The "Technology Sandbox"
The purpose of the Drexel University Technology Sandbox is to provide faculty,staff and students access to
technologies which may be cutting edge, beta or at least worthy of review but are not formally supported under the Office of Information Resources and Technology's (IRT) enterprise solution umbrella.
As such, there is no guarantee made as to the suitability of these resources, for the stability of these
resources or the level of service (up-time) of these resources. Please review the information provided for
each resource to determine applicability, audience and access constraints.
Course/Content/Learning Management Systems
Personal Content Capture and Web Conferencing
Miscellaneous
Sakai: "The rSmart Sakai CLE is a feature-rich, fully scalable, enterprise ready application, unique in its ability to support teaching and learning, project collaboration, group interaction and ePortfolio construction. Based on the latest Sakai code, the CLE offers an open source collaboration environment that's polished, customizable and fully supported. Ready to take control over your technological destiny? Login to the CLE today and experience the potential of next generation collaborative learning environments." From the rSmart / Sakai CLE login portal
http://www.sakaisandbox.com/osp-portal
Sakai Instructions: The Technology Sandbox instance of Sakai is limited to 15 "sites" (courses) with up to 50 students in each site.Self-enrollment is not available.
Students: Your access is dependent on being registered by a participating faculty / staff member who has created a "course", uploaded a roster and authorized you to access that course. It is the responsibility of the participating faculty / staff member to notify you of your access credentials and other participation information. IRT has no overarching control of this system. Please do not contact IRT with questions regarding this system.
Faculty & Staff: The Technology Sandbox instance of Sakai is limited to 15 "sites" (courses) with up to 50 students in each site. Because of the limited number of sites, a few sites will be available for collaborative construction - multiple "faculty" roles will be given to the same site - while the remainder of the sites will be dedicated to individuals on a first-come, first-serve basis. Unlike Moodlerooms, self-registration is not available. If you would like access to either one of the collaboration sites or to a single site, please email us at sandbox@drexel.edu giving us your full name, DrexelOne login username (not password) and whether you want to be placed in a multi-faculty site or your own site.
Once IRT/ITS has entered your user information into the Sakai system, you will be notified by email. You will then login at the following portal site:
http://www.mysakai.com
Note:
1) Sites have a maximum of 50 enrollees each - regardless of role given by site owner (i.e. the person with the "faculty" role)
2) Those given "faculty" roles are responsible for any additional site enrollments. Additional site enrollments can only be done by site owners via .csv file upload.
3) Due to the limited number of sites, those given "faculty" roles to personal sites will be limited to a single term, unless there are open sites available in subsequent terms.
4) IRT/ITS and OLT support for Sakai users will be severely limited. This system is as new to IRT staff as it is to the Drexel community. IRT/ITS will make every attempt to provide at least some limited system overview training.
MoodleRooms: "Moodle is an (open source) Web-based Learning Management Software (LMS). As such, it allows instructors to create, sequence and modify activities for their students. An activity might be a simple resource (like a video, sound file, pdf file, excel spreadsheet, Web page, or word document), or an activity could be a multiple-choice quiz that grades itself. Moodle has flexible activities, providing different approaches for learners." Our Moodle implementation is through a third party Moodle hosting and support vendor - Moodlerooms. Their web site is
http://www.moodlerooms.com
Moodlerooms Instructions: Moodlerooms requires user registration. You can register at the login site (click here). All new users will have the role of "student". Registration is a two step process; 1) fill out the registration profile, and 2) respond to the registration confirmation email that you will be sent upon registering.
Students: Use the information provided above to self-register. Once registered and verified, you will have access to the Moodlerooms system portal. If you have been invited to participate in any course(s) or other Moodlerooms activities, you will receive notification as to how to proceed (e.g. register to participate in a course, or discussion). It is the responsibility of the participating faculty / staff to make course or activities available to you. Please do not contact IRT with questions regarding this system.
Faculty: In order to create courses and teach in them, a new role "Course Creator" needs to be assigned. You must email IRT at sandbox@drexel.edu with a request to change your role status. Please include your full name, email address and your Moodlerooms login information (only your username, not your password, please).
Additional Resources: Besides the tutorials that Moodlerooms make available, below is a link to a Moodle CMS Primer that might be helpful. Click here for Part 1 - "Creating a Class". Others may follow.
ePresence: "ePresence Interactive Media is the world's first open source webcasting and conferencing solution. It is designed to support conferences, online meetings, seminars, and demonstrations by broadcasting them live over the internet, or making them available as on-demand webcasts." From the ePresence web site
http://epresence.tv/products
ePresence Instructions: ePresence is completely web-based, so to participate you only need a browser and internet connectivity. ePresence is also Mac and PC friendly. If the "conference" allows video and audio, having a personal webcam and microphone would allow you to participate more fully.
To participate in an ePresence conference, open an IE or Firefox browser window, enter the following in the address bar:
http://epresence.irt.drexel.edu (or use this link).
At the ePresence portal page, select the "Live Events" link at the top. Scan the subsequent page for the conference you want to join. The last column in the table displays a conference's current status. Active conferences are denoted by a "monitor" icon  in the "Join" column. Select the appropriate "monitor" icon to join the conference.
To complete the "Join" process, you will have to enter your ePresence username and password. If you do not have one, use the "Register" link at the top of the page. If the conference manager has set up a password for the conference you will also have to enter it in this screen.
Currently only administrator can create conferences. There will always be at least one conference available under "Live Events" so you may freely use it. If you would like your own conference, please email use at sandbox@drexel.edu with the request. Please also include the "password" that you would like to use to secure "your" conference.
Note:
1) Depending on the conferencing template selected by the conference administrator, two-way audio and/or video may be available. It is important to make sure that, using your operating system tools, you have selected your appropriate audio and video sources prior to joining the conference.
2) If you are going to be a conference presenter (i.e. share your desktop), you will need to download and install the "ConferencePresenter" application from ePresence. Click here to download this application. Sorry - PC Only in this version.
Rich Media Conversion Project: "The Rich Media Conversion Project (RMCP) is a feature rich web-based system for encoding and publishing rich media for web access. It significantly simplifies the process of getting audio, video, text and other rich media formats into highly compressed and streamable formats suitable for web delivery." From the RMCP web site
http://www.drexel.edu/irt/rmcweb
Instructions and tutorials for using the RMCP application can be found at the above web site.
Jing Project: “Think of Jing as a supplement to all your chat discussions, email threads, forum posts and blog entries. It sits nicely on your desktop, ready to capture and share your stuff at a moment’s notice. Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share. Jing conveniently places a URL to your content on your clipboard ready for you to paste the URL into any of your conversations.” From the Jing Project web site
http://www.jingproject.com/faq.asp
Instructions for using Jing can be found at at the above web site.
Second Life: "Second Life is a 3D digital world imagined, created and owned by its Residents." From the Second Live FAQ site
http://www.secondlife.com/whatis/faq.php
Clicking on the Second Life link at the top of this page will take you to a "jumping off" web site. Selecting the "Transport Now" link on that web site will attempt to load and execute your installed version of Second Life. You will be required to log into Second Life prior to actually teleporting to the Drexel Island.
If you do not have Second Life installed, go to
http://www.secondlife.com
where you can sign up and download the Second Life installer. You will then have to install the software, choose your login information (i.e your Second Life name), do your initial login and then choose your avatar.
An additional resource that you may be interested in is the Second Life Education Wiki online at:
http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki
Blackboard Vista Scholar: "The first Beyond property is Scholar®, a social bookmarking service, customized for education and integrated with Blackboard Learning System™. Instructors and students learn by tapping the collective expertise of the Scholar community to find the best that the Internet has to offer."
From Blackboard's collateral materials site
http://www.blackboard.com/clientcollateral/Beyond_scholar_onesheet.pdf
Blackboard Scholar Instructions: To access Blackboard Scholar for the FIRST TIME you must log into Bb Vista. If you are not at the Bb Vista Home page (your Bb Vista course portal), navigate to it. Towards the bottom of the second column there is an special area named "External Courses". Within that area is a link to "Scholar Home". Select "Scholar Home" and if this is the first time you are accessing this link, you will be required to complete your profile. Once completed you can access Bb Scholar through Bb Vista or by going to the Scholar direct login page at
http://www.scholar.com
Open Student Television Network: "OSTN is the leading provider of educational, foreign language, and entertainment IPTV content and services."
"OSTN features the only 24/7 worldwide channel exclusively devoted to student-produced programming. OSTN channel features a wide variety of programming genres ranging from soap operas like "Ivory Tower" from HRTV at Harvard University to dating shows like "Blind Date" from YTV at Yale University to talk shows like "CU@USC" from Trojan Vsion at University of Southern California to reality shows like "Frosh Life" from Duke University to news shows like "Northwestern News Report" from Medill's School of Journalism at Northwestern University. On OSTN channel , students are not only creating content but they are also making the important programming decisions that appeal to their peer viewing audience. OSTN provides opportunities for students through resources, community, exposure and experience." From the OSTN "About OSTN" web site
http://www.ostn.tv/website/preloader.html
Educause Learning Initiative: "The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) is a dynamic organization committed to advancing learning through IT innovation. Joining ELI gives your entire institution access to the complete range of ELI resources and programs, including:
- - Convenient monthly Web seminars on important teaching, learning, and technology topics.
- - Discovery Tools that provide time-saving, practical support for technology exploration and planning, faculty and staff development workshops, and other activities.
- - Significantly discounted admission to the ELI Annual Meeting and twice-yearly focus sessions.
- - A dynamic network of colleagues engaged in teaching, learning, and technology."
From the Educause ELI Membership site
http://www.educause.edu/MaketheCaseforELIMembership/9806
Merlot Learning Object Repository: "MERLOT is a leading edge, user-centered, searchable collection of peer reviewed, higher education, online learning materials created by registered members, and a set of faculty development support services. MERLOT's vision is to be a premiere online community where faculty, staff, and students from around the world share their learning materials and pedagogy." From the Merlot "About Us" web site
http://taste.merlot.org/
MIT OpenCourseWare: "OCW is a free publication of course materials
used at MIT.
- - Get lecture notes, problem sets, labs
and more.
- - Watch lecture videos and demonstrations.
- - Study a wide variety of subjects.
From the MIT OpenCourseWare web site
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/about/about/index.htm
Internet Public Library: "The IPL was founded by a class at the University of Michigan's School of Information, and Michigan SI students almost exclusively generated its content and managed the Ask a Question reference service. On January 1, 2007, the IPL moved to Drexel University's College of Information Science and Technology. Now, a consortium of colleges and universities with programs in information science is developing and maintaining the IPL!"
From the ipl.org web site: http://www.ipl.org
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