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IRT Technology Update
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
01. New Software Available for Students and Mac Users
02. Uninstalling Downloaded Toolbars from Your Browser
03. Printing Changes in Korman BYOL Lab
04. Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool
05. Service Pack 1 for Office 2007
06. Telnet and FTP Service on DUNX1 to Come to an End
07. Real Media Player RP11 Beta for Mac
News & Notes on Online Learning
08. Live Classroom News
09. Bb Vista – Tips, Tricks, and Insights
10. End of Term Online Course Evaluations
11. 2008 Workshop Schedule—January & February
SPSS for Macintosh
SPSS 16 for Mac, the version that is compatible with Intel-Mac processors, is now available for download from our software server. This statistical package is widely used on campus for research and is freely available to current students, faculty and staff. You can download the application free from the IRT Computer Marketplace at http://www.drexel.edu/irt/services/comp_mark/software.html. Click Log in to Download Software and use your Drexel domain userid and password.
Impatica Site License – Free for Students!
Drexel is the first university to license this product for students! We recently acquired a site license for Impatica for PowerPoint, and students can download it free through the Computer Marketplace application from the IRT Computer Marketplace at http://www.drexel.edu/irt/services/comp_mark/software.html. Click Log in to Download Software and use your Drexel domain userid and password.
Impatica for PowerPoint is simple-to-use software that turns PPT files (with or without audio voiceover, video (.avi clips), transitions, animations, and more) into compressed files in html-format. These compressed files can be easily submitted as assignments, emailed to professors, uploaded to website in Bb Vista or Blackboard, etc.
Impatica also can produce a .zip file of students’ work so they only need to submit one file. The professor can download it, unzip the file, and view (and hear!) student presentations. Best of all, any Java-enabled browser will play them.
This new site license enables students to not only develop presentations but to do voiceover for them in PowerPoint, run them through Impatica, and then submit them. (Faculty and staff have been able to download Impatica for some time now.)
Camtasia Studio New Version CS5
The newest version, CS 5, was just released for Windows. Camtasia is software that records whatever you are doing on your computer, e.g., giving a lecture, making a presentation, navigating a Web site, conducting some training, illustrating images, spreadsheets, text documents, etc.
You can do much more with Camtasia Studio 5. There are powerful editing tools, you can publish in a variety of formats, and you can share your recordings with colleagues, students, administrators, and others.
After you attend a Camtasia Studio basic Demo session, you can load CS 5. We have about 60 (of 250) licenses remaining. There are now hands-on sessions at the intermediate level, illustrating much of the above. See the Workshop Schedule, Item 8, below.
New Macintosh OS -- Leopard
Students, Faculty and Staff can purchase Leopard, the new Macintosh OS v. 10.5 media, for $78.00 through eAcademy. Log in to DrexelOne and choose the 'Drexel' tab. Under the Technology Services channel, click on the Software: Online store link.
Certain toolbars (i.e., Google and Yahoo) are inadvertently downloaded and installed when they "piggyback" onto other downloads. If your screen is being taken over by these toolbars, you may want to uninstall them to allow you more "real estate" on your screen. These additional toolbars can also present a problem when you attempt to unblock pop-ups on certain websites because each toolbar requires you to take action separately. You can completely remove the toolbars or hide them temporarily:
To hide any toolbar, right-click on the toolbar and "uncheck" it by clicking on the toolbar name. This is a temporary measure; to reinstate the toolbar, right-click within the menu or buttons (grey) area of the browser and "check" the toolbar name by clicking on it.
To remove the Google Toolbar, do the following: On the toolbar, go to Settings>Help>Uninstall. Settings is located at the far right on the toolbar itself.
To remove the Yahoo Toolbar, do the following: On the toolbar, go to Settings>Help>Uninstall Toolbar. Settings is a button located on the toolbar itself.
The toolbars will not appear when you restart your browser.
IRT has automated the printing and charging mechanisms in the Korman Center BYOL Lab (see IRT Technology Update October 23, 2007). Now all printing costs for output printed in the BYOL lab will be charged to your Dragon Card just as they are in other areas on campus. There is no change in the prices--just the process!
This important tool ensures that your Windows and Office security updates will be downloaded to your computer in an uninterrupted fashion. When you access downloads on the Microsoft Download Center or on the Microsoft Windows Update website, you may be prompted to complete the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation check process. Further, even if you had downloaded this validation tool previously, you may be required to download and install it again following an Office or Windows upgrade. For users of Office XP or later versions, validation is required to access certain downloads from the Microsoft Download Center, Office 2007 templates from Office Online, and the Office Update service. For more information about Windows Validation, visit the following Microsoft web site: http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/WhyValidate.aspx, and of course, call the IRT Help Desk at 215-895-2020, for assistance.
On December 8, 2007, Microsoft released its first update, Service Pack 1, or SP1, for Office 2007. IRT strongly recommends you install this service pack. Since we also recommend auto-updating of your Windows and Office programs, your computer may have already received SP1. You can verify that SP1 has been installed, or proceed with the installation as follows:
Click the Office button at the top right most corner of your document or file in any of the Office 2007 modules, next click the Options button at the bottom of the Office menu for the application module you are using, and choose Resources from the left hand panel of the Options screen. Look for About Microsoft Office 2007 on the list which appears, and you should see Microsoft Office 2007 (12.0.6214.1000) SP1 (12.0.6213.1000), if the service pack was in fact successfully installed. If Service Pack 1 for Office 2007 was not installed, click Check for Updates on the same screen, or visit http://office.microsoft.com, click Check for Updates.
On January 28, 2008, IRT will cease to allow telnet and FTP to DUNX1, Drexel’s Academic UNIX server. After this date only SSH (secure shell) and SFTP connections will be allowed. This measure is being taken to further insure the security of file transfers and remote access on this server. Freely available to all members of the Drexel community is SSH Secure Shell and Secure File Transfer client. To obtain SSH Secure Shell, visit the IRT Computer Marketplace at http://www.drexel.edu/irt/services/comp_mark/software.html. Click Log in to Download Software and use your Drexel domain userid and password.
The Rich Media Conversion Project (RMCP at http://www.drexel.edu/irt/rmcweb/) continues to be a big hit. Almost 3600 rich media objects were published in 2007 bringing the two-year total to over 11,000. Now Mac users will be able to take advantage of the service as well. Real Networks has released a Beta of their RealPlayer 11 (RP11) for the Mac. RP11 for the Mac will play Windows Media files as well as almost any other rich media type.
To get your copy of Real Network's RM11 Beta for the Apple Mac, please go to http://www.real.com. The Real Network site is browser aware, so if you are accessing the site from a Mac, you'll find the download link in the upper right corner of the home page. Those of you using a PC or Linux based system will be able to find the latest RealPlayer 11 at http://www.real.com also. Just look for the "Get RealPlayer - Free".
If you have any questions about RealPlayer 11 Beta for the Mac or have questions about RMCP, please contact us at richmedia@drexel.edu.
News & Notes on Online Learning
The primary method of incorporating voice enhancement into the Live Classroom environment is through VoIP, or, voice over the Internet. The toll-free number is a feature that exists primarily to provide students and faculty with a way to participate in the Live Classroom session if they have no way of accessing the Internet. Live Classroom is not designed to be a phone bridge or a conference call center. Take advantage of Live Classroom’s VoIP feature, use the dial-in feature as a back-up only, and please tell your students to do the same.
- Grading Forms
This new feature in Bb Vista enables you to develop rubrics with which you can assess student performance throughout your course. You can make them as simple or as complex as you like, assign grade values for every element of the Grading Form, and, perhaps best of all, enable students to see the detailed grading criteria before they even begin their assignment.
- Goals
A similar new feature in Bb Vista, the Goals tool, enables you to detail learning goals and other metrics for various elements of your class and, having created each goal once, use and re-use them in your course as you deem appropriate.
- Journals
This spin-off of the Threaded Discussions tool is one that faculty have been requesting – and Blackboard made available in Bb Vista. They are one-on-one discussions that course designers can, on a Journal-by-Journal basis, keep private or make public.
- Active Learning
Enhanced student participation is a real focus in Bb Vista these days and the following two specific features focus on this pedagogical strategy:
- 1. Web Links
You can enable students to post and share URLs that they have found that relate to your subject matter, assignments, course expectations, etc. Each contributor is identified in the Web Links area with the one or more contributions that they have made.
- 2. Media Library
Similarly, with the “collections” feature, you can enable students to make contributions to the content of the class. You can set up certain collections where student-contributed elements can be included and others where only the instructor has the capability to create entries.
- Course URL
Each course section in Bb Vista has a unique URL that you can provide to students in your faculty Web page or via email communications. With one click they go to a screen to log in to Vista and then gain direct access to your section. They need not log in via DrexelOne or directly into Bb Vista. To find the URL for your section, either (a) activate the Teach tab, click on the Manage Course link in the Instructor tools area, and view the URL at the bottom of the next page, or, (b) activate the Build tab, click on the Manage Course link in the Designer Tools area, and view the URL at the bottom of the next page.
- Date Rollover
The Date Rollover feature will be very important in the coming winter quarter at Drexel. This will be the first term, for many of you, in which you will be using Bb Vista in a second term to deliver a given course. Why is this important? As you might already know, when you first enter one of your sections in a new term, you can use a past section as its basis. This will bring over all of the assignments and assessments, for instance, and many of these course elements have due dates associated with them. Using the Date Rollover feature in that new term’s section you can have Bb Vista update all of these due dates at one time based on parameters that you set. There is no longer any need to update all of these timeframes through a tedious, manual, one-at-a-time process, resulting in tremendous time savings for you. To access the Date Rollover feature, click on Manage Course in the Designer Tools area on the Build tab or Instructor Tools on the Teach tab.
For many of us, these words mean paper, hours of time, lost papers, sealed envelopes, found papers, inter-office mail, phone calls, last-minute printing and the labor-intensive gathering of information from ... paper. Then we produce the reports from the information we've gathered from the papers and print the results on ... paper. Have you considered migrating your course evaluations from a paper-based process to one that is largely online?
Many departments have had their course evaluations online for years, but not everyone is taking advantage of this paper-free alternative. Recently, we have assisted several departments in transitioning from paper to online evaluations. The improved efficiency and security, the paper (trees!) saved, and the computer skills developed by staff members all make it worth the effort.
Bb Vista has the Assessment Tool, which is perfect for collecting course evaluation data from students. It provides:
- • a secure environment
- • enrollments already in place for each section
- • anonymity
- • typewritten comments which make it easy to decipher
- • results readily available and downloadable to MS Excel for further processing and report generation
Though we recommend Bb Vista as a first alternative to paper, there are other online solutions available to explore.
Let us know if you would like to learn more about online course evaluations (olt@drexel.edu or call 215-895-1224).
Bb Vista 4 Workshops for New Vista Users - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Korman 116
Friday, January 25, 2008
Bb Vista 4 Refreshers for Experienced Vista Users - in Korman 116
Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 9 a.m. - noon
Brown Bag Lunch Sessions - noon to 1 p.m. in Korman 116
Thursday, January 24, 2008 - RMCP (The Digital Dropbox)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - NetSupport (manage classroom PCs)
Impatica Demo & Training - 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Korman 116 Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - Impatica Fundamentals
Camtasia Demo & Training - in Korman 116
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 2:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. - Fundamentals
Friday, February 1, 2008 - 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. - Intermediate
Dreamweaver Training - 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Korman 116
Tuesday, January 9, 2008 - Basic Dreamweaver
Wednesday, Jan 23 - Intermediate Dreamweaver
Wednesday, Feb 6 - Advanced Dreamweaver
EndNote Workshop - 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Korman 116
Thursday, Jan 24
PLEASE NOTE !!! Reserve a seat at any of these by emailing the Online Learning Team at: olt@drexel.edu. See the schedule here: http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/services/workshops/index.html.
To read previous issues of the IRT Technology Update, go to http://www.drexel.edu/irt/news/technews/
To manage your subscription options to the IRT Technology Update and other Drexel Announcements, go to http://www.drexel.edu/irt/subscriptions. If you prefer to receive a plain text version, please email your request to mailreq@drexel.edu.
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