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.

Welcome to a new term of PDC Workshops!

The PDC has e-mailed and published its Fall 2010 Catalog of workshop offerings. There are quite a wide variety of workshops available, from Soft Skills topics such as Communication to Instructional Technology topics such as Using Blackboard to Enhance Classes. The PDC offers several opportunities for you continued Professional Development.

We hope to see you this fall in the PDC!

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.

Horizon Report

At the beginning of the Spring Term (2010) I posted a blog about the Science Department's Adjunct Faculty Workshop and my presentation on Open Courseware.  This is an update to that piece with a link to the 2010 Horizon Report on Open Courseware.  This web page contains information about current sites that contain Open Courseware or are directories to that type of content.