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.