Wednesday, March 31, 2010

D2L Quicklinks Tip

Are you struggling with creating a link to a course file or a URL? Visit the faculty wiki at Html Editor page for NEW tutorials on Quicklinks and other HTML editor features.

Mark your calendars for an Ending the Term and D2L QA webinar on Friday April 30th from 1-3 pm.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Communication Tools and Teaching Strategies in Second Life

Colorado EduIsland will be hosting two, 1 hour sessions on Communication Tools and Teaching Strategies in SL.

Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Colorado%20EduIsland/133/110/22.
When: March 29th, 2010
Session 1: 8:45 - 9:45 (MT) - First session, we will discuss simple communications technologies (e.g., chat, email, IM, etc.) then we graduate to intermediate communications technologies (e.g., blog-huds, and VoIP), next we graduate to the higher-end technologies (e.g., Media boards, Tweet Huds). We will close the first session with a quick tour of the island. There will be a discussion and question and discussion session at the end of the hour.
Session 2: 10:00 – 11:00 (MT) - Second session, we will briefly review communication tools, and then start discussing Teaching Strategies in SL. Next we will tour the new Early Childhood and Judicial learning centers; which have been established on the island for students and faculty in these disciplines to use. A follow-up discussion and question session will be held at the end of the hour.

These sessions are being broadcast LIVE, to the Iowa Community College Online Consortium 2010 Conference, but our faculty, staff and other interested parties are invited to attend these in-world events. Here is a quick start link from Linden Labs: http://static-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/downloads/Second_Life_Quickstart.pdf

CCCOnline also has getting started information on the faculty wiki SecondLife home page: http://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Tech_Tools_-_Other_Tools_-_Second_Life

You may also contact Cheryl Comstock directly with your questions at cheryl.comstock@cccs.edu

D2L Webinar Archives

We really appreciate all the attendees to our D2L webinars this spring. Lisa Marie Johnson did a fantastic job discussing the D2L Grades tool today. If you missed it or any other D2L Tool Webinar, you can revisit the recordings at the archive on the wiki.

If you have D2L questions or other comments, please contact me directly at Karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Thursday, March 25, 2010

D2L Grades Webinar Tomorrow

It is supposed to be a dreary day tomorrow, Friday March 26th , perk up and join us for the D2L Grades Webinar from 1-3 pm. To join us log in to http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/

D2L Grades Tip: How to release the Final Calculated Grade to Students
1. Click the Grades Tool
2. In the Grades Area>Click Manage Grades
3. Find the Final Calculated Grade in the Grades List
4. Click the Ruler with a checkmark to the right of the Final Calculated Grade
5. Scroll to the right and find the Release Final Calculated Grade Column>Click the checkbox in the column for each student,
6. Click Save
If you have questions or comments please contact me directly karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Monday, March 22, 2010

You now have access to your Training Record!

You now have access to your Training Record with CCCOnline by logging into the Faculty Gateway .

On the left hand side you will see a link for Training Registration and History.
· To register for an upcoming training click Registration.
· To see your training record or history with CCCOnline click on History.
· If you find an error or have a question about your history, click on Training Support Form at the top of the page.

Have a wonderful spring day!
Karen Kaemmerling
Please contact me with other questions at Karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Friday, March 19, 2010

D2L Grades and Webinar

Next Friday March 26 from 1-3 pm, we have the last in our series of spring D2L webinars. We conclude with the D2L Grades Tool and a Question and Answer period. To join us log in to http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/

You may also want to check out our resources for the D2L Grades tool on our faculty wiki .

If you have questions about your grades tool in D2L visit our wiki at If you have any questions, please contact me directly at Karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu

Friday, March 12, 2010

Daylight Savings Time Notice

**Please do not reply to this message**

D2L has notified us of a potential issue based on the switch to Daylight Savings Time. If you have exams scheduled for Saturday night, please be aware of the following information:

"Daylight Savings Time (DST) begins this weekend. In preparation for the change in time, we would like to make you aware of potential issues with quizzes during the change in time.

Please be aware you should monitor quizzes as there could potentially be problems with retrieving or accessing data that is date/time stamp dependent.

This affects:

·Quizzes with due dates set between , 8:00pm Saturday, March 13th ET and , 2:00 am Sunday, March 14th YOUR LOCAL TIME ZONE and/or
·Quizzes with time restrictions started prior to , 8:00 pm Saturday, March 13th ET and , 2:00 am Sunday, March 14th YOUR LOCAL TIME ZONE


Please be aware you should monitor quizzes as there could potentially be problems with retrieving or accessing data that is date/time stamp dependent."

David Chatham has confirmed with D2L that if a quiz or restriction date is reset outside of the Saturday, 6 PM MT (translated from ET) to Sunday 2 AM MT (our time zone), there should be no problem.

If you have questions or concerns, please email me directly at donna.welschmeyer@cccs.edu

D2L Quizzes Webinar Reminder

I know it is beautiful outside, but please consider joining us today at 1pm for the D2L Quizzes and QA webinar. The link to log in is http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/.

If you have any questions regarding D2L or our webinar series, please contact me directly at karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

D2L Tips and Quizzes Webinar

As March enters with a roar, here are a couple D2L tips you might find helpful.

1. When updating dates for Quizzes and Dropbox items to change availability, you must change the dates in the tools themselves. If you change dates for the quizzes and dropbox assignments links in Content, you are only changing the availability of the LINK in Content, not the assignment. If you use date release conditions for Links and Files in Content you must update each semester the dates in both Content and the Quizzes and Dropbox tools.

2. Also you may want to share with your students that they can change their own settings in Discussions. Students and Faculty can change whether they see the original message in their reply.
To change this setting:
-Go to Discussions
-Click on Settings
-Select the check box next to “Include original message text in reply” to remove the check mark, and click Save.

Finally, I want to remind everyone of the D2L Quizzes Webinar that is Friday, March 12th from 1-3pm. To log into the webinar go to http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/. For a list of upcoming Webinars and Archived Webinars, go to https://at.ccconline.org/faculty/wiki/Professional_Development on the faculty wiki.

Monday, March 01, 2010

D2L Essentials Workshop and D2L Quiz Tip

Are you still struggling with some essential D2L tools and functions? If so, we are offering the D2L Essentials training as a self-contained 2 week workshop from March 15-March 26. You will have a facilitator and be assigned practice shells instead of working in your sandbox courses. To register for the training, log into the Faculty Gateway and select Training.

Here is a D2L Quiz tip from D2L mentor Diane Van Os.
If your course is showing an ungraded quiz try this:

· Go to the quiz(s)
· Search on all attempts
· Locate an unchecked grade box to the right
· Check it and click update
· That should get rid of the pesky message!