Wiki's, blogs, oh my....are you using Web 2.0 applications in your classroom? This seminar will provide an overview of some of the Web 2.0 applications most useful for both face-to-face and online classes. The CTL Seminar is scheduled for March 11 at 12:00 p.m. To register and for more information, visit the CTL website.
I've had a couple of questions recently about Second Life. I've found a website that might provide additional information....it's the Annotated Bibliography of Second Life Educational Online Resources.
If you've experimented with your class in Second Life, I would love to hear about your experiences----drop me a line!
When contacting CTL for help in myCourses, please have your CRN (Course Registration Number) available. This is a five-digit number that is assigned to your course via Banner. To determine your course CRN, log-in to onCampus and enter the Banner tab. From your Banner for Faculty channel, select the option Faculty Class Schedule under the Registration column. All the courses you are teaching will appear and CRNs will be displayed.
Spring CRNs start with a 1, Summer CRNs start with a 2 and Fall CRNs start with a 3.
This will help us provide more timely service.
When using an eInstruction database in class, it is best to move the database to the desktop rather than run the system from a flash drive or network drive. This will minimize the chance of your database being corrupted. Just remember to always place the database back on the drive so that your class data will be saved.
The New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative have announced the release of the 2009 Horizon Report. Each year, the Horizon Report identifies some of the key trends in technology that are likely to have an impact on teaching, learning, and research within higher education. Some of these technologies are expected to have an impact in the near future; others are projected to have an impact within four to five years. If you're interested in the future of technology in higher education, the Horizon Report is a must read!
Interested in podcasting? All 65 technology lecterns are podcast-ready. This allows you to walk into class and with a few simple steps record your lecture for your students. This is a great idea for those who teach the same class to traditional and online students. It allows the online students to feel as if they were in the classroom.
myCourses training is available this spring. A listing of the current offerings is available at:
In this Chronicle of Higher Education, David Shieh highlights strategies for using clickers in the classroom from Derek Bruff. Bruff is the assistant director of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching.
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=BJkdzckhgfpWw3Vkwnf8QnF65GfryTVr
The Horizon Project is a longstanding collaborative project between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the Educause Learning Inititative. For the past six years, they have produced the Horizon Report, which focused on the use of technology in higher education. There is now a K-12 edition, produced by the NMC and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). The pdf report, available for free on the web, is a must read for anyone interested in today's and tomorrow's technology in the K-12 system.
Six technologies or tends are highlighted in the 2009 report: collaborative environments, online communication tools, mobiles/mobile computing, cloud computing, smart objects, and the personal web. Each technology is treated in a different section, with an overview, a discussion of the relevance for the classroom, examples of the technology in practice and resources for futher reading.
Have you ever wanted to come to a CTL workshop but had a conflict? Did you know that all workshop handouts are available online? Browse through CTL documentation at:
http://www.ctl.msstate.edu/publications/handouts
Additionally, we are happy to arrange custom scheduled workshops for departments that have a minimum of five participants interested in a session. To arrange a custom workshop, please contact the Center at help@ctl.msstate.edu.
If you are planning to use myCourses during the Summer or Fall 2009 semesters, it is your responsibility to mark the course(s) in myBanner. Courses can be marked now which will result in your section being created in myCourses. A factsheet with instructions is located at:
www.ctl.msstate.edu/technologies/mycourses/
Additionally the updated training schedule is posted at:
The deadline for early bird registration for the 2009 Educause Southeast Regional Conference is May 4. This year's conference will be in Atlanta and the theme is "A Changing World: Rethinking IT Services for a Sustainable Future." The Educause Southeast Regional Conference focuses on information technology and services, teaching and learning, and higher education management. More information about the conference is available online.
Turnitin is sponsoring a free webinar this Friday, April 24. Part of the Turnitin Webinar series, this session is entitled: Plagiarism in the Digital Age: Voices from the Front Lines. The webinar is 75 minutes long and starts at 8:45 PDT (10:45 Central!)
According to the webinar description "...You'll hear from a panel of leading experts who will share their experiences from the front lines of the digital plagiarism issue. You'll also have an opportunity to submit questions to the panel, as well as have access to a range of "best practice" online resources you can use immediately."
For more information about the webinar and to register (required but free) for the session, please visit the online registration site.
Does your department or campus group have an upcoming event that you want to podcast? myMedia has a “Request an Event/Project” choice for you. This request allows you to create an event or project for podcasts and files associated with the event. With events, you have the same set preference options available. Remember, academic myMedia sets that accompany classes are created automatically when the class is marked at the beginning of a semester.
The next Educause Live! online seminar is scheduled for May 5. The online seminar series is free but registration for each session is required. The May 5 session is entitled "Building Digital Discourse---Telling Academic Stories" and focuses on Tulane University's Digital Narrative pilot program. To find out more about the next online seminar and to register, visit the seminar website.
If you are planning to use myCourses during the Summer or Fall 2009 semesters, it is your responsibility to mark the course(s) in myBanner. Courses can be marked now which will result in your section being created in myCourses. Marking courses prior to the start of the semester is encouraged and will result in the course appearing quicker in the system.
A factsheet with instructions is located at:
http://www.ctl.msstate.edu/technologies/mycourses/
Additionally the updated training schedule is posted at:
Educause is sponsoring a free Webinar, entitled "Where is the Open Education Movement Going?" Scheduled for May 19 at 12:00 p.m. (CDT), this session will address the issue of open education. What does the concept of "open education" mean in today's educational and technological environment? What innovations have occurred and what can we expect in the future? These are just some of the questions that will be explored by the next Educause Live! webinar. Brian Lamb will lead the session and speakers will include the co-organizers of the 2009 Open Education Conference. Educause Live! webinars are free but prior registration is required and virtual seating is limited. To register, visit the webinar website.
A recent article in Change magazine provides a different perspective on the role of instructional technology. Michelle Miller draws upon her background in cognitive psychology to discuss the positive role instructional technology can have in the classroom. Change is available through the Library's online collection and the article is available online to MSU faculty, staff, and students.
(The link above was built to allow remote access; you simply have to add the proxy server to the persistent link. Authorized remote users can log in with their netid and netpassword. You can do this for other readings from the library's online collections that you might like to add to your myCourses page. Don't know how? Contact us!)
U.S. News & World Report has an article on the use of Twitter in the classroom. The author provides several examples of how faculty are using the social networking/microblogging site to enhance communication both in and outside of class. The article is available online.
Not familiar with Twitter? Twitter permits microblogging or the posting of 140 character messages (known as "tweets") to others on the site who have signed up to "follow" you. In turn, you select those that you wish to follow. Many professional associations, including Educause, have Twitter accounts. Even some professional journals have Twitter accounts.
The Educause Learning Initiative has a a short introduction (pdf) to Twitter: "7 Things You Should Know About....Twitter."
Mississippi State University has renewed Turnitin.com for the 2009/2010 year. Purchased through the Office of Student Affairs, Turnitin is part of a campus-wide endeavor to foster a climate of ethical research at MSU.
Effective June 30, 2009, Turnitin will include some new or revised features. These include:
The default setting for all new assignments will be to exclude bibliographic and quoted material from the Similarity Index. (Instructors may choose, at their discretion, to add this back.)
Coming July 30, 2009:
(1) Optional exclusion of small matches in the originality report. Instructors may choose to set a percent match (between 1 and 100%) to be excluded from the report.
(2) Expanded similarity index show sources of matches: in addition to the overall similarity index, each Originality Report will also display the percentage of the paper's content that matches content in each of the three source repositories (student papers, web sources, and periodicals/journals/publications.)
(3) Automatic check of a user's system capabilities with Turnitin Systems Requirements. This has always been an option; with the July 30 release, this check will be performed automatically.
(4) Improved handling of document submissions and multiple file uploads. This update will double the size limits for individual file submissions (increased from 10MB to 20MB) and for zip file uploads (increased from 100MB to 200MB.) Users will also be notified if they submit a paper that exceeds the maximum size.
The Center for Teaching and Learning provides faculty support for any instructor of record who wishes to use Turnitin.com in their class. Turnitin may be used as a web product or through myCourses. For additional information about Turnitin, contact the Center at 325-1403.
MSU has a site license for the plagiarism detection service, Turnitin.com. Turnitin has had a number of upgrades and interface enhancements this summer. Here are some of the latest changes:
Languages: Turnitin now supports 10 different languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, chinese (traditional and simplified), Japanese, Korean, Malay Bahasia, and Thai.
Performance Imrpvodements: recent upgrades to the application web servers should result in improvements to both performance and system reliability.
New Features include:
An option to exclude quoted (and bibliographic) material from papers' Similiarity Index for an entire assignment (not just individual papers);
An option to exclude small matches in Originality Reports to help streamline the process of evaluating your students' papers for unoriginal content. Instructors can choose the size of excluded matches as a number of words (such as 8 or 11) or a percentage of all words in the paper (such as 4%);
An expanded Similiarity Index that shows multiple sources for highlighted matches in the Originality Report---not just a single possible source;
Automatic check of user's system capabilities and compatability with Turnitin system requirements;
Improved handling of document submissions and multiple file uploads. This includes: double the size limit for individual file submissions (from 10 MB to 20 MB) as well as an increase in the size of zip files (batch) uploads (from 100 MB to 200 MB); improved user notification for submissions that exceed the maximum size (and guidance to help fix the issue); and a new status bar indicating the status of uploads.
As always, you can use Turnitin with your classes via the Web service or through your myCourses class site. The Center for Teaching and Learning can set up a Turnitin.com workshop for your department! For additional information about Turnitin.com, please contact Dr. Deborah Lee at 325-0810.
Have you explored Google Wave yet? The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) has released one of its popular "7 Things You Should Know About...." flyers about Google Wave: 7 Things You Should Know About Google Wave.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Center for Teaching and Learning in the Technology category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
Teaching Tips is the previous category.
Workshops is the next category.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.