IRT: News & Events: TechUpdates: May 09 2006

IRT will present an exciting and entertaining look at many of the new technologies available at Drexel. It is hard to keep up with the new tools and innovative ways of using them here on campus to enhance learning and productivity. IRT will present situational demos of many of these within the scenario of the Snowday, which now has new meaning.

IRT will present contextual demos of many tools within a three-act play - A Snowday in the Life of Drexel University - at the Emerging Technologies in Training and Education Showcase on Friday, May 19, 2006 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Living Arts Lounge (adjacent to Mandell Theater in MacAlister Hall, 33rd and Chestnut Streets).

As the play opens, an instructor and a bleary-eyed student look out from their separate abodes at a blizzard. That used to mean a snow day! A day off for fun and games ... a class to be re-scheduled and made up later. No more. Some new and emerging educational technologies offer other options. We also see a staff member continue production at home, collaborating with colleagues remotely to meet deadlines.

Act Two finds the instructor, the student and the audience back in the classroom participating in various engaging activities. Act Three advances technological possibilities outside the traditional academic arena and looks at technology for business continuity and professional productivity.

Some of the technologies to be featured are mentioned and described below.

To reserve your seat (and lunch), email showcase@drexel.edu or call 215-895-1224.

2. Sharing Information: In the Classroom and in the Office

Modern technology offers many opportunities for enhanced recording, archiving, and distributing information to classes and work teams. A suite of tools - many of which you can manage yourself with a short learning curve and minimal hardware - is available for today's myriad learning environments.

Impatica turns voice-annotated PowerPoint into html (with or without video, animations, transitions) and compresses it significantly for easy file movement and access.
Camtasia captures what is on your computer screen (including navigation to websites or other applications), with voiceover and mouse movements if you like, as a continuous movie.
Captivate also captures your screen, enables you to introduce Flash elements, and produces a Flash movie.
MediaSiteLive streams the "front of the classroom" live, and archives it for future viewing as well.
HorizonWimba enables you to add voice annotation to WebCT Vista Content, Discussion, and/or Chat. In Discussions and Chat, your students can reply with voice as well.

To see a dramatization of how these tools might help in a real snow-day-type situation for faculty, students and staff, or enhance your face-to-face or online classes or your employee training and support efforts, come to the Showcase on May 19th.

Or schedule an appointment to discuss and explore options with the team at the Faculty Development Center (email showcase@drexel.edu or call 215-895-1224).

3. Helps for the Writing and Publication Game

Organizing knowledge, sharing knowledge, documenting knowledge. These activities are central to the academic enterprise. These activities can also be extremely labor intensive.

Whether you're a teacher, a student, or an academic researcher, there are some software tools that can make the job easier.

OneNote is a note-taking product from Microsoft that enables you to share and collaborate.
EndNote is a footnote-, citation-, and bibliography-creation tool that works with APA, MLA, Terabian and other formats.

Do the nuts and bolts of scholarship seem easier today than way back when you all did your theses? Using these tools can make preparing your academic publications less onerous today. Come see them (see item 1 above), and introduce them to your students.

4. Instant Gratification in the Classroom

Learning new things and sharing the excitement of learning with others. That's why most people are engaged in education. But how do you know that your eye-popping description of cutting-edge discoveries has not sailed straight over the heads of a classroom full of sleepy students who just stayed up all night cramming for another instructor's midterm?

There are a couple of classroom management tools that can give you instant feedback.

Clickers, like the audience response system seen on some television shows, can enable you to poll students, take attendance, and even administer snap quizzes.
NetSupport lets you view or control the computers of students in your classroom.

Used judiciously, these tools can let you know at once whether your lesson has gotten through.

5. Assessment: The Final Evaluation

Imparting knowledge is the exciting part of university teaching, but assessment is an essential - and time consuming - by-product. Some modern software tools can ease the labor.

Respondus is quiz-creation software that interfaces with WebCT Vista. Create a quiz, publish it to one or many WebCT Vista sections, and (a new feature) lock down the browsers of students while they are taking the test.
TurnItIn lets you check whether the well-written paper you just graded was cribbed from someone else. In law, that's called plagiarism.

Come and check it out.

6. For More Information About New Technologies

We live in interesting times. New technologies are changing the way we live, the way we learn, the way we organize our societies. Think of the impact of the Internet on politics, on philanthropy, on business, and on academic research worldwide. Yet some of us (including your editor) still choose to pay our bills by mail. New technologies can be empowering - or scary.

In IRT, we concentrate on the educational uses of technology. In the highlights above, we have not even mentioned all the emerging technologies we'll be showing off, including production aids like Rich Media Syndication and Audacity. If any of what you've read above sounds intriguing, come to the Showcase.

For more information, visit our webpage at http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/services/webct/technologyshowcase.html.

7. Reserve Computer Classrooms Now

The Korman Computing Center at the Drexel University City Main Campus has eight (8) computer classrooms that may be reserved by faculty members for single sessions or an entire term.

If you haven't reserved space for Summer term, you need to do so immediately. There are a few times available. And think about reserving rooms now for Fall term.

Faculty members reserve classrooms at http://www.drexel.edu/irt/classrooms - first come, first served.

Reminder: Special software requests must be renewed each term. For Summer '06 and Fall '06 terms, the media, licenses and any activation codes must be received at IRT by Wednesday, June 7 and Wednesday, August 30, respectively, so that testing and installation may be completed on time. Instructors should themselves check the functionality of special software before the start of their classes.

WebCT Vista News

8. Expanded Faculty Support Hours

IRT has expanded faculty support hours in the FDC (Faculty Development Center) during Spring term to include Saturdays. You can call in, email the team, or stop in. The FDC in Korman room 109 will be staffed on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for the Memorial Day weekend.

This is a pilot project. Faculty usage will be tracked to determine whether expanded coverage is warranted for future terms.

9. The Survey Results Are In!

IRT recently conducted a survey of student use of WebCT. The survey was optional and 685 students replied. We were interested in the extent to which students use WebCT and how valuable they found it. View the results in the (renamed) "Student Resources - WebCT Vista" section.

We conducted a similar survey among faculty members and will post the results of the Faculty Survey in DES-101.

10. IRT Website Loaded with Help for WebCT Vista

If you and your students have not visited the WebCT area of the IRT website recently, you have missed some important enhancements. There are new video clips about WebCT Vista features and functions. Making these web-based and available on the Drexel website maximizes the usefulness of these resources by putting them outside WebCT itself. (As in, "Go log in so you can read how to log in.")

For additional information, see http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/services/webct/readiness.

11. Grading Time Is Here

Instructors can add their own TAs or section designers to their own sections in WebCT Vista:

- Go into your WebCT Vista section
- Make sure you are on the Teach tab
- Click on the Grade Book button
- At bottom left, click the Add Members button
- Enter the User Name of the TA (e.g., abc123)
- Check the Teaching Assistant box
- Click the Add button
- Click the Save button

Repeat the process for each TA or designer.

12. Testing Time Is Getting Close

The WebCT Support Team can help you design practice quizzes to familiarize your students with the interface and the process. The Team can also help you design a real quiz. Stop by the FDC (Faculty Development Center) in Korman 109, email webct@drexel.edu, or call 215-895-1224.

For current Scantron users, online surveys and quizzes are easy to administer in WebCT Vista and give you instantaneous results. Save a tree!

13. Training for WebCT Vista

IRT offers faculty members two kinds of training - Boot Camps for new users and Workshops for current users. As sessions fill up, more may be added, so watch for schedule updates on the IRT Web site at http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/services/workshops/index.html.

* For New Users: WebCT Vista Boot Camps
WebCT Vista Boot Camps, held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in room 116 of the Korman Computing Center, provide an introduction to the most essential WebCT tools for novice users. Boot Camps are scheduled for the following dates:

Friday, May 19 - Cancelled. Come to the Showcase (item 1).
Friday, June 16 from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m.
Friday, September 15 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Laptops are provided as well as lunch. Reserve your slot at webct@drexel.edu.

* For Current Users: WebCT Vista Workshops
These are four-hour workshops to enhance your knowledge in selected areas, for experienced users of WebCT Vista. The next WebCT Vista Workshop will be held in Korman room 116 on:

Thursday, June 8 from noon-4 p.m.

To sign up, email webct@drexel.edu.

* Departmental Training
If you would prefer to have a WebCT Vista Workshop or Boot Camp just for your department, let us know. We'll provide the same information at a time convenient for your group. We can, if you wish, break it into shorter segments spread over several days. We can do it in Korman or in your own lab. Contact us at webct@drexel.edu.

14. Brown Bag Lunch Sessions

Bring your lunch, share your experiences, and learn more about WebCT Vista and other academic technologies in informal sessions with fellow faculty members.

Brown Bag Lunches for faculty and staff are scheduled for noon-1 p.m. in Korman room 116 as follows:

Thursday, May 25 - Rich Media Syndication to Bring Various Multi-Media Elements to Your Viewers
Wednesday, June 28 - Camtasia. Attenders can have a copy of Camtasia installed on a laptop or on-campus desktop, at their convenience.

To reserve a spot, complete with a soda and a dessert, send email to webct@drexel.edu.

Topics are invited. Use the same email address to suggest topics for future brown baggers.

15. Tips for This Month

* Service Pack 7 for WebCT Vista is being tested right now and may be available for Summer term. The main change involves the browsers you can use. Here's a sneak peek:

- Firefox 1.5.x will be supported for PC users
- Safari 2.0.3 will be supported for Mac users
- Mozilla 1.6 will no longer be supported for PC or Mac

* Do you need short video clips digitized and added to your sections? The WebCT Vista Support Team can help. Stop by (Korman 109) or call (215-895-1224). Video clips can significantly enhance your course.

* The following two Journals may be borrowed or browsed at the FDC:

- The Internet and Higher Education (an Elsevier publication)
- Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (an AACE publication)

Back to Top

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.

Modified: August 20, 2008

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