CTC Ed Tech News April 28, 2014

Online resources continue to expand. Here are a few that I've recently heard about:

• British Pathe released 90,000 films on Youtube. British Pathe contains an amazing video record of news in the 20th century. Really. It's quite extraordinary. Check out the Youtube channel.
• The Digital Public Library of America, just one year old, has aggregated information on over 7 million items at various institutions across the nation, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. It's another place you can have fun exploring.
• Here's one last link on searching and researching on the web: As Researchers Turn to Google, Libraries Navigate the Messy World of Discovery Tools, an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, describes how researching is changing in the age of Internet search engines.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is an icon worth?

I've been intrigued by the use of icons in computer and web-based tools. Learn the icons for editing tools in one online text editor, and you can pretty much use any online text editor. Icons and context icons continue to expand in use -I think it's partially due to smart phones. Icons are quicker and easier to read than tiny text. 

Here's a set of icons if you want to see some of the options. How well do you understand this visual language? 

The IDEA online survey is now open to students. Please encourage your students to complete the survey. They can find it in the Blackboard shell for the course under Course Evaluation in the menu. Online surveys typically have lower completion rates than paper and pencil surveys, so it's up to you to encourage your students to complete the survey. Here are some tips:

1. Ask them to complete the survey.  
2. Post an announcement about the survey in Blackboard.
3. Tell them that we are using the new short form. It won't take long to complete.
4. Remind them it's totally anonymous.
5. Tel them how you will use the information to improve your class next time you teach it.
6. If you can, schedule some class time in a computer lab so that they can complete the survey.
7. Leave the room when they complete the survey.

If you have low completion rates on the survey, what other data are you collecting on student views of your class?

I am curious about what you are doing to encourage student participation in the survey.  Leave a comment and let me know.

CTC Ed Tech News April 22, 2014

Here are my offerings for this week:

Semester winding down

It's hard to believe it's the last week of classes and it's hard to believe the weather has been so spring like. But, it's true. Finals are next week and grades are due by 11:59 pm on Wednesday, May 7. Grading will be turned on April 25. Here's a reminder on how to grade.

Atomic Learning

UAA has a subscription to Atomic Learning, the creators of literally zillions of online tutorials. Webinars and tutorials are available for

Blackboard, Acrobat Pro, SMART Boards, Google Apps for Education and more. They are generally very specific 1-3 minute videos. There's a slew of tutorials tucked away in the Instructor Help on Blackboard for you as well as advice on how to use Atomic Learning in your courses.

But wait, there's more… under Student Help there are links to Blackboard tutorials for students. 

And more… you can even check out Atomic Learning without going to Blackboard.

So, how can you use Atomic Learning modules in your classes:

• Tutorials on applications that students need to be successful in your class ( e.g. Powerpoint)
• Presentation skills (under professional development)
• APA v.6
• and lots more! Just browse the drop down lists or use the Search box.

Please, let me know how you use Atomic Learning in your class or for you own professional learning.

More on Heartbleed 

Last week I wrote about Heartbleed, a bug in web security software with widespread effects. It's a confusing topic to non-techies. Here are a couple articles that explain it.

• Security flatlines with the discovery of Heartbleed - explains how Heartbleed works
• Advice on avoiding exposure to Heartbleed Bug security flaw - simple and to the poin

CTC Ed Tech News April 16, 2014

Details, details

The final exam schedule is up. You can check the time and room assignment for your final exam. Remember, the final exam time is not optional. The time allotted to your final is required to meet the contact hours for your class.

Summer and fall course shells are now available. If you don't see a Blackboard shell for a course that you expect to teach, verify with your department administrative assistant that the course is assigned to you. She or he will need to go into Banner to add you to the course. The course will show up in your list the day after you are added in Banner.

More "best practices"

I like this list of 10 Best Practices for Online Learning. Actually, many of the practices are good for traditional classes as well.

There be dragons out there, really mean dragons

It's a really dangerous world out there on the 'Net. Maybe you've heard about the Heartbleed bug in secure (oops!) web servers. It allows stealing of information that is supposed to be protected and secure - like passwords - but doesn't leave any evidence of the theft. So you don't know if the passwords were stolen. The UAA servers were not affected, but Dropbox and Facebook, along with many other sites, were affected. So, if you get a notice to change your password on a site, do so.

Here's my particular rant: Do not, I repeat, do not, use your UA password for any other login on any other site. If this password is stolen, your access to UAOnline is compromised. That's where we enter grades for students, that's where our pay information is. The UA password should be unique and only used for UA systems. Period. If you have used that password anywhere else, I beg you, go to the Me site and reset your password right now.

If you want more information on Heartbleed:

Prof Hacker Article on Heartbleed

CNET FAQ on Heartbleed

LastPass Heartbleed checker -paste a web address in to see if it's been compromised.

I am changing lots of passwords this week. I do use unique passwords for important sites like my bank, credit card, and UAA. I have a password manager, Keeper, that I can access on the web that keeps track of my passwords. Two IT professionals I talked to today (one of them is our own Bill Atktins) really like LastPass.

CTC Ed Tech News April 7, 2014

Be Careful Out There - A Cautionary Tale

A survey popped up in my web browser when I was going to the UAA Blackboard page to log in last week. At first I thought it was legitimate, but the prizes offered for completing the survey included e-cigarettes. I went straight to Bill, the CTC IT guy, and he declared that my browsers had been hijacked. This was both Chome and Internet Explorer on my Dell laptop. We deleted the offending files from the two browsers and from the programs directory on the computer and ran a scan on the system. Ten compromises were found and fixed. We ran the scan again it was clean. 

I don't use that PC often - mostly for Collaborate testing, so I was surprised that it had been compromised.  

Here's one more caution/reminder. I received an odd email this weekend to my UAA account: 

Hello,

Your school has uploaded an article with your information tagged in the content.

Please sign in immediately to review your information.

Click here to sign in and review the article now (link was removed)

Comment/Notifications of articles that are published will be delivered to you.

<signed>
Black board Articles.

I went and looked that the link and it looked like a generic Blackboard login page. Yikes! It looked real, though I know it was a phishing attempt. The website address started with http://radiocentrodolores.com.ar. It's not a .com or .edu address in the US, so that's another clue for me. 

It's Not Too Late...

The IDEA survey will open for students next Tuesday, April 15. If you want to customize the survey and add questions about your course, you must do so by Monday, April 14. This is a great opportunity to get specific feedback on your course. You will be able to customize your learning objectives through May 6, when the survey closes. Here's how to complete the FIF if you don't remember. I didn't and I wrote that documentation.

Best practices?

I don't like the term "best practices," perhaps because it suggests that seeking improvement is no longer needed. It's an end point. It also suggests a one size fits all approach, of which I am leary. I prefer to use the term "promising practices." That being said, here are some "Best Practices in Online Learning" from Las Positas College in Livermore California. There are some suggestions that I recommend in the list.