Microsoft Office Online Training from Microsoft

Microsoft has a wonderful Office online training site available at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training-FX101782702.aspx.  This site gives you the ability to select the product and version for which you want to get training. You can even download the training for a version to be able to train anywhere.  If you need help getting rolling on your Office 2010, 2007, or even 2003, check out this site!

Getting Your Blackboard Learn Course Ready for the New Term

We have converted all courses to the Blackboard Learn (9.1) environment. There are a few procedural changes regarding how to copy course content from one course to another, and making the course available to the students at the start of the academic year.

First of all, copying content to a new course involves logging into Blackboard Learn at https://tritonbb.blackboard.com/, opening the old course which is the source of the content, and, by selecting "Packages and Utilities" and "Course Copy" in the Course Management Area. The key items that one must do is:

• Select the new course into which the content is being copied
• Select the Course Menu items that are being copied
• Select the Tools (Blogs, Discussions, Journals, Tests, Rubrics, etc.) that are being copied
• Submit the Copy Course form

Once the course is copied, it is necessary to open the new course and do the following:

• Change dates that were set for any assignments, test, documents, discussions, learning modules, etc.
• Clear out any old discussion postings
• Confirm that the tests are deployed on the proper content pages in within Learning Modules, and, if they cannot be opened, redeploy tests
• Confirm that all external links are opening properly
• Change the Course Entry point to the page that you want the students to see first. The following link will take you to a demonstration on how to set the Course Entry point.

The following procedure explains how to copy existing course content to a new course shell.


In addition, if the course shell for the new term was created in Blackboard CE8 and was a blank shell when converted, the only item in the Course Menu will be "My Grades." If the new course shell was created in Blackboard Learn, you will see in the Course Menu the default links:

• Home Page
• Information
• Content
• Discussions
• Groups
• Tools
• Help

Please delete any of the links that you will not be using.

Finally, it will be necessary to make the course available to the students on the first day of class. The following video from Blackboard explains how to do so: Setting Course Availability. A printable procedure that explains how to do this is available by clicking on Making the Course Available.

MS Office 2007 Help Tab

For those of you who have recently converted from MS Office 2003 to MS Office 2007 here on campus, there is a free "Help Tab" that you can download for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  It is available at the following link: Getting Started with Microsoft Office 2007.  In addition, this link will provide you with links to Office 2007 training videos on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access.

Blackboard 9.1

Hello everyone!  Just a short note to keep you up-to-date with the news about our migration to Blackboard 9.1.  We are planning to go "live" with the new platform for the fall term. We will begin the conversion this spring with a pilot group of faculty who will be teaching their summer online courses in the new platform.  Over the course of the summer, IT will be converting CE8 courses to the new release.

As far as getting ready, "What's New?" workshops are currently being held face-to-face as well as online.  To register for these workshops please go to the CTE/PDC Registration System.  In addition, a new set of workshops are being developed for Blackboard 9.1.  The schedule for the new workshops will be published in the CTE Summer Catalog.  I'll be keeping this blog posted regarding our progress, so check here often to see new developments and news.

MS Office 2007

Over the next several weeks, Microsoft Office 2007 will be installed on faculty computers across the campus. While many faculty are already familiar with Office 2007, there will be a few one-hour workshops in the CTE Lab (E-204) for faculty who are not. In addition, for those of you who prefer anytime/anywhere training, the following link will take you to Microsoft's own training site that has videos explaining the difference between the Office 2007 and Office 2003 products: Getting Started with Microsoft 2007 As always, if you have any questions, please contact me, Marie-Ange Zicher, in the CTE at either mzicher@triton.edu or at extension 3269.

Great Web Sites

This past week I was introduced to some really fantastic web sites that I would like to share.  Several of the PDC's recent workshops have dealt with issues of web and course design, and perhaps some will find these sites as useful (and, in some cases, entertaining) as I did.

The first one is "The World's Worst Web Site."  While few would want to have that monicker tagged to their site, this site shows exactly what NOT to do.  Blinking backgrounds, scrolling title bars, accessibility issues, obnoxious color schemes, frame upon frame upon frame...this web site has it all. In addition, the visual chaos is accompanied by a looping, electronic, rendition of the William Tell Overture!   WARNING!!!! This web site can only be taken in small doses without being driven totally crazy! 

The next is the "morgueFile."  Self-advertised as a site "Where photo reference lives" and a "Public Image Archive for Creatives by Creatives," the site provides free images that can be used in your own work.  Per the morgueFile free license users are allowed to remix (or alter) the image and use it commerically without attribution as long as you don't claim ownership of the image in its original state or try to sell, license, distribute, etc the image without alteration.  What a deal!  This means that one can definitely use these images in their courses.  In addition to fantastic images, there is a "Classroom" link on the site that teaches those of us who can use a little help how to take better pictures. Personally, I believe that this site is the ultimate in open courseware.  Not only does it provide us with free images, but it also has a teaching module to teach us how to take pictures.  The site is well-balanced and quite beautiful.  I suggest that you check it out if for no other reason than to see some really amazing photography.

Office 2007 files are changed to ZIP files by Internet Explorer

The scenario:

Someone has uploaded an Office 2007 file (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc...) to a website. You connect to the website using Internet Explorer and find your file, then you click the link to begin downloading. Everything seems great until---- an unexpected window pops up asking you to open or save a "ZIP" file. How did this happen and how do you fix it?

Internet Explorer sometimes (depending on version and updates applied) will inspect the contents of a download and "guess" which program would be best to open that file. While this feature is sometimes helpful, it can also choose an incorrect program and fail to open your file properly. The solution is to force Internet Explorer to open downloaded files based on the file extension, (.docx -Word, .xlsx -Excel, etc.), and to not inspect the contents of the file.

Here are the steps to turn this feature off:

1. Click "Tools" at the top of the Internet Explorer window.
2. Select "Internet Options" at the bottom of the list.
3. Click the "Security" tab.
4. Select the "Internet Zone" (picture of the Earth)
5. Click the "Custom Level" button.
6. Search the list for the "Miscellaneaous" category and under this heading you will find an option to toggle "Open files based on content, not file extension".
This should be changed/set to "Disable".
7. You may also need to do this same process with the "Local Intranet Zone" under the security tab.
8. Done

You should now be able to download your files without issue and they should open with the expected program.