CGCCtek

Final Review Season? Try Jeopardy!

2011-03-09T09:58:00.000-08:00

Searching for a way to do final review in a way that wouldn't put everyone right to sleep, I came across this excellent site: Jeopardy Labs. It is a free and easy classroom jeopardy template (I write jeopardy in lower-case letters because it is not affiliated with the TV show), where you simply input the category headings, questions, and answers. When it comes time to play the game, simply project your personalized game onto the classroom screen. Click on the box to view the clue, and after the student answers, click on the "Correct Answer" button to show the answer. It even has a scorecard feature.

Important note: You must save or bookmark the url for your template after you create and save it! The site kindly does not force you to create an account, but that means you have to keep track of your own url.

Of course, an in-class jeopardy game sounds cute here, but what do the students think? As any teacher knows, students are amazingly immune to (what we think are) interesting and engaging activities. Well, my own finicky consumers seemed to love it. Since I made an effort to stop and have a brief discussion about each question, the game prompted a lively review of the concepts we learned over the term. A healthy dose of competition is a good way to get a person involved :) You can check out my version of the game, for a WR 122 class, here.

You'll also have to think up some basic rules for the game-- the site doesn't provide those for you. Mine worked pretty well, so I'll enclose them here.

Jeopardy Rules:

1. Divide the class into three teams. From each team, someone will stand up. This is the designated question answerer (QA). The first team’s QA will select a question (“Fallacies for 300”).

2. The QA will have 30 seconds to answer. If she gets it right, that team gets the points, and it’s Team 2’s turn to pick.

3. If QA does not get the answer right, that team loses the points, and the second team will have the chance to answer. If team 2 does not get the answer right, they too will lose their points, but they will not lose their next turn.

4. Each team gets a turn in order; no losing turns. If a student does not attempt a question, then she remains standing for the next turn. Anyone who attempts a question (successfully or not) must sit down until it becomes their turn again.

5. NO talking while QA’s are contemplating their questions. Only one QA at a time may answer.

6. This is Jeopardy-- you are being presented with an answer, and you must supply the question. All “answers” will be in the form of a question; if not, you lose your points and the chance goes to the next QA. Eg,

A: Thing you type on to send emails and write essays.
Q: What is a computer?

Zoho

2011-03-08T14:24:00.001-08:00

At the Instructional Technology Council's eLearning conference this year, Barry Dahl gave a talk about Zoho, a suite of free online tools. You can get an account at https://www.zoho.com/. There are a lot of nice features including a document writer, wiki, spreadsheet, chat etc.. The document application will save in a wide variety of formats and automatically shares on the web, which can be helpful for online instructors who could update from Zoho and link to the document in Moodle.

Rekindling a Lost Art

2011-01-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

Note-taking has indeed gone the way of the dodo. Check out a recent Faculty Focus posting that offers a good suggestion for an in-class note-taking activity. Such information-gathering may help students to write research papers that are more reflective and analytical.

Thinking About Google Scholar

2011-01-11T21:59:00.000-08:00

Last term in an online writing class one of my students submitted an annotated bibliography for an upcoming research paper. In one of her entries, she cited Google Scholar as her source. Curious and skeptical, I looked up this Google Scholar, which I hadn't heard of before. Turns out, Google Scholar functions similarly to Google's regular search engine, only it returns only "scholarly literature," rather than just any old web page. I also turned to one of CGCC's trusty librarians, who told me that Google Scholar is pretty reliable, but like any information that is freely available on the web, "students will need to do some critical thinking to evaluate it." Another problem is that GS also "directs you to sites that require payment for the articles"-- a notion that is antithetical to what a student is usually trying to accomplish (ie, find freely available information).

My main concern, however, lies not with Google Scholar specifically. It's that GS signifies a growing number of information databases on the web-- information middlemen, essentially-- that obfuscate for students the true sources of information. When my student had cited Google Scholar, she should have actually been citing the journal that GS procured in her search. And GS may profess to value scholarly research, but can we say the same for WebMD, Wikipedia, and About.com? Some may say I'm comparing apples and oranges here, but I think the overall premise holds. A preponderance of online clearinghouses for information makes data easier to access, sure. But are these sources being responsible with their data? How can I make sure that my students are vetting their sources carefully without simply proscribing a long list of "database-type" web sites, or forcing them to only use the databases available in the college library?

As with innumerable technologies now available to students, I'm afraid a point gained for convenience means a point lost for learning. What is a teacher to do?

Quality Matters Reviews

2011-01-03T16:49:00.000-08:00

Quality Matters Reviews

some suggestions for visual and hearing components

By Grace Windsheimer gwindsheimer@cgcc.cc.or.us

One of the ongoing issues in passing the Quality Matters rubric, is #8.2, visual and hearing impaired students. There are actually court cases against colleges right now from students who feel they don't have access to online courses because of their disability. Here is the information on the court cases for you. http://chronicle.com/article/Blind-Students-Demand-Access/125695/

Visually Impaired
I found a ppt reader that students can download. Tried it and it reads both ppt (2003) and pptx (2007) text, so I'll be adding that to my Moodle pages for students to download if they choose.
Here is the link to the PowerTalk download-easy to download and use.
http://fullmeasure.co.uk/powertalk/#requirements

Here are some links to screen readers: from Linda Hughitt

Free screen readers:

Listing of programs:

http://speechcomputing.com/texttospeech

Hearing impaired
I also try to find videos with CC (closed captions) to add to my Moodle shells for the hearing impaired-they are getting easier to find. Here is a web page with closed caption videos http://www.google.com/search?q=is:free&tbs=vid:1,cc:1 You can also search on YouTube for cc videos. Here are some videos on You Tube for CGCC http://www.youtube.com/cgcclive that have automatic captions.

Try them out, they actually are done quite nicely and for those that are hard to hear for all of us it is a great alternative.

More about Prezis

2010-09-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

If you use powerpoints and are looking for something new, you might try Prezi. http://prezi.com I got a free educational license and made a "prezi" for my fall faculty inservice workshop this coming Saturday. The non-linear approach was helpful in organizing my thoughts.

You can check out my "Moodle Tune Up" workshop prezi at https://prezi.com/secure/f3f08a6a0d9d18c0be190edd7af1c4c4d21cb8f2/ To navigate around the presentation, use the arrow key (which is my pre-set "path"), or click on the screen, or use the zoom on the right side of the screen.

The Important Elements of a College Web Site

2010-08-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

A recent article in Inside Higher Ed discusses this amusing cartoon. Let's hope that, as we gear up for an overhaul of the CGCC web site, we can take some valuable lessons from this!

The cartoon is by Randall Munroe, and you can see his web site here.

Playing With Prezi

2010-07-07T23:02:00.000-07:00

In my online travels I recently stumbled across Prezi, a presentation program that claims to put PowerPoint to shame. Having also recently read about the scientifically researched "PowerPoint fatigue" and having seen my own students fall into a slumber over my PowerPoint presentations, I figured the bar was set pretty low. I'd say Prezi has more than cleared it.

Once you get the hang of it, it's fun to use, although it certainly doesn't take any less time to prepare than PowerPoint. You can use text, images, a small selection of shapes, and I'm not sure but I think audio might be possible too.

Check out my experiment: a presentation on Run-On Sentences that I made for my Writing 121 class.

What do you think? Does Prezi have a higher educational value? Or is it just the next tekky fad?

Videocaptioning Therapy at ITC eLearning 2010

2010-02-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a great conference in Fort Worth Texas. Check out Sage Freeman's blog for details and pictures. I shared a "how-to" video about videocaptioning on You Tube while we "therapized".

Waving at myself

2009-11-09T14:14:00.001-08:00

Google Wave certainly seems to have a lot of potential in education. I wish I could give other folks invitations so I could have more people to wave with.

CGCClive on You Tube

2009-10-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

The college presence on You Tube has grown to more than 150 videos. We have been adding captioning for the hearing impaired as well. Tune into CGCClive for videos ranging from the holiday door contest to thevenin's theorem. http://www.youtube.com/user/cgcclive

2009-1010 Distance Learning Plan

2009-07-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

Not a minute too soon, I have the distance learning and instructional technology plan finished up for 2009-2010. The fiscal year starts July 1, so we are already rolling! Link to all the plans since 2005. Happy New Year :)

Closing the gap

2009-05-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

The institutional researcher, (or queen of data as I call her) compiled the statistics of student completers for 07-08 (summer 07 thru spring 08) at CGCC. Successful completion is an A, B, C or Pass

All classes: 83.9%
Telecourse: 87.9%
Hybrid: 86.3%
Onground: 84.3%
Online classes: 81.5%

In 06-07, the difference between online and onground completion rate was 6.3%. A year later, as shown above, the difference was 2.8% (83.9% - 81.5% = 2.8%). We seem to be closing the gap! I attribute this to a focus on high quality courses via the implementation of Quality Matters on campus.

You Tube

2009-04-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

This school year, Columbia Gorge Community College started using You Tube for some of the instructional videos we produce. This experience has made me a fan of You Tube because it is so easy to use. Also I really appreciate the easy system for captioning videos. The college has 28 videos on the site now, and I have about 40 more to add. We are slowly adding captions and moving them from our website. It seems to me that the 10 minute limit on videos is a good thing for instructional videos. Teaches us long-winded people to focus and be brief!

To see any of the college videos, just search for Columbia Gorge Community College on the You Tube site. Here is a video about how to reset your Moodle class:

Reset your Moodle class

Fun stuff from eLearning

2009-03-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have been back from eLearning for a few weeks now, but just started unpacking my brain! Here are some free tools for online learning:
www.toondoo.com
www.pbwiki.com
http://www.wetpaint.com/
http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/
http://www.netvibes.com/#General

See http://barrydahl.com/ple/ for more!

eLearning 2009

2009-02-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

Getting ready to go to eLearning conference this weekend in Portland. I will be doing a pre-conference workshop called "Avatar Boot Camp" and another (not hands-on) session later in the program with my colleagues in the Second Life island project for community colleges in Oregon. I am looking forward to being closer to home this year :)

Ampitheatre and lots more on the college island

2008-11-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

So much is happening on the OR Community College island in Second Life, including the building of an ampitheatre, based on the Elizabethan theatre in Ashland.
Here is the information site link: http://sites.google.com/site/orcommunitycollegesisland/Home

Oregon CC Island Blog

2008-10-16T13:51:00.000-07:00

There is a new blog for the Oregon Community College island: http://slorcc.blogspot.com/

Video Camp 2008

2008-09-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

This year we added special effects to the mix. Here is a link to Bill Noonan's video about Descartes where we used our new bluescreen to create an out of body experience!

Project Wonderland

2008-07-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

I recently tried to attend the opening of Project Wonderland. There was quite a crowd! So much so that most of us were not able to join the tour. No doubt there will be new opportunities. Here is a helpful introduction to this project.

More fun in Second Life

2008-06-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

It has been great to learn more about virtual immersive education with my colleagues around the state on the OR Community Colleges island. Check back here in a few weeks for news of summer camp on the island where we will be developing eco-regional meeting spaces. Here is a picture of us riding orcas in Second Life as we discussed the future of 3D environments in education. Who knows where this will lead to!

OR Community Colleges Island

2008-04-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

The Oregon Community Colleges are in the planning stages of an island in Second Life called OR Community Colleges. Even though we just opened the island to the planning crew, it has already proven to be a wonderful meeting space. We look forward to developing it in the coming years, helping to create a community for distance learning students around the state.

Virtual World Update

2008-03-03T09:46:00.000-08:00

The Oregon Community Colleges Distance Learning Association (OCCDLA) is getting ready to release an announcement about an island in Second Life called OR Community Colleges. At the quarterly OCCDLA meeting last week, Jeremy Kemp and Jonathon Richter spoke to the group about emerging virtual worlds in education.

The Second Life island will likely be only one piece of a community college virtual environment in the future. Sun Microsystem's Wonderland project, for example, may add an important piece to this emerging educational technology.

e-Learning 2008

2008-02-12T12:55:00.000-08:00

I am looking forward to next week's e-Learning conference in St. Pete's, Florida. It is still a cool late winter here in Oregon, so it is nice to have a reason to unpack my sandals for this trip. My presentation at the conference is called "High Quality Video for Small Budgets". You can download the powerpoint and the handout by clicking on the links to the right. Hope to see you in the sunshine state!

Paula

Winter Update

2008-01-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

Winter term online Moodle training started yesterday. It is always great to work with instructors new to this technology.

Building continues on The Dalles Health Sciences Building and the new Hood River Indian Creek Campus. You can see construction progress at http://www.cgcc.cc.or.us/ITS/TDCWebCam1.cfm

All the best,
Paula

Summer News

2007-08-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

I hope you are having a wonderful summer. Please click here to watch a short news update from instructional technology at Columbia Gorge Community College.

Moodle news

2007-07-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

Three news items regarding Moodle:

1) Starting summer term, all online, hybrid and teleweb classes at Columbia Gorge Community College will use Moodle, an open-source course management system used by over 7 million people worldwide.

2) To improve service to faculty and students, the CGCC Moodle host has changed. You can find the new site on the college homepage under the distance learning category.

3) The summer term online Moodle training class will begin today and end four weeks later. All faculty and staff are most welcome to attend. To join us, go to the Moodle site, create your account if you have not done so already, and add the course called Moodle Training for Instuctors.

Happy summer!

iTunes U at CGCC

2007-06-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

The iTunes U site for Columbia Gorge Community College is ready! If you would like to view this site, please contact me for a guest password.

Announcing Video Camp 2007

2007-04-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

All faculty and staff at Columbia Gorge Community College are welcome to join us at Summer Video Camp 2007. If you are interested in producing a video this summer, please watch the following three minute introduction to Video Camp 2007: http://www.cgcc.cc.or.us/Academics/IntroVCamp07.wmv

Sloodle

2007-03-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of new ideas buzzing around these days, as the pace of innovation in instructional technology continues to increase. Starting in the summer term, CGCC will move to Moodle as a course management system. There has already been some great work to make this happen by instructors and staff.

We are also exploring Second Life, which is a virtual reality location used by many colleges and universities. The first informal meeting in Second Life will take place in a couple of weeks, so let me know if you are interested in joining us. Above is a picture of my avatar!

New instructional videos

2006-11-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

CGCC instructors created 17 short videos for their science and nursing classes over the summer and early fall. One of the videos that has garnered a lot of comment is Dan Ropek's cat dissection video. In this video, Dan does a great job of preparing students for the difficult task of dissection as a means to further the understanding of anatomy and physiology. You can view the video via Dan's website at http://www.cgcc.cc.or.us/Academics/Faculty/DanRopek.cfm

CGCC Video Camp

2006-07-25T08:03:00.000-07:00

Michael Annus, the video producer at Portland Community College visited CGCC yesterday to prepare for the Summer 2006 Video Camp. Three training videos were produced to help faculty get ready for camp. I will post them here and hope that you might enjoy them!
Training overview
Teaching to a camera
Writing a video script

CGCCtek 6: Faculty Inservice

2006-04-12T07:49:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I gave a presentation at the spring inservice about blogs, wikis, and podcasts. During the session, we used "clickers" to poll the audience and discussed the impact of digital technology in education. To listen to a seven minute interview with CGCC instructors please click here.

CGCCtek 5: Quality Matters with Mary Wells

2006-03-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

Today I interviewed Mary Wells, co-director of Quality Matters (QM): Inter-Institutional Quality Assurance in Online Learning. The QM toolset and process are based in national standards of best practice, designed to promote student learning, integral to continuous quality improvement, and part of a faculty-driven, collegial peer review process. To listen to the 20 minute interview, click here. More information about Quality Matters can be found at www.qualitymatters.org .

CGCCtek 4: Distance Learning and Instructional Technology Plan

2006-01-25T14:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome! You can find a link to the 2005-2006 Distance Learning Plan on this page. CGCC faculty and staff have accomplished most of the objectives in this document already! Also under links, you can find a draft of the 2006-2007 plan. Please take a look at it and give me some feedback. Thanks.

CGCCtek 3: John Mendez on technology and community

2005-12-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

CGCC instructor and Radio Tierra founding board member John Mendez talks about how the latest in instructional and radio broadcasting technology is changing our community. Click here to listen to the 30 minute interview. Please excuse the low buzz in the first three minutes of the interview; I am still experimenting!

CGCCtek 2: Dr. Hyacinth Williams on podcasting

2005-11-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

I interviewed Dr. Hyacinth Williams yesterday about podcasting and its applications to instruction. Please turn your computer speakers on and click here to listen. To subscribe to podcasts about instructional technology at CGCC, right click on the RSS Feed link on the sidebar, choose properties and then copy the URL address in your podcast subscription application.

Podcasting

2005-10-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

I started a site with a podcasting feed today. You can subscribe to a podcast about instructional technology at CGCC by using this address in your podcast application: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/Ljie

CGCCtek 1: Lynne Davidson on classroom technology at the HRC

2005-10-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

I talked with Lynne Davidson today about instructional technology at the Hood River Center. You can listen to this interview by clicking this link.

Blogging for CGCC classes

2005-10-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Online group discussions are easy to do on WebCT shells. For classes that don't use WebCT, blogs may be a great tool. One issue is class privacy. On the WebCT shells, the general public does not have access to discussions, but a blog like this is open to everyone.