Courses Verified/Ready

Just reminder to everyone to mark your courses as "ready" using the faculty gateway at https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/login.php. Remember that all course information should be updated by TOMORROW morning, Thursday the 1st. (Wow, it can't possibly be October already!) Thanks!

Hi everyone,
November 14th, faculty conversion clean-up and training deadline, will be here before we know it. Check out your responsibilities for conversion clean up in the D2L CCCOnline Community Course under Instructional Design. Log in to D2L today at

To Log in go to https://ccco.desire2learn.com/
User Name: S Number
Password: Current password

Vist this learning object to understand our unique training design for D2L and get a brief tour of the CCCOnline Community Course where training and your conversion clean up checklist are housed.

Our First Webinar is this Friday at 1pm with Mary Cash on D2L HTML Editor, Homepage, and News. No registration is required… join us at http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/

Mark your calendar for Upcoming Webinar dates:
Oct 9 12pm-2 D2L Email and Discussions
Oct 16 1pm-3 D2L Content and Manage Files
Oct 19 9am-11 D2L Grades and Dropbox
Oct 26 9am-11 D2L Assessments
Nov 2 1pm-3 D2L Intelligent Agents and Release Conditions
Nov 13 1pm-3pm Final D2L Q&A

Visit this page for a list of webinars. http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=TPD_Upcoming_Webinars

Time to Log in to D2L Training

Hello CCCOnline Faculty,
Many of you were able to log in to Desire to Learn for the first time at the conference on Friday, but I know many of you were not able to attend the event and are ready to get started!

The first task is to log in (Log In info below). When you log in, Click the CCCOnline Community course where D2L Essentials training is housed. If you have several courses, your community course is under the student tab. After opening the Community course, Read the news message in the middle of the screen, and then click on content (top left). There you will find your department's faculty lounge, a Design team section with information about conversion of your courses, and then the Training and Professional Development section. Begin to explore the D2L Essentials training with Start Here. (If you do not see the CCCOnline Community Course, please contact Lisa Marie Johnson lisamarie.johnson@ccc.edu .)

If your sandbox and master courses are available, they will be located under the instructor tab. (If you don’t see them yet, be patient as they are still working on them). Eventually, you may have one or more master courses that you will clean up for duping for the spring semester, and you will see one sandbox course. (If you don’t see what you are expecting, please contact your chair). The sandbox is a messy copy of your course and is just a space to play, experiment and make mistakes. By November 14, you must have your master courses cleaned up and your training quiz in D2L Essentials completed.

To support your efforts and lead you through the process, we will focus on a couple tools a week including a webinar with a design team member focusing on the use of the tools, and an hour for just Q&A. The first hour will be recorded for attendees to return to and those who aren’t able to join us to listen to when convenient.

The first tools we will examine are News, HTML Editor, and the Homepage. I recommend you check out the training information in the Community D2L Essenials course before the webinar. Votes were taken at the Faculty Conference and the favorite time was Friday at 1pm. So our first webinar will be via elluminate on Friday Oct 2 at 1pm with Mary Cash. Join us at http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/ No registration is required. You may want to visit http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=TPD_Upcoming_Webinars for a complete list of upcoming D2L Webinars.

Unless you have received an Email with other instructions (be sure to also check your spam folder), you will log in to D2L with your S Number and current BANNER password.

To Log in go to https://ccco.desire2learn.com/
User Name: S Number
Password: Current password

Please let me know if you have questions.

Karen Kaemmerling
Director of Training and Professional Development
720-858-2765
karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Conference

Thank you to all of you who were able to attend the Faculty Conference last Friday. I really appreciate that so many of you were able to fit an entire day into your very busy schedules.

I hope you all had a chance to talk with your program chair and fellow faculty. And of course I hope you were able to spend some time in D2L and get at least the first round of answers to your questions.

Thanks!

Lisa Cheney-Steen

D2L -- IE8 Hotfix applied

For those of you teaching in D2L right now we have this news from David:

We had D2L apply a hot fix for the IE 8 browser on all orgs. It is not yet officially supported but this fixes all known issues, and they should be coming out with that support before long. We are taking down our warning about using it on CCCOnline.

Best,

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Twitter at CCCOnline Faculty Conference

Hi Everyone,
A big thanks to the design team for all their work before this conference helping get things ready and another big thanks to them for facilitating so many sessions at the conference tomorrow.

Here are some Twitter instructions from Aaron Leonard:

If you are planning on tweeting during the CCCOnline Faculty Conference, please consider including our conference hashtag (#cccoconf) in your tweets so that everyone can share in the wondrous things that you learn.Tweeting is easy and including a hashtag even easier.

1. If you don’t have one already, sign up for an account at http://www.twitter.com
2. Login to your twitter account.
3. In the “What are you doing?” box, type your tweet (remember you’re limited to 140 characters) and include #cccoconf in your message.
4. Click Update
5. People searching the conference will now be able to see your tweet and share in the knowledge!

To search for the hashtag and see what others are tweeting at the conference:

1. Go to http://search.twitter.com
2. Type #cccoconf in the box
3. Click Search
4. Read the results! They’re only 140 characters or less, it’s not going to take that long…

See you at the Conference!

3-2-1 Blast Off!

I am so glad so many of you are able to join us on Friday September 25th at Arapahoe Community College. Our first session, a continental breakfast, and registration will be in the Main Building in room M1900. Please stop at the registration table to get your goodie bag and conference information. We will begin serving a continental breakfast approximately 8am. You may park free in any lot, and you may want to visit this website for more maps. http://www.arapahoe.edu/aboutacc/maps/index.htm . You may also want to visit the schedule at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Faculty_Conference_Schedule

We also have a Twitter tag for you to share your thoughts about sessions and the conference with us and fellow faculty who may or may not be able to attend. To set up a free Twitter account before the conference, go to http://twitter.com . Our tag line to be included in your messages is #cccoconf…all lower case.

Session capacity is based off the room fire code restrictions, so please be aware that you may not be able to join in a session you didn’t register to attend. You can bring your laptops to sessions and use them when appropriate, but wireless internet access is intermittent around the building.

Colorado EduIsland -- Second Life Event

Save the Date! - Colorado EduIsland is “Alive for Education” in SecondLife!

Event: Colorado EduIsland Open House and Training; “Alive for Education, Explore the Possibilities”
When: October 9th, 2009 from 3-6 pm
Where: Colorado EduIsland http://slurl.com/secondlife/Colorado%20EduIsland/132/110/22

Synopsis: The Colorado EduIsland Virtual World Committee (CEVWC) will be hosting “Alive for Education, Explore the Possibilities,” an educational and training event to introduce new and beginner users (i.e., “newbies”) to Second Life (SL). Discussing valuable skills of operating and utilizing SL for educational purposes will be the focus of the event. New and experienced users are welcome to join in the fun as we tour the island, participate in mazes, go on treasure hunts, and have a chance to meet new folks from various community colleges around Colorado.

Activities, both structured and unstructured, will be staged around the island for educators and students to discover basic functionality, maneuvering, and broadening of proficiency skill sets. There will be door prizes and plenty of free gifts for participators!

Planned training stations activities and exercises will be available to instruct you on:

• How to maneuver, fly, and teleport your avatar
• How to access and utilize the program menus and tools that come with your account and avatar
• How to Change appearances, wear objects, and work with the inventory that comes with your account

Included , also will be fireside chats and other discussions which include topics on

• how to teach in SL,
• using various teaching tools and with other valuable educational conversations
  

And... We value your opinion, please if you will, fill out the following survey, so we can better serve you with your educational needs in SL.
https://coloradomtn.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_802yqLhsM1wRlFG&SVID=Prod

Please feel free to ask email ColoradoEduIsland@cccs.edu if you have any questions, and someone from CEVWC will respond to you!

We can’t wait to meet you in-world… If you are willing to come and experience the possibilities, we will be waiting to show you!

Best regards,
The Colorado EduIsland Virtual World Committee

(For additional information email Cheryl.Comstock@cccs.edu).

D2L Face to Face Sessions At Lowry

Can't attend the conference? Can't get into the D2L session you want at the conference? Feel like you'll need hands-on help?

We have a plan! Everyone will be in our self-paced, self-assessed workshop that ends November 14th. For the six weeks following the faculty conference, we will progress through the D2L tools with a series of webinars that will be recorded. We will participate heavily in tool specific discussions in the D2L Essentials course and send D2L tips and tricks messages in the blog. No registration is required for any of this training. Days and times will vary for the webinars, so we can hopefully accommodate as many diverse schedules as possible.

Also, we've scheduled two face to face sessions at the Lowry Campus. One will be October 19th from 10 am to 2 pm and one will be November 2 from 10 am to 2 pm. Registration is required and can be done at this link https://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?402726 . Space is limited so register today!

Karen Kaemmerling
Karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Register Today!

I hope your fall semester is off to as good of a start as the weather!

If you haven’t registered yet for our Blast off To D2L Faculty Conference on September 25th at Arapahoe Community College, go to http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?402246 to register for the conference today! Seats are still available in several hands-on D2L sessions; including, HTML, ADA & D2L and D2L Email and Discussion Tools. In addition to many presentations on Desire to Learn, we also have topics that are universal no matter which learning management system we use. Look for presentations on Second Life, podcasting, mash-ups, incorporating publisher digital materials, and using groups and reengaging techniques in your courses.

Registration closes one week from today and you don’t want to miss this event!
If you have registered and you have questions about food provided, sessions, or need a map, go to http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Faculty_Conference

D2L Training

Hi Everyone-

As I have mentioned previously, the Training and Professional Development department has created a CCCOnline Faculty Community online course that everyone will have access to starting the day of the Faculty Conference, September 25th. In that course, you will have access to all of the training materials.

You will also have at least two other courses beginning on the 25th. The first is a copy of one of your courses from Vista labeled "Sandbox". This shell is just that -- a place to experiment with D2L features and tools where you don't have to worry about messing anything up. You will also have "Master" shells for each individual course you teach for CCCOnline. These are the shells that will need to be cleaned up and updated for the duplication process and spring teaching.

If you can't make the conference don't worry. All of the needed information for login will come out via email and blog the week after the conference.

At the Faculty Conference on the 25th we will focus on conversion and tools with sessions by the Training and Professional Development department and the Design team. If you can’t attend the conference or can’t get into a D2L session, more opportunities are available. Following the conference, we will focus on a couple of D2L tools each week with discussion topics, blog posts, and recorded webinars.

We will also have several face to face opportunities for you to register for. (The schedule for webinars and face to face sessions will be released soon.) Some of you may be taking training at other institutions; we don't want you to have to repeat training that you have received elsewhere unless you feel that you need the additional support. We will help you progress through the tools over a period of six weeks, and by the end you should be ready to teach in D2L and have your course converted and ready to go.

We want you to be able to self-assess your learning needs and to come to as much or as little training as you need. Everyone will need to complete a short quiz in the community course that acknowledges that you feel comfortable with essential skills in Desire to Learn and also gives you a place to request additional training.

If there are tools in D2L that you struggle with, please participate in that tool’s discussion, webinar, or contact your department mentor or Karen Kaemmerling. Once we complete the initial phase of preparing you to teach in D2L this spring, we will continue training opportunities this spring on great D2L features like the groups tool and rubrics.

Best,

Lisa Cheney-Steen
(The picture is from south Park county. The speed limit sign on the left says 35 mph, on the right it's 25 mph.)

D2L Conversion Process

Hi Everyone-

This fall we are moving all CCCOnline courses to Desire2Learn. Over the summer the Instructional Designers and the Academic Technology groups have been working to get the first two steps of the conversion process taken care of. That included converting course shells from BB Vista and taking care of some basic clean-up of those shells. Beginning at the Faculty Conference on the 25th you will get access to those course shells in D2L. There will still be some clean-up that will need to take place as well as all of the standard changes and updates that have to be made to a shell each semester (assessment dates, etc.) The Design Team and Training and Professional Development have developed 2 check-lists, so everyone will know which updates have been taken care of by the designers and what is left to do. Just as a reference, final clean-up of my class took me less than an afternoon and that was with interruptions.)

Training for all of you will also begin at the Faculty Conference. Just before the conference everyone will be loaded into a Faculty Community Shell. All of the training materials for D2L will be in that shell as well as spaces for the Design Team and your Program Chairs. We hope this area will help us simplify the communication flow and also give you one quick place to look for any piece of information you need.

We are planning to use the Faculty Mentor model for primary faculty support again. Many of you remember the "Vista Volunteers" from the last LMS conversion process. Once again each program will have a D2L Mentor who will be your primary contact for support both this fall as you update and clean-up your master course shells and in the spring as you teach in D2L for the first time. The mentors are teaching in D2L this fall as pilot faculty and have tested the faculty training materials as well.

The critical due date for completion of both course updates and training will be November 14th. On that date we want to begin the course duplication process for the spring term.

Last, a note about student support: The student help desk (Perceptis) is already supporting students in D2L this fall in the pilot courses. Deb Michel and Kathy Miles are updating the student wiki with additional student support materials and plan to have a student orientation ready to go for spring. More about the specifics of training in the next post.

Best,

Lisa Cheney-Steen
(Photo is of Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs)

Summer Student Surveys

Hey everyone, I must apologize. Frank released the results of the summer student surveys right after grades were due, but I forgot to tell you they were available. You can view your results by logging into the faculty gateway at https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/login.php. If you have questions or concerns about your results, please talk with your program chair. Thanks!

Net Tutor

As promised, here is the login information for faculty who wish to take a look at NetTutor. Go to http://www.nettutor.com/nt/login.cgi?acode=4769531107. You will be asked to register. After completing the registration process, NetTutor will send an access code to your email account. Use that and your username to log in.

Keep in mind that since this is for faculty exploration, it is not a "live" site. Here's what our rep from NetTutor says:

"The link below will allow teachers and help-desk personnel to investigate the features of NetTutor fully. Keep in mind that, being a freebie, it is not a tutored site. That is, tutors will only accept questions from this group if they have time, and will respond to paper submissions only as time permits. An important function is that it allows instructors to reach our amazing customer service staff (by clicking the Customer Service Request link at the bottom of the page.

I doubt that any issues raised by students can be addressed more efficiently than by submitting a Customer Service Request, so I do not encourage their use of this page other than to become familiar with NetTutor."

So go ahead and explore and let us know what you think! Remember that NetTutor folks will be available at the fall conference later this month, too, to answer your questions.

Please remember that CCCOnline funds this service for students, and students may use 10 hours of tutoring free of charge. We prefer that students determine for themselves their level of need for the tutoring service and ask that you not require students to access this site for tutoring. Thanks!