release9

Automatic IP address switching in Windows Vista

Ed Garay — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:07:01 GMT

Windows Vista
Automatically switching between static & automatic IP addresses

Follow the steps below to configure a notebook computer running Windows Vista to automatically switch between using a static IP address, say, on a campus hard-wired network connection ...and... using an automatic IP address at home or elsewhere with a hard-wired or wireless network connection.

If you have any questions or need further help, please contact the ACCC Instructional Technology lab (ITL) at 312-996-9824, itl@uic.edu or bring your notebook computer (Windows or Mac) to the ITL-East (first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library) or ITL-West (BGRC) on the east or west campus, respectively.

The key is to instruct Windows Vista to first look to use an automatic IP address (if a DHCP server is detected), and to use Vista's Alternate Configuration (with a static IP address) otherwise. To enable Alternate Configuration, plug in your network cable at your office, at UIC, and follow these simple steps:

click the Start menu, then Control Panel
click Networks and Internet
click Network and Sharing Center
click View status (under Local Area Connection)
click Properties
if Vista security prompt you for permissions, click Continue
select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click Properties
on the General tab, select Obtain IP address automatically
select also Obtain DNS server address automatically
now, click the Alternate Configuration tab
select User configured
enter the static IP address info assigned to your office computer at UIC, for example:

    IP address:            131 . 193 . 005 . 105
    Subnet mask:           255 . 255 . 255 . 0
    Default gateway:       131 . 193 . 005 . 001

    Preferred DNS server: 128 . 248 . 002 . 50
    Alternate DNS server: 128 . 248 . 007 . 50
click OK and Close all dialog boxes

After this, Windows Vista will automatically detect your network environment and switch between an automatic IP address/DHCP network connection and one using a static IP address. Please note that depending on your computer, this automatic networking switch may take over a minute to take place.

ITL Week 7 News

Ed Garay — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:35:13 GMT

Upcoming ITL-East Faculty-Focused TechTalks (every Wednesday)

Week 9 - Wednesday, October 22
- 2pm Creating Narrated PowerPoint Mini-Lectures with PointeCast Publisher
- 3pm Authoring Web-based Class Materials, Easily, with (free) LessonBuilder
Week 10 - Wednesday, October 29
- 2pm Using Digital Cameras, Image Compression, Sharing Your Pictures
- 3pm Making Graphic Banners and Logos for Blackboard Sites or Any Website
Week 11 - Wednesday, November 5
- 2pm Collecting Homework Assignments Electronically
- 3pm Expanding Class Office Hours over the Internet

LessonBuilder available for (free) downloading at e-Sales
SoftChalk's LessonBuilder, the easy-to-use and free Web authoring tool for instructors, is now available as a free download for UIC faculty and teaching staff from the ACCC e-Sales Website. LessonBuilder makes it trivial to write syllabi and all sorts of class materials, from simple Web documents to engaging lessons with pop-up windows, lesson navigation, built-in online assessment and/or multimedia. LessonBuilder is available for Windows and Macs. If you need help using LessonBuilder, please contact the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) at itl@uic.edu or 312-996-9824.

ACCC e-Sales Changes
As of Monday 10/20, ACCC e-Sales has now merged with Urbana's Webstore. For the most part, everything looks the same to UIC folks, except we now have to login using our UIC email address (e.g. netid@uic.edu) and your UIC password.

Upcoming ITL Weekly (Tuesday) Webcasts
more-to-come

Wimba Voice Outage
more-to-come

Blackboard Next Generation System Overview & Faculty/class beta testers needed
more-to-come

Sloan Consortium Annual Conference in November
more-to-come

ITL Mobile Computing Week
more-to-come

ITL Week 5 News

Ed Garay — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:07:25 GMT

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.

Week 4 News

Ed Garay — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 13:20:26 GMT

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

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

ITL Weekly Webcasts

Ed Garay — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:14:47 GMT

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.

Faculty & TA Beginning of Fall FAQ

Ed Garay — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:10:21 GMT

Below are answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) instructors and teaching staff have at the beginning of every Fall semester:

I need help creating my class materials (HTML documents, svelte PDF handouts, using Blackboard, etc)
Usually, the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) can help you by phone or email (itl@uic.edu or 312-996-9824). However, it is often best to meet in person at the ITL-East (on the first floor of the Main Library on the east campus) or at the ITL-West (in the Goldberg Building on the west campus) for more visual consultations, tool demonstration, help you using your notebook computer, UIC Wireless, or to use any of the software and equipment available in the ITL.

Faculty, staff and TAs can visit the ITL by appointment, or just drop in without an appointment during ITL Walk-in Hours:
- ITL-East Walk-in Hours (east campus): Mondays through Thursdays, from 1-5pm
  During Weeks 1 to 3, ITL-East Walk-in Hours also are Mondays through Thursdays, from 9am-12pm.
  The ITL-East is on the first floor of the Main Library (Room 1-310), south wing, directly facing SEO
- ITL-West Walk-in Hours (west campus): Thursdays and Mondays, from 1-5pm
  The ITL-West is at 1940 West Taylor, Room BGRC 181 (Benjamin Goldberg Research Center), on the first floor, to your left, as you enter BGRC.
I cannot login to Blackboard or in the public computer labs
Everyone needs to have an activated UIC netid and password to login. People often incorrectly think that their UIC netid is their UIC email address. If your UIC email address is hillaryclinton@uic.edu, then your UIC netid (login ID or user name) is just hillaryclinton (always entered in lower-case). Your ACCC Common Password is always in upper-and-lower case.

If you are having password problems, try the ACCC Password Recovery Tools at http://passwords.accc.uic.edu or see an ACCC Client Services Consultant (CSO) at SEL 2267, BGRC 181 or at most public computer labs (for a list of computer labs, see www.accc.uic.edu/pclabs). Self-service UIC netid activation is done at http://activatenetid.accc.uic.edu.
When will my students have access to my Blackboard course sites?
For CRN-based Blackboard course sites, automatic student enrollment (based on Banner CRN student roster data) takes place twice a day: by 9pm and by 9am. Both, the 9am and 9pm automatic student enrollment adds to Blackboard course sites students officially enrolled as of the day before, on the Banner overnight data exports. The ITL Blackboard Tech Support will only add students programmatically, based on Banner, or only upon direct request from faculty members.
I am having problems using Blackboard, aka you are having Web browser problems
Blackboard, Banner, the my.uic.edu portal are complex Web-based applications. To use them, please make sure your Web browsers have Java, JavaScript, Cookies and browser window popups enabled. Preferred Blackboard Web browsers for Windows are Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. Preferred Blackboard Web browsers for Macs are Firefox and Safari 3 or newer.
How do I check who has access to my Blackboard course site?
Very easy :: go in the Blackboard Control Panel <click> List / Modify Users (top right, under User Management) <click> List All tab and <click> List All icon.
How do I add another TA or instructor to my Blackboard course site?
This is a quick two-step process: a) you find and add the individual to your Bb site, and b) you change his/her default student privilege to TA, instructor or course builder. In the Blackboard Control Panel <click> Enroll User (top right, under User Management) <enter> person's last name <click> Search <click> checkbox next to desired name and <click> Submit. To promote him/her to TA, <click> List / Modify Users (top right, under User Management) <click> List All tab <click> List All icon <click> Properties for the name of the person in question and <click> desired privilege you want to give him/her.
How do I make Web Accessible PowerPoint lecture presentations?
ACCC has a university-wide license for a little Microsoft Office add-on that makes Web accessible publishing out of Microsoft Office a breeze, inc. PowerPoint presentations for Web delivery. The free MS-Office add-on is called the Illinois Web Accessibiliy Wizard for Microsoft Office. UIC faculty, staff and students can download it from the ACCC e-Sales Website. Once installed, simply save Web accessible HTML directly from MS-Office, for instance, from PowerPoint presentations, by selecting Save Web Accessible HTML... from the PowerPoint File pull-down menu.
Help :: some of my students are not getting class-related email messages
All UIC faculty, staff and students will get official university email sent to their UIC email address. Everyone at UIC should make sure to get and read pertinent university email messages sent to their UIC email address.

By default, Blackboard-generated email messages are sent to people's UIC email addresses. Blackboard users (inc. students) can easily instruct Blackboard to send Blackboard-generated email (like email sent by instructors or TAs to the whole class) to a preferred email address by changing their personal Blackboard settings :: on the Blackboard MyUIC tab <click> Tools <click> Personal Information <click> Edit Personal Information ...and change to preferred email address.
Help :: all my changes to the Grade Center gradebook appear not to be there
Relax. your Grade Center changes are saved. They appear not to be there (for a few people) because of a pesky problem with certain people's Web browser settings. The grades and other modifications to the Grade Center are there, but your Web browser is showing you a cached (i.e. an old version) of the Grade Center Web pages.

Solution: tell your Web browser to always get and show you fresh/new Web pages from Web servers (like Blackboard), instead of old cached Web pages off your hard drive. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, you make this minor configuration change if you... <click> Tools <click> Internet Options <click> General tab <click> Settings (under Browsing History), and then <click> Everytime I visit the webpage (under Temporary Internet Files).
How do I turn off the Visual Text Box Editor?
...and the answer is... <click> the Blackboard MyUIC tab <click> Tools <click> Personal Information <click> Set Visual Text Box Editor Options ...and turn it off or on, as you wish. Mac users might want to turn it off as Mac Web browsers might have problems with Java, which the VTBE needs.
Can I reuse a Blackboard course site in future semesters?
...and the answer is... absolutely. More than 70% of new Blackboard course sites created each semester are based on an earlier/previous version of a Bb course site.
Why do I need to request a new Blackboard course sites every semester?
...and the answer is... to preserve all the student grades and work done during class for the given semester. Besides new Blackboard course sites can be exact replicas (re-used copies) of your fully-developed Bb sites sans the student grades and student data for the elapsed semester. ITL automatically adds new students into your Bb sites twice a day based on current Banner student information system rosters.
How do I remove students from my Blackboard course site?
...and the answer is...
How do I collect homework assignments electronically
...and the answer is...
How do I use the SafeAssign plagiarism detection system?
...and the answer is...
How do I see student usage statistics of my course sites?
...and the answer is...
What are Wimba Voice Tools?
...and the answer is...
How do I create and make available Podcasts?
...and the answer is...
Can I have an online gradebook just for grades of traditional pencil-and-paper quizzes?
...and the answer is...
How do I assign students to make a little Web page?
...and the answer is...
What is a blog?
...and the answer is...
How do I facilitate collaborative writing or group assignments?
...and the answer is...
What is RSS?
...and the answer is...
How do I change my course title?
...and the answer is...
Can I hide a bunch of Blackboard student tools we will not use?
...and the answer is...

9am-12pm ITL-East Walk-in Hours

Ed Garay — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:25:05 GMT

The ITL-East Walk-in Hours at the Main Library have been extended again. Starting Tuesday 8/26, the ITL-East Walk-in Hours (when UIC faculty/staff and TAs can just drop in without an appointment) are:

Mondays through Thursdays, from 9am-12pm and from 1-5pm

We are doing this to help UIC instructors with miscellaneous teaching and learning technology support (not just Blackboard) during Week 1 to Week 3 of the Fall semester (i.e through Thursday 9/11).

On Monday 9/15 and onwards, we will resume are regular ITL-East Walk-in Hours of 1-5pm on Mondays through Thursdays. The ITL-West Walk-in Hours remain the same: Thursdays and Mondays from 1-5pm.

previously, on the ITL Blog...

Starting Monday, August 18, the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) is expanding the East campus ITL-East Walk-in Hours to Mondays through Thursdays, from 1-5pm.

We hope that by increasing the number of afternoons that UIC faculty and staff can just "drop in" without an appointment at our East campus location, we will better cope with the growing campus demand, and make it easier and more convenient for people to get help with teaching and learning technology, as well as all other ITL services, facilities and resources available.

The ITL-East is located on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library, in room LIB 1-310, on the south wing, all the way to your left as you enter the Main Library from the Lecture Center Quad, facing SEO.

The West campus ITL-West Walk-in Hours remain the same: Thursdays and Mondays, from 1-5pm.

If the ITL-East or ITL-West Walk-in Hours don't work for you, please request an ITL appointment, as usual, by clicking Making Reservations at the top left of the ITL home page -- http://itl.accc.uic.edu. ITL consulting is also provided by phone and email, respectively, at 312-996-9824 and itl@uic.edu.

New Faculty :: ACCC & ITL Overview

Ed Garay — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:43:33 GMT

Overview of the Academic Computing and Communications Center (ACCC) and the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) for new faculty and staff members.

Welcome to UIC!

Academic Computing and Communications Center (ACCC)
ACCC is a campus-wide service organization providing a host of services to UIC faculty, staff and students. ACCC runs the campus network, the telephone system, UIC email services, teaching and learning technology support, the Blackboard teaching and learning system, Web services, general consulting, public computer labs and computer training workshops, among many other services, resources and facilities.
www.accc.uic.edu
ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL)
The ITL provides campus-wide services and consulting to UIC faculty and staff, including teaching and learning technology support, faculty development, assistance with multimedia design, development and distribution, collaboration technology, Web conferencing, social networking, classroom technology, mobile computing, UIC Wireless (Wi-Fi), and support for a variety of other computer/technology university applications of interest to faculty, staff, TAs and students employed by faculty/staff.
http://itl.accc.uic.edu
http://itl.accc.uic.edu/blog
Email: itl@uic.edu
Phone: 312-996-9824

ITL-West (West campus): Golderg Building, Room BGRC 181
ITL-East (East campus): Richard J. Daley Main Library, Room LIB 1-310
- Blackboard teaching and learning system
  Blackboard makes it extremely easy for instructors to have a class Website for posting class announcements, sending email to the class, making available syllabi and all sorts of class materials, maintaining a secure online gradebook, administrating end-of-chapter exercises and online assessments, collecting homework assignments, running term papers through the SafeAssign plagiarism detection system, providing class wikis, blogs, voice recordings, Podcasts, narrated PowerPoint presentations, links to external content and multimedia, and a number of other course management system tools and Web activities.
  http://itl.accc.uic.edu/blackboard
- ITL Walk-in Hours and ByAppointment
  ITL-West Walk-in Hours: Mondays and Thursdays, 1-5pm
  ITL-East Walk-in Hours: Mondays through Thursdays, 1-5pm
- Blackboard Intro, Refresher & Grade Center training sessions
  http://itl.accc.uic.edu/bbtraining
- Personal and class WebDisks - http://webdisks.uic.edu
  WebDisks support page: www.accc.uic.edu/itl/webdisks
- ITL Blog -- http://itl.accc.uic.edu/blog
Miscellaneous ACCC Services & Things To-Know
- UIC netids, computer accounts and passwords
  http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/home/ACCTS.html
  http://activatenetid.accc.uic.edu
- UIC Email, Calendar and Mass Communication
  http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/home/EMAIL.html
- ACCC Client Services Office (CSO)
  www.accc.uic.edu/cso
  Email: consult@uic.edu
  Phone: 312-413-0003
  CSO Help Desks: BGRC 181 (West campus), SEL 2267 (East campus, main office), and at most computer labs
- ACCC public computer labs
  www.accc.uic.edu/pclabs
- Reserving an ACCC computer lab
  www.accc.uic.edu/pclabs/reserve
- e-Sales site-license software and software sales
  http://esales.accc.uic.edu
- ACCC Computer Training Workshops
  www.accc.uic.edu/workshops
- FaCT :: Faculty Computer Trade-in program
  www.accc.uic.edu/hardware/fact/
- UIC Multimedia Classrooms & Lecture Centers
  www.accc.uic.edu/elc
- ACCC Complete Directory of Consulting Services
  http://www.uic.edu/depts/accc/home/HELP.html
- REACH :: Department Resident Computer Experts & ACCC Liaisons
  www.accc.uic.edu/reach

Teaching with Technology :: first steps

Ed Garay — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:54:31 GMT

<< this ITL Blog article will be available by Tuesday 9/2 >>
<< click the RSS button (right column) to get automatic updates>>

Simple Best Practices for Teaching with Technology

Ed Garay — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:37:23 GMT

Okay, you know your stuff, you have been teaching it for years and you know how to teach it. So... what should you do next, as you increase the use of teaching and learning technology in your classes? Below are just a few of my top recommendations :: as always, if you need help with any of this, contact the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab. The ITL will gladly assist you in exploring and implementing these and many other teaching and learning technology applications that match your pedagogical style and curriculum needs.

Keep things simple and organized
Your class home page, be it on Blackboard or elsewhere, should be easy to use. Organize your class materials in folders by chapter, by week, by subject, by something, but make it easy for students to navigate their way through your Website and to easily find class notes, assignments and anything else you want students to see.
Provide your content preferably in HTML, PDF or plain-text
HTML is the universal language of the Web. It is always best to create all Web content, including class materials, in HTML, ...in Web accessible HTML, using LessonBuilder, Dreamweaver, or any other Web authoring tool. Microsoft Word is not a Web authoring tool, but it can also save documents in HTML. Why HTML? Because all Web browsers can display HTML pages without the need for plug-ins or Web browser add-ons.

PDF documents are the 2nd best option, especially, for class handouts that will most likely be printed. Note: scanning or photocopying handouts into PDF generally produces huge (read: the worst) PDF files, which take long time to download and print. If you are scanning paper documents to create PDF, make sure you compress the PDF documents in Acrobat Standard or Acrobat Professional. Compressing PDF files is a five (6) mouse click process that can easily bring down a 50MB PDF document to 2MB or something a lot more reasonable.

The third best choice is to make your class materials available in plain-text. Why not? Easy to author, easy to read, easy to print, 100% Web accessible. A lot of UIC instructors choose this route :: they go into Blackboard and instead of uploading files into their organized folders (hint hint), they simply type away or copy-and -paste. Also, note that Blackboard's text-input Web screens also accept HTML ("smart text" in Blackboard's parlance); thus, with a couple of HTML tags for setting heading styles, bullet lists and hyperlinks, for example, you can easily compose compelling syllabi and class materials directly on Blackboard.

HTML, PDF or plain-text -- those should be your options.
I purposely do not suggest distributing Microsoft Word (.doc) files, PowerPoint (.ppt) files, or other proprietary file formats that not only give your intellectual property away (in editable source format to boot), but MS-Word, PowerPoint and vendor-specific file formats sometimes pose difficulty for students to open these files. Students may have old or very old versions of MS-Office, or your MS-Word document might be incompatible with the student's Mac or Windows versions of MS-Word.

As last resort, use Microsoft Office built-in Web publishing capabilities; Word might generate terrible HTML and PowerPoint creates HTML that is not very Web Accessible, but this is still better than simply uploading .doc and .ppt files. Fortunately, Microsoft Windows users can download the free Illinois Web Accessibility Wizard for Microsoft Office which produces very good HTML, and HTML that is 100% Web accessible -- get this free MS-Office for Windows add-on at ACCC's e-Sales. In any event, do your best not to publish class documents in proprietary file formats.
Try something new
Incorporating new materials, new ideas and Web activities, as simple as these may be, can energize your class and engage students in learning. So, after you have used Blackboard for a semester, and after you have easily mastered how to post announcements, email your class, publish the syllabus, class materials and external links, and post grades in the Grade Center, what else should you do?
- how about narrating (with your voice) a couple of review presentations prior to exams for on-demand use?
- or... synthesizing your lectures in short mini-lectures (7 minutes or less) with voice for on-demand reinforcement (remember to also provide presentation handouts in PDF in case students want to take some notes as they listen or watch your multimedia presentations)
- slightly redesign your class to incorporate significant use and participation in class discussion forums
- invite a colleague or subject expert to hang out on your class discussion boards for a couple of weeks
- upload old exams so students can practice or see the type of quizzes to expect
- make available short end-of-chapter self-assessment exercises online (5 questions, 5 minutes to complete)
- use your own class blog (like this one) to maintain a class journal and keep your students informed
- assign students to build their own blogs for a journal project, modern progressive term papers, so to speak. Podcasts optional
- assign collaborative writing projects to groups of students, using wikis
- speak into the mic - use Wimba Voice Tools to directly record voice announcements, voice recordings or short Podcasts on Blackboard. You can also record your audio offline and simply upload the MP3 files onto Blackboard.
- use audio Podcasts - record your lectures (some or all) and upload them easily to a class WebDisk for only your students to hear
- use LessonBuilder or StudyMate to author interactive Web activities, like image or word drag-and-drop exercises, word puzzles, etc.
- create short video clips or link to videos from other experts in the field to add yet another element of engagement
- authoring video, however, is not easy :: narrating PowerPoint presentations can be just as effective and it is infinitely easier to do
Build it and they will not come
Putting a class Website up is not enough. You need to nurture your class home page (or Blackboard course site). Post class announcements regularly, add some external links from time to time, use the discussion board regularly to answer questions and provide further guidance and mentoring, hold virtual office hours, run review sessions... there is a rather large number of things that instructors, faculty (not just TAs) can and should do to stay involved and in close contact with the students. Students need to feel your presence to remain engaged.
Know your technology
Whether it is during a traditional on-campus lecture or online, do your best to know the technology and to be comfortable with it. The ITL can certainly help you with all of that. Why, if you are tenured, or tenure-track, ITL consultants will even come to your office or meet you anywhere on campus to help you with anything we do, and we do quite a lot. Knowing and embracing the technology that you use is important because you don't want to waste precious lecture time, contact time, but also because students can get disenchanted fairly quickly when they see instructors and TAs struggling with technology -- understandable, really, since most of our students started using computers before Kindergarten.

New Blackboard 8 documentation and tutorials

Ed Garay — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:00:36 GMT

New Blackboard 8 documentation and tutorials
We strongly recommend that anyone with instructor, TA, course builder or grader privileges in one or more Blackboard sites takes a good look at the new Blackboard 8 Documentation and short self-service multimedia mini-tutorials we have added to the ITL Blackboard Support Website (http://itl.accc.uic.edu/blackboard) :: click the link labeled Documentation.
In particular, take a closer look at the following documents:

Print the 4-page Getting Started with the Grade Center Quick Start Guide (PDF, 4 pages)
Review the Blackboard 8 Grade Center Manual (PDF, 78 pages)
Look at the various short Grade Center multimedia mini-tutorials (Flash movies)
These average about one-minute each and show you exactly how to do the most common tasks using the new-and-improved yet quiet different Blackboard gradebook.
Read the Organizing your Course Quick Start Guide (PDF, 2 Pages)
Look at the Presenting Content to Students Quick Start Guide (PDF, 2 pages)
...and look at all the other Quick Start Guides at the bottom of the Blackboard Documentation page.
Skim through the Blackboard 8 Instructor Manual (PDF, 386 pages)
Look at the Instructor Manual's Table of Contents to find answers to what you are looking for quickly. Ignore references to the Blackboard Community System and the Blackboard Outcomes System, which we do not license at UIC. Also, handling course site creation, bulk enrollment of students and course cartridges, for example, can be safely ignored since these tasks are done at UIC by the ITL Blackboard SysAdmin staff.

Here is another way of getting to the Blackboard Documentation page:
starting on the UIC home page, click Computing -> Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) -> Blackboard -> Documentation

Students added to Blackboard sites

Ed Garay — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 04:02:23 GMT

Students were added today (Sunday 8/17/2008), for the first time, to existing Blackboard course sites.

Students enrolled in Fall 2008 course reference number (CRN)-based classes were added today (Sunday 8/17) to all Fall 2008 Blackboard course sites, created thus far. Automatic student enrollment add-ons into Fall 2008 Blackboard course sites (based on exported Banner CRN student rosters) will take place twice a day between 6-9pm and between 6-9am through the last day of instruction. This also applies to new Blackboard course sites requested late, which will be created in the future: these course sites will get their students added the next time the 6-9pm/6-9am automatic student enrollment jobs run after the course sites are created.

Please note the following additional points related to student enrollment into Blackboard sites:

Automatic Blackboard student enrollment only applies to classes that are assigned university CRNs.
Blackboard course sites for classes without CRNs need to have their students added differently, either by the ITL Blackboard SysAdmin staff (in bulk) or manually by the course instructors, program directors, course coordinators or TAs.
When adding students on your own, first check that the students are not already enrolled on your course sites. On the Blackboard Control Panel, click List / Modify Users (under User Management), then click the List All tab, and then the List All button to see who exactly already has access to your Blackboard site.

To add a user: click Enroll User (again, under User Management) and then enter the individual's last name or UIC netid and click Search; check the appropriate Add checkbox next to the desired name and click Submit. You could try the List / Modify Users steps again to ensure that the student has been indeed added.
The ITL Blackboard SysAdmin staff will be happy to add a list of students to your Blackboard course sites that don't have a CRN associated with them. Just email us at blackboard@uic.edu the list of UIC netids to add (listed, one UIC netid per line) and the complete name of the Blackboard site onto which they need to be added, ...but note that given the Fall Rush (during August and September) we will not be able to do add your students in less than three working days, at best.
In order to be given access to Blackboard sites, students (faculty and staff) need to first have their UIC netid activated. Netid activation establishes an individual's UIC account and password, his/her UIC email address, and other accounts, including a Blackboard account. Blackboard accounts are created within an hour after the UIC netid has been activated. To activate a UIC netid, direct students and colleagues to: http://activatenetid.accc.uic.edu.

People having problems activating their UIC netids should see an ACCC Client Services Office (CSO) consultants, available in most of the ACCC public computer labs (www.accc.uic.edu/pclabs) or by contacting the CSO at consult@uic.edu, 312-413-0003 or visiting the CSO helps desks at SEL 2267 (East campus) and BGRC 181 (West campus). Please note that the ITL staff does not deal with UIC netid activation, issuing UIC netids or any problems associated with UIC netids and passwords. Please contact the CSO instead.
Note: unfortunately, we cannot yet automatically remove students that drop the course from CRN-based Blackboard course sites. As a work-around, please use the new feature of the Blackboard Grade Center to hide a student from the gradebook. See our Blackboard Grade Center Mini-Tutorial for hiding students.

Also, once students are officially removed from the Banner student rosters, instructors and TAs could optionally remove these students from Blackboard, but please be very careful as removing a student from a Blackboard course site effectively deletes all his/her grades, completed assignments and anything else that the student might have done in our class. Removing a student from Blackboard is irreversible. Once the student data is gone, it is gone!

Fall 2008 :: What is new?

Ed Garay — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:47:55 GMT

What is new with teaching and learning technology at UIC this Fall?

East campus ITL-East Walk-in Hours expanded from two to four afternoons. New ITL-East Walk-in Hours are now Monday through Thursday, from 1-5pm. ITL-West Walk-in Hours remain Monday and Thursday, from 1-5pm. Faculty and staff can drop in without an appointment during ITL-East and ITL-West Walk-in Hours. For other times, please make an appointment as usual.
LessonBuilder :: new software for easily creating class materials for Web delivery
[site-licensed software for UIC faculty] If you know how to use Microsoft Word, Eudora or Outlook, you can master LessonBuilder in no time. LessonBuilder automatically creates the (Web accessible) HTML for you, with built-in navigation, table of contents, sidebars, hyperlinks and all. Besides simple lessons, LessonBuilder lets you easily create engaging class materials with pop-up windows, and simple assessment and activities like true/false and multiple choice questions, image activities, drag-and-drop, crossword, flash cards, image labeling activity, hotspot activity in explore or quiz mode, slideshows, etc. Start authoring your class materials with LessonBuilder.
Class and personal blogs and wikis now support RSS subscriptions. By clicking on their RSS links, you automatically get access to RSSable content as soon as it is updated.
The RSS Blackboard tool has been upgraded. Use it to automatically bring fresh content into Blackboard sites via RSS. Add an RSS window to an external Web page as easily as you would upload a syllabus or add any content to Blackboard.
New Blackboard Search tool to search within entire Blackboard course sites.
Blackboard has a totally new gradebook :: the Blackboard Grade Center. It is better than ever and has a lot of new functionality, but it also looks very different :: play with it and attend a Blackboard Grade Center training session as soon as possible.
Introducing Blackboard Scholar :: a social bookmarking tool for organizing and sharing bookmarks for personal use, class and group collaboration
PointeCast Publisher :: the new, better and easier way of narrating PowerPoint presentations and compressing them for Web delivery. Try PointeCast Publisher today at the ITL. We still support Impatica for PowerPoint, but PointeCast Publisher is a lot better, and produces Flash presentations that play very well on Windows, Macs and Linux desktops.
The ITL-West in BGRC, on the West campus, now has a high-capacity DVD duplicator with a built-in printer that we can use to duplicate and print small numbers (under 100) of DVDs for UIC faculty members, for instructional purposes.
The ACCC Instructional Technology Lab has started this ITL blog to keep the UIC faculty and staff informed about ITL-related services, resources and news. We plan to post on the ITL blog every week. The URL is http://itl.accc.uic.edu/blog. Click on the RSS icon to subscribe and automatically get our blog updates.
The ITL is setting up a Flash Media Server for streaming Flash Video content within UIC. Let us know if you are interested in being one of the first ones to try it out, later this Fall (in October).
The ITL has also partnered with the UIC Library to put together a smart meeting room on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library. The smart meeting room will have built-in video conferencing, as well as other state-of-the-art presentation and collaboration technology. Subscribe to this ITL blog for future announcements in late September.

Not so new stuff...
Pronto Instant Messenger :: a simple text-chat and voice instant messenger that automatically knows the students and instructors in each of the Blackboard course sites.
Wimba Voice Tools :: an easy-to-use set of tools for adding voice announcements, lecture recordings and Podcasts to Blackboard sites by simply speaking into the microphone. The Wimba Voice suite also includes threaded voice boards that support text and voice postings. Voice boards can easily be setup for students to submit voice assignments so that only the instructors and TAs can listen to their audio. Wimba Voice also supports uploading audio content from files on personal computers.
Get a class WebDisk :: UIC instructors are encouraged to get a class WebDisks for each of their classes (regardless of whether you use Blackboard course sites or not). Class WebDisks are easy to use and ideal for storing and sharing class materials, especially, big files, like PowerPoint presentations full of images, large PDF documents, or multimedia files like audio (MP3) files and Podcasts. Files and folders stored on WebDisks can be linked from any Web page, including Blackboard sites, or shared with groups of UIC faculty, staff and students, or with the public Web, if you wish. Also, WebDisk passes can be created and distributed as access keys, thereby maintaining non-public WebDisk content, while giving access to people at UIC or outside UIC. To get a class WebDisk, simply request one by emailing the ITL.
Adaptive Release :: a little known feature of Blackboard that lets instructor control the progressive display of class materials, online assessments and other Web activities based on how the student is doing in class. Check it out.
All UIC instructors should have a second netid.bb Blackboard-only account to use for seeing Blackboard sites from the students' perspective. To get a netid.bb Blackboard-only account visit the ACCC home page at www.accc.uic.edu and click on Accounts and then on "Accounts - Open an ACCC Account".
Problems with UIC accounts and passwords?
Try ACCC's self-service password recovery tools at http://passwords.accc.uic.edu. If problems persist, see an ACCC Client Services Office (CSO) consultant at most of the ACCC public computer labs or visit the CSO offices in SEL 2267 or BGRC 181. Note: UIC netids are always in lower-case. UIC netids are not UIC email addresses; for instance, if one's UIC email address is michaelphelps@uic.edu, his UIC netid is just michaelphelps. Also, UIC passwords are always case-sensitive.

Expanded ITL-East Walk-in Hours

Ed Garay — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:27:13 GMT

Starting Monday, August 18, the ACCC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL) is expanding the East campus ITL-East Walk-in Hours to Mondays through Thursdays, from 1-5pm.

We hope that by increasing the number of afternoons that UIC faculty and staff can just "drop in" without an appointment at our East campus location, we will better cope with the growing campus demand, and make it easier and more convenient for people to get help with teaching and learning technology, as well as all other ITL services, facilities and resources available.

The ITL-East is located on the first floor of the Richard J. Daley Library, in room LIB 1-310, on the south wing, all the way to your left as you enter the Main Library from the Lecture Center Quad, facing SEO.

The West campus ITL-West Walk-in Hours remain the same: Thursdays and Mondays, from 1-5pm.

If the ITL-East or ITL-West Walk-in Hours don't work for you, please request an ITL appointment, as usual, by clicking Making Reservations at the top left of the ITL home page -- http://itl.accc.uic.edu. ITL consulting is also provided by phone and email, respectively, at 312-996-9824 and itl@uic.edu.

Blackboard Intro & Grade Center Sessions

Ed Garay — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:27:32 GMT

Below is our schedule of Blackboard Introductory, Blackboard Refresher (aka Intro II) and Blackboard Grade Center sessions for faculty and teaching staff for August - September of 2008. All three sessions are 50 minutes long.

Blackboard Intro sessions are designed for instructors that are new to Blackboard.
Blackboard Refresher sessions are also introductory, but designed for faculty/staff who have already used Blackboard. Refresher sessions are still introductory sessions, but we might cover additional material as a faster pace depending on the audience.
Blackboard Grade Center introduces the totally re-done Blackboard gradebook.
A separate set of intermediate/advanced Blackboard sessions will be scheduled for starting on Week 4. Check the ITL Blog regularly for up-to-date information.

To register, please send an email to itl@uic.edu with the subject line Blackboard training, and in the body of the message list the name, date, time and location of the session(s) that you would like to attend. [just tell us when you are coming and show up at any of these :: you most likely will not get an email confirmation]

Fall 2008 Week 2 :: Tuesday 9/2 - Friday 9/5

Tuesday 9/2 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Tuesday 9/2 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Tuesday 9/2 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Tuesday 9/2 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Tuesday 9/2 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Tuesday 9/2 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Tuesday 9/2 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Tuesday 9/2 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Tuesday 9/2 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Tuesday 9/2 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 9/3 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/3 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 9/3 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/3 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 9/3 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/3 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 9/3 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/3 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 9/3 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/3 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/4 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/4 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/4 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/4 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/4 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/4 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/4 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/4 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/4 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/4 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Fall 2008 Week 3 :: Monday 9/8 - Friday 9/12

Monday 9/8 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Monday 9/8 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Monday 9/8 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Monday 9/8 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Monday 9/8 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Monday 9/8 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Monday 9/8 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Monday 9/8 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 9/9 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 9/9 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 9/9 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 9/9 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 9/9 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 9/9 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 9/9 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 9/9 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 9/9 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 9/9 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 9/10 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/10 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 9/10 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/10 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 9/10 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/10 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 9/10 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/11 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/11 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/11 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/11 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/11 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/11 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/11 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/11 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 9/11 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Thursday 9/11 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Past workshops

Week of Monday 8/11 - Friday 8/15

Wednesday 8/13 2pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 8/13 2pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Wednesday 8/13 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Wednesday 8/13 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 8/14 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Thursday 8/14 11am Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Friday 8/15 10am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Friday 8/15 10am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Friday 8/15 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Friday 8/15 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Week of Monday 8/18 - Friday 8/22 2008

Monday 8/18 10am Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Monday 8/18 10am Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Monday 8/18 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Monday 8/18 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Monday 8/18 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Monday 8/18 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Monday 8/18 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Monday 8/18 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]
Monday 8/18 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]
Monday 8/18 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/19 10am Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/19 10am Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West:Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/19 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/19 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/19 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/19 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/19 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/19 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/19 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/19 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/20 10am Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/20 10am Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West:Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/20 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/20 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/20 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/20 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/20 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/21 10am Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/21 10am Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West:Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/21 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/21 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/21 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West:Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/21 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West:Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/21 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West:Room BGRC 181]

Friday 8/22 10am Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Friday 8/22 10am Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West:Room BGRC 181]

Friday 8/22 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Friday 8/22 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Friday 8/22 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Friday 8/22 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Friday 8/22 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Fall 2008 Week 1 :: Monday 8/25 - Friday 8/29

Tuesday 8/26 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/26 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/26 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/26 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/26 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/26 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/26 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/26 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Tuesday 8/26 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Tuesday 8/26 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/27 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/27 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/27 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/27 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/27 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/27 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/27 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/27 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Wednesday 8/27 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Wednesday 8/27 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/28 10am Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/28 10am Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/28 11am Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/28 11am Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/28 1pm Blackboard Intro [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/28 1pm Blackboard Intro [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/28 2pm Blackboard Refresher [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/28 2pm Blackboard Refresher [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

Thursday 8/28 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [East campus, ITL-East, Main Library, Room LIB 1-310]

Thursday 8/28 3pm Blackboard Grade Center [West campus, ITL-West: Room BGRC 181]

What does the ITL do?

Ed Garay — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:09:22 GMT

Welcome to the ITL Blog :: a blog about teaching with technology at UIC.
The ITL is ACCC's Instructional Technology Lab.

I am regularly amazed by the number of UIC faculty and staff who have a mistaken impression of what the ITL is or what we do. Many people think we only provide online learning support, advanced consulting or only help those using the Blackboard Learning System -- that is all incorrect. The ITL's primary mission is to help all UIC instructors using a large variety of teaching and learning technology for traditional on-campus classes, as well as for online and hybrid (aka blended) learning. The majority of the faculty and teaching staff that we help are involved with traditional face-to-face on-campus classes. Using Blackboard is not a requirement either. We provide faculty support and development no matter what class Web pages are used.

More generally, the ITL supports UIC faculty and staff interested in using computer and Internet technology for teaching and learning applications, as well as in communication, collaboration, presentation, and other university applications.

The ITL helps faculty/staff at any level of expertise
We assist instructors new to using teaching and learning technology, as well as novice, intermediate and advanced users. No question or technology application is too elementary or inappropriate to explore or discuss. First steps usually involve getting a Blackboard course site to simply hold the syllabus, a couple of other class materials or hyperlinks, and to post class announcements or send email to your students. Using the Blackboard gradebook (now called the Grade Center) is probably the next step, along with uploading PowerPoint presentations or additional class materials in HTML or PDF. Don't worry, we will show you how to easily create educational content in HTML or PDF, and how to make them Web accessible, so that everyone can use them, even on small screen devices like smartphones or those new little laptops.

Sample list of ITL services, facilities and resources
Following is a list of things that we do or can help you do at the ITL. If you don't find what you are looking for or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email us your questions at itl@uic.edu or call the ITL at 312-996-9824.

Web Enhanced Teaching & Learning :: first steps

using Blackboard course sites and the Blackboard course management system
maintaining class Websites on traditional Web servers
putting syllabi and class materials on the Web
using blogs and wikis as learning activities
enhancing class communication via Blackboard class announcements, class discussion boards and by easily sending email to your students directly from inside Blackboard
publishing lecture presentations on the Web
using the Blackboard Grade Center as a simple class gradebook
getting help with online and blended learning course development
running review sessions and teaching from anywhere via ACCC e-Rooms (aka Centra) Web conferencing
making available lecture handouts and sample old exams

Relatively New Technology :: intro & intermediate faculty/staff

using WebDisks to store and share documents or anything with your class, groups of people or with anywhere on the Web
creating audio Podcasts with or without RSS feeds
exploring a variety of Web 2.0 technology for teaching and learning, or for class or faculty/staff collaboration
posting narrated PowerPoint mini-lectures online
bringing external content into Blackboard sites via RSS feeds
deterring plagiarism in class, easily, with Blackboard SafeAssign
maintaining personal and class electronic portfolios and My Expo Sites
controlling granular display of class materials using Blackboard Adaptive Release
checking student progress via the Blackboard Dashboard

The ITL also supports:

Going Digital :: Web Design & Development
Mobile Computing Support :: Communication and Collaboration Technology
Multimedia Design & Development :: ACCC Video Services
Miscellaneous ITL Services