Web Conferencing

Are you looking for an opportunity to engage your online students?  Enhance classroom instruction with live guests?  Conduct virtual meetings or office hours?  Blackboard Collaborate is a web conferencing tool that will allow you interact with students and colleagues. 

Personally, I use a web conferencing tool to hold a “live chat” during every week of my online courses to review materials, answer questions and hold discussions.  Furthermore, in the CTE we use it to hold division meetings and monthly faculty meetings.  The opportunities are endless!  

Check out this video for more details:  Blackboard Collaborate Web Conferencing Orientation for Moderators!  

We are holding regular training sessions for Collaborate this fall.

• Monday, August 31, 3:00 – 4:00 pm
• Tuesday, September 8, 10:00 – 11:00 am
• Wednesday, October 14, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
• Thursday, November 19, 3:00 – 4:00 pm

For help with this tool and many others, stop by the CTE, send an email to cte@triton.edu or call extension 3371.

Smart Notebook 14

Triton is installing a new version of Smart Notebook on the Smart Boards across the campus.  Already installed on 13 of our newer Smart Boards, Smart Notebook 14 includes a number of exciting features.  Watch the video below for a taste of what's coming.



Smart Notebook 14 has improved math functionality through the new Smart Math Tools powered by Geogebra! Write equations, create interactive graphs, and use new Smart Board features that are available for all levels of math instruction and for disciplines that use equations and graphs. Watch the video below to see these new math features in action.



Two of our Math Faculty will be facilitating "Smart Board - Math Tools" workshops on Monday, April 27 and Tuesday, April 28 from 2:00 - 3:30 in the Faculty/Staff Computer Lab (E-210W). Come and be sure to bring lots of questions!

To register, please go to http://www.triton.edu/cte and click on the "Click here to register..." link.

On the search for videos

In my last two blogs, we discussed tools that we can use for creating your own videos.  This time I would like to share a few sources for videos and searching tips. The sources are primarily open educational resources (OER) that have licensing designed to make it simple for users to reuse, rework, remix and redistribute materials.  For more information, visit Creative Commons (CC) for a short video with information regarding their open licenses.

So, what are OER?  There are many definitions of OER.  In simple terms, OER are any type of resources (videos, images, tests, software, textbooks and much, much more!) that are in the public domain or licensed to permit free use and re-purposing by others.

Whew…finally, I’m onto the video sources I mentioned earlier. 

YouTube

The best way to find a video that is licensed under the Creative Commons license on YouTube is to use the CC Search tool described above in the General Search and Photo/Image Search sections. Unfortunately, YouTube does not provide a filter or advanced search capability on their home page for finding all YouTube Creative Commons licensed videos. However, http://www.youtube.com/creativecommons lets you see the most viewed and most reused Creative Commons licensed videos.

Tip:  If you are on the YouTube home page and type in your search term followed by a comma and then “creativecommons” the videos returned are CC licensed.  Also, when uploading videos, by default, the licensing is set at “Standard YouTube License”, which essentially means the creator is granting YouTube the right to broadcast the video.  See the Terms of Service (specifically, Section 6.C.) for full details.

Vimeo

Let’s you easily upload and find CC licensed videos.  This site tends to be used by businesses and organizations.

The Internet Archive has a collection of old video and movie footage.  Check out site for old cartoons, sports videos, ephermal films and news footage.

Tip:  This site allows you to download video and you burn them to a DVD or thumb drive to avoid slow internet connection (not that the internet is ever slow!).

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. In 1984, it started out as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The best talks and performances from TED and partners are made available to the world, for free. More videos are added on a regular basis.  All of the talks are subtitled in English, and many are subtitled in various languages. If you’re wondering, there’s an app too!

Do you have any go-to sites for videos?  Please share them with us.

Attribution:  “Video Search” in open4us.org, CC BY 4.0

More Video Tools

Last time, I shared a few ‘video’ tools that I have used.  However, there are many video tools out there.  You may also want to check out the following tools that others have used to create materials for their classrooms, as well as student productions.  Please let me know what you think of them and feel free to share more!

Explain Everything

This iOS, Android and Windows compatible app ($2.99) is an interactive white word and screencasting tool.  Check out these short videos, which highlight the commonly used features.  One example that I found, was that a student recorded how he was trying to balance a chemistry equation.  (Using the 'Explain Everything' App in the classroom YouTube video).  

PowToon

Create animated videos.  The basic features are free. They also have premium features for a cost.  Consider using it as an alternative to PowerPoint.

Vimeo

A video sharing site with multiple levels of membership and yes, there’s a free one too!  Vimeo is comparable to YouTube, but there are some differences.  Do you have a preference?  Let us know what you think.

Any Video Converter

This freeware converts videos to multiple formats and has editing features.  There is a Windows and Mac version. 

I invite you to share a tool and your creation with us (whether you think you're creative or not)!
  

Looking ahead…I’ll share a few tips and resources to search for videos created by others.

Video Tools

The CTE recently hosted a workshop on the Flipped Classroom.  We spent a day eating yummy food and snacks, as well as sharing instructional strategies and modeling a flipped classroom experience.  To supplement the workshop, I thought I’d share three video tools that can be used in a flipped or your current classroom.  I have used these tools in my online courses.  Essentially, screen capture refers to a process that records audio and video components on your computer screen.  (However, it may also refer to a still image of your computer screen.)

Screencast-O-Matic

This is a free web based screen capturing tool for up to 15 minutes of recording time or feel free to purchase for more features.  I use the free version.  Screencast-O-Matic allows video creation in multiple formats (mp4, avi and flv) for uploading to its site or YouTube.

Student Strategies:  

• Use Screencast-O-Matic to provide a video introduction of yourself or a course, whether it’s online, hybrid or face-to-face.
• Need to respond to a student question, but it would take too long to type it out or need to "show it", use this tool to personalize your response or keep it general and use it again later.
• Keep your first video short until you become more familiar with the tools and process.  
• Don’t sweat the small mistakes-the show must go on!

Most of you are already familiar with YouTube.  But…did you know that YouTube has editing capabilities and an automatic text captioning feature?  It’s not perfect-but it’s a start.  You may also upload a transcript.   Check out this YouTube video that quickly walks you through closed captioning.  Also, you can categorize your video files as public, private or unlisted. 

Tech Tip:  Use “Mashups” in Blackboard to easily view and share YouTube videos.

Here’s an example of how I used the videos tool to provide my students a tutorial for formatting Microsoft Word for a College 101 type course.

This is my first attempt at blogging.  I hope you found it helpful.  Is there something you’ve been wondering how to add to your classroom?  Need help with any of these tools?  The CTE is here to help you!  Send an email to cte@triton.edu or call extension 3371. 

Triton College Has an App!

Triton College is making Blackboard Mobile Learn available for all Students and Faculty. Now, much of the core content of your Blackboard courses will automatically be available from your mobile device on the free Blackboard Mobile Learn App.

What does this mean for Faculty?

Using the same Blackboard Learn platform you already use to manage your courses, you can quickly and easily disseminate information to your students via their primary means of communication.

Updates that you make to courses loaded onto the Blackboard Learn platform, whether via your computer or your mobile device, will seamlessly sync with the content in the Blackboard Mobile Learn application.

You can now meet the needs and expectations of millennial and non-traditional students, who want to be able to do EVERYTHING on their mobile devices.  The Blackboard Mobile Learn application is available on the following networks and devices:

• Android™ devices
• BlackBerry® smartphone devices
• HP webOS devices
• iPhone®, iPod touch®, and iPad™

DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS
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1. Visit the:
   
   • App Store on your iPhone®,iPad™,or iPod touch®
   • Android Marketplace™ on your Android device
   • BlackBerry App World® on your BlackBerry® smartphone device
   • Palm App Catalog on your HP webOS device
2. Search for “Blackboard Mobile Learn”.
3. Install the app.
4. Search for your institution
5. Login to Mobile Learn with your personal credentials.

Questions? Please contact our CTE department at mzicher@triton.edu or ext. 3269 for further assistance or visit Blackboard.com/Mobile for more information.

Click here to see a demo of the software on the different platforms.

Prezi

No, Prezi is not the name of an expresso maker...  Prezi is web-based presentation software that operates on the premise that presentations should not be a slide show.  Instead, they should be maps of interrelated ideas and concepts.  The focus of the presentation shifts from concept to concept.

The product itself is easy enough to use, once one gets the gist of it.  There is a key from which one can select the tool that they want to use at the moment: write, insert, frame, path, color, and show. When one is in "write" mode, double-clicking anywhere on the screen opens a text box.  A single click on a text box opens a circle from which one can size, move, and rotate objects.  One can create a page with the relative importance of an item determined by its size.  Clicking on an object allows one to drill down to the finest detail.  One can insert images and video (from the web).  One can also embed flash video into a slide; however, at that point Prezi assumes a certain level of technical expertise.  I made the following simple presentation:





One subscribes to Prezi and all presentation creation occurs on the web. There are several different account types; however, there is a free (somewhat limited) general subscription and a slightly better free educational subscription.

The completed presentation "lives" on the web, and, by default, all presentations are shared unless one subscribes to a higher account.  Prezi presentations can also be downloaded.   This seems like another example of "Cloud" computing. Where all resources and software exist on a server.