Monday, December 03, 2012

"What's New in Desire2Learn Version 10" Webinars

The end of the year is fast approaching, and with it approaches our switch to D2L Version 10. The required webinar sessions have been filling up fast, and most of the sessions are full. The remaining open sessions are as follows:

Pre-Session I

January 11th, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Pre-Session II

February 19th, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
February 20th, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

As this webinar is required for all instructors prior to teaching in the Spring, be sure to register for an available session soon!

You can register for these sessions on the Training and Professional Development Database.

Thanks!

Sean Renner
CCCOnline Training and Professional Development Coordinator

Wednesday, October 31, 2012


Hi folks,

As most of us know, captioning videos can be one of the biggest challenges when adding media to our online course. Captions are required for any video content that we add to ensure that our courses are ADA compliant.

However, video content can be extremely valuable to student learning experiences, and the task of having to create captions shouldn't discourage us from creating multimedia for our courses.

YouTube has one of the best auto-captioning tools, which now includes the ability to edit the auto-captioning mistakes right in YouTube, making it one of the fastest and easiest captioning solutions. This new video on our Technology Resources Training and Professional Development page gives you a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the tool to caption your videos:

http://www.ccconline.org/Training_and_Professional_Development/Technology_Resources/Media_and_Web_Tools/Captioning

Hopefully this will prove to be a valuable resource for you when creating videos for your courses!

Sean Renner
CCCOnline Training and Professional Development Coordinator






Monday, October 29, 2012

Greetings CCCOnline Instructors,

As many of you may already know, over the 2012 holiday break, the Colorado Community College System will be updating its learning management system to Desire2Learn version 10. This new version of Desire2Learn has a number of improvements that will help make your online teaching and student learning experiences smoother and more efficient.

While there are many improvements to the tools in Desire2Learn version 10, the biggest change is cosmetic. Courses will have a new, cleaner look and feel to them. However, while they may look different, the basic functionality, along with all of the tools you're used to using, remains the same.

CCCOnline is committed to educating our online instructors about the changes in Desire2Learn version 10 to prepare them for teaching using this version in the Spring semester of 2013. To help fulfill this commitment, all current CCCOnline instructors will be required to attend one session of the “What's New in D2L Version 10” webinar prior to the start of their Spring 2013 classes. This one-hour webinar will help instructors get familiar with D2L version 10, and help them understand what changes might impact them in their teaching.

The "What's New in D2L Version 10" webinar will take place on the following dates:

  • December 14, 1:00 PM MST
  • January 8, 1:00 PM MST
  • January 9 , 11:00 AM MST
  • January 9, 5:00 PM MST
  • January 18, 1:00 PM MST
January 22: Session I Begins
  • February 19, 11:00 AM MST
  • February 20, 5:00 PM MST
  • February 22, 1:00 PM MST
February 25th Session II Begins

In addition, there will two, one-hour Q&A opportunities, in which instructors are invited to ask questions about version 10. (Please note that the Q&A sessions will not fulfill the requirement to attend a "What's New in D2L Version 10" webinar.) These Q&A sessions will take place on the following dates:
  • January 24th, 1:00 PM MST
  • February 28th, 1:00 PM MST

As with all Training and Professional Development Webinars, registration is required and takes place on the Training and Professional Development Database, which you can access here: http://at.ccconline.org/training/

For instructions on how to use the database, visit this page:
www.ccconline.org/Training_and_Professional_Development/Training_and_Professional_Development_Opportunities/Registration

Please direct any questions you have regarding D2L version 10 Training and Professional Development to me at Sean.Renner@cccs.edu, and any general questions about the D2L version 10 upgrade to Terry Reeves at Terry.Reeves@cccs.edu.

We look forward to sharing this new and exciting version of D2L with  you!

Sincerely,

Sean Renner
CCCOnline Training and Professional Development Coordinator.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

CCCO Executive Director Update



CCCOnline Instructors

I am delighted to announce that Dr. Eric Lee has accepted the position of Executive Director for CCCOnline.   His official start date will be Monday, November 26rd.  Prior to that date, he will be attending the Educause annual conference and potentially attending one or two CCCS/CCCOnline meetings.

I want to thank both Eric and Kyla Hammond for their strong candidacy.  It was wonderful to have two top-notch candidates for this important position.   Kyla will continue in her role as program chair for CCCOnline.

I appreciate the dedication of the search committee in seeing the search through and the patience of the CCCOnline staff as we continued our search process.   I know you will make Eric welcome as he transitions into the Executive Director role.

Julie

Julie Ouska
CIO/VP, Information Technology
Colorado Community College System
(720) 858-2781

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Survey Request


Hello,

Below is a survey request that has been approved by Geri Anderson and Julie Ouska.  Note that your responses in the survey will be anonymous, but in participating, you can elect to enter a raffle drawing for a Kindle Fire.  I know you are all busy, but if you have about 15 minutes to do the survey, I know your feedback and efforts would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone,
Terry


Dear Instructors and Academic Administrators,

You are invited to participate in a research study designed to solicit perceptions from faculty and academic leaders within the Colorado Community College System (CCCS).  This study is part of a dissertation project at the University of Denver entitled: Faculty Engagement with Learning Outcomes Assessment: A Study of Public Two-Year Colleges in Colorado, and is conducted by Jennifer L. Williams, PhD candidate.  Jennifer can be reached at jenwilli@du.edu or 720-937-0376.  This project is supervised by Dissertation Chair Dr. Cheryl Lovell, Morgridge College of Education, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208, 303-871-2479, cdlovell@du.edu .

Participation in this study should take about 15-20 minutes of your time.  Participation will involve responding to seven demographic questions and 31 questions about faculty engagement with student learning outcomes assessment.  Additionally, 27 items from a separate research study are included that have different scales and may seem unrelated to the initial research questions presented.  However, these items are essential to estimating the survey instrument’s validity, thus your responses to these questions are very important as well. 

Your responses will be anonymous, which means that no one will be able to connect your identity to the information you provide.  You may, however, elect to enter a raffle drawing for a brand new 2012 Kindle Fire HD electronic tablet (http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Fire-HD/dp/B0083PWAPW) by entering your email address or telephone number into a secured comment box at the end of the survey.  This response selection is not used for identification purposes and will only be used to contact the winner of the raffle.  You will be asked at the beginning of the survey if you consent to participate in this project.

Survey Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MVP95YJ 

This survey will be open from October 22 - November 18, 2012.

Thank you for your participation!


Thursday, October 18, 2012

CCCOnline Academic Updates - October, 2012

Hi everyone,

I hope you are enjoying the beautiful fall weather and colors.  I wanted to give you a few updates from the Academic side of the house at CCCOnline:

  • We had record attendance at the Annual Conference this year -- our attendees were at about 270!  If you have feedback you'd like to give me regarding the conference, please feel free to let me know.
  • We have filled many staff positions at CCCO recently.  Please join me in welcoming Vanessa Bravo (Instructional Designer), Nazli Nomanbhoy (eLearning Specialist), John Ragan (QA Auditor), Justin Sherrill (Academic Technology Professional), Jonathan Sherrill (Academic Technology Administrator), Eden Haywood-Bird (ECE/EDU Program Chair) and Maggie Gaddis (BIOProgram Chair).  We are happy they have joined us!
  • We are in the process of interviewing for the Arts and Humanities and Physical Science Chair positions.  We are also hopeful that our Executive Director will be on board soon.  
I hope the semester is going well for all of you.  If you have questions or concerns that I can help address, please let me know.

Best regards,
Terry

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Upcoming Workshops and Webinars

Hi folks,

I hope you're all having a great start to your Fall classes. There are a number of Professional Development workshops and webinars coming up in the next few months that I wanted to let you know about.

There will be 3 Managing Discussion workshop sessions this fall, taking place on the following dates:

October 15th - October 26th
October 29th - November 9th
December 3rd - December 14th

Registration is currently open for all three of these sessions, so head on over to the registration site if you'd like to participate. Remember that registration closes 10 days before the start of the workshop.

Additionally, over the next several months we'll be hosting webinar versions of sessions from this year's Annual CCCOnline conference. The following webinars are currently scheduled, but check the registration site or the faculty calendar on the portal for more webinars, as they'll be added soon!

October 19th, 1:00 PM MST - Quality Assurance 101
Facilitated by Liz Dzabic, CCCOnline Quality Assurance Coordinator

October 26th, 1:00 PM MST - The Essential Multimedia Survival Kit
Facilitated by Sean Renner, CCCOnline Training and Professional Development Coordinator

November 16th, 1:00 PM MST - A Flipped Classroom with Students as Curators
Facilitated by Sherry Jones, CCD/CCA Instructor

Again, head over to the registration site to register for these webinars, or to read more information about them. Registration for webinars closes 24 hours prior to the webinar.

As always, feel free to send any questions or concerns you might have to training@ccconline.org.

Sean Renner
CCCOnline Training and Professional Development Coordinator

Monday, September 24, 2012

Thank you!


 
The Annual Conference Committee and all of us here at CCCOnline wish to thank our instructors for participating in Friday’s Annual Conference. We appreciate everything you do for our students, and we’d like to once again congratulate the Instructional Excellence Award winners for 2012!

JoAnn Gilliland
Jodi Holzman
Ed Raetz         
Lea Stage
Claire Vacanti

These winners were chosen by their Program Chairs for demonstrated strengths in innovation, involvement, leadership, instructional quality, and collaboration. They also exemplify the CCCOnline Academic Mission Statement:

The Academic Instruction team is committed to supporting the CCCS Colleges and their students through high quality content and innovative instruction.

A full list of nominees for this award is available here. Congratulations to all of them for this honor, and thanks again to all of you for your work in cultivating excellence in our online classrooms.

We’ve opened a discussion within the CCCOnline Community (see Cultivating Excellence) asking folks to share their favorite takeaways from the conference; please feel free to join your colleagues there.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Fall Managing Discussions

Greetings!

We're looking forward to seeing you all at the CCCOnline Annual Conference this Friday! In the meantime, we've just opened up our Fall Managing Discussions workshops for registration. We have three workshops this Fall that begin on the following dates:

October 15th
October 29th
December 3rd

Please note that registration for these workshops is required, and closes 10 days before the workshop begins. As always, you can view these scheduled sessions register at http://at.ccconline.org/training .

See you on Friday!

Sean Renner
Training and Professional Development Coordinator

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Doing Research from a Distance: The Online Student's Experience

On September 21st our CCCOnline Instructional Librarian, Mary Cash, will be hosting a webinar on the process of doing research in distance learning. Come take a walk in your online students' shoes and find out what resources are available to help your students become more successful researchers.

This webinar will run on Friday, September 28th, 2012 from 1:00-2:00 PM MST.

Register at http://at.ccconline.org/training 

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Come Learn What's New with the CCCOnline Library!

Join us in two weeks for our August webinar, hosted by our very own Online Instructional Librarian, Mary Cash. Mary will outline what’s new with the CCCOnline Library. She'll also talk about our embedded librarian program and how you can get your class on-board. Come and learn about some great new resources for your classes at CCCOnline!

This webinar will run on Aug 17, 2012 from 1:00-2:00 PM MST.

Register at http://at.ccconline.org/training

Friday, July 20, 2012

Welcome to Daniel Metz!


Hello –

I am very pleased to announce Daniel Metz has accepted the position of Associate Dean, Liberal Arts and Communication at CCCOnline; he will start August 1.   See the bio info below to get to know him a little better, and join me in welcoming him to our CCCOnline family!

Best,
Terry


Daniel Metz, Liberal Arts and Communications

Daniel Metz holds a BA in Philosophy and World History, and received an MA in Philosophy from the University of Bristol, U.K., concentrating on issues in epistemology, metaphysics and linguistics in ancient Greek philosophy.  Other areas of interest include Kantian epistemology and ethics, Existentialism and Aesthetics. 

Daniel has been with CCC Online for nine years, as a philosophy and humanities instructor, and as chair of the Arts and Humanities program since 2006. Daniel has also served as the CCCS chair of philosophy. Prior to these endeavors, he taught philosophy and cultural studies for the University of Leeds and EFL at Shoin University in Japan, and retains an interest in Japanese philosophy and art.

Daniel considers teaching a privilege: “In my view, teaching is really about opening doors to different perspectives, and facilitating the learning process. This process involves each learner encountering new ideas and new ways of looking at the world, and developing critical thinking skills in order to better understand other perspectives, and in doing so, broadening one's own.”

Daniel enjoys traveling, hiking, viewing art, contemplating the meaning of the universe, listening to contemporary symphonic music, and discussing ideas about education.  Daniel relates, “I am gratified for the opportunity to contribute to our collaborative effort at CCC Online to strive for the best quality of education in the online environment.”



Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Check this out – Changes to the Library Resources web pages and New Resources!!


Check this out – Changes to the Library Resources web pages and New Resources!!


Hey everyone, take some time to check out what’s new with our Library Resources.  First, the Library Resources and Research & Writing Toolkit pages have officially moved from the student wiki over to the ccconline.org website: http://www.ccconline.org/Library_Resources.  Once you’re on the main page of the Library Resources, you’ll also notice a link to the EBSCO article databases.  So, in addition to being able to access the databases once you’re logged in to D2L, you can also click on the EBSCO link, login with your S# and password and get into the databases right from the Library Resources page.  

Inside D2L, you will also notice a change to the Helpful Links widget, with just one link to Library Resources instead of several.  Click on the Library Resources page, and you’ll see the same page that you see out on the ccconline.org website; you just won’t need to login to access the databases.

Please take some time to check out the article databases as well; we now have some additional databases – including  CINAHL (nursing and health science database), History Reference Center, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Science Reference Center, Points of View, Consumer Health Complete, and more.  We still have the always wonderful Academic Search Premier, and Business Source Premier.  Visit the Library Article Databases Tutorial to see descriptions of all of our databases.
Note also that CCCOnline is now a member of AskAcademic, the 24/7 academic Ask-a-Librarian service offered through the Colorado State Library.  Check out the AskAcademic widget on the Library Resources main page.  Students can still email me, cccolibrarian@ccconline.org, with their questions; I will have more first-hand knowledge of specific research assignments in their courses, but do encourage your students to use the AskAcademic reference service.  The service is manned by trained reference librarians from the AskAcademic member libraries – visit the AskAcademic website to learn more: http://www.askacademic.org/ and here’s a list of the participating libraries: http://www.askacademic.org/participating.html.  CCCOnline pays a small fee to the Colorado State Library and mans the virtual reference desk for 2 hours a week in return for great reference and information service to both students and faculty.

Be sure to check back to the Library Resources web pages from time to time   - I have some ideas for new features and will be adding those as I have time. Have interesting ideas related to anything library related?  Have questions?  Email me at mary.cash@cccs.edu

Thanks,
Mary Cash, Instructional Online Librarian, CCCOnline

Friday, July 13, 2012

CCCOnline Academic Technology Administrator a Finalist for D2L Award

CCCOnline’s own Frank Vazquez is a finalist for the 2012 Desire2Excel Innovation Award!  Along with other finalists from across the US and Canada, Frank is recognized in Desire2Learn’s current e-newsletter _The Horizon_. At this month’s D2L FUSION conference in San Diego, the Desire2Excel award winners will be announced.

Frank’s project, “One Login for All Students,” created single-sign-on access between D2L and third-party vendors. This impressive initiative has helped our students while cutting down on help desk requests and administrative costs. Congratulations, Frank!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

August Trainings Open for Registration

Hello!

We've just opened three workshops in August, which are available for registration starting today.

Title: Managing Discussions
When: August 6th - August 17th 2012
Where: Online in Desire2Learn
Focus: The discussions component of your online course is your virtual classroom. In this two-week online workshop, explore different ways to organize discussions, make discussions more engaging, to maximize your own participation in discussions as well as that of your students, evaluate discussions, explore QA expectations, and more.
Registration close date: July 27th, 2012

Title: D2L Essentials (intended for pre-hire CCCOnline instructors)
When: August 13th - August 24th, 2012
Where: Online in Desire2Learn
Focus: This is a two-week fully online workshop designed to introduce instructors to the Desire to Learn (D2L) course system. Its primary goal is to prepare instructors to teach with D2L at a basic level during their first term. Activities are completed in a practice course.
Registration close date: August 3rd, 2012

Tite: Getting Started (intended for pre-hire CCCOnline instructors)
When: August 20th - August 24th, 2012
Where: Online in Desire2Learn
Focus: This is a one-week online orientation course for new Instructors. Getting Started introduces instructors to the culture of CCCOnline, support resources and support processes for teaching with CCCOnline.
Registration close date: August 10th, 2012

To register for any of these opportunities, please visit https://at.ccconline.org/training/login.php and log in with your S# and related portal password.

As always, please feel free to contact training@ccconline.org with comments and questions.

Sean Renner
Training and Professional Development Coordinator 

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Getting to know Sean Renner, CCCOnline's Training and PD Coordinator


For the past 5 years, Sean Renner has brought his leadership, creativity, training and multimedia skills to higher education, helping to create and facilitate engaging and effective learning experiences.

Sean graduated from Elon University in North Carolina with a degree in Communications and Multimedia Production. In 2007, Sean moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, where he served as the Instructional Media Developer for the Saint Louis College of Pharmacy. There, Sean focused on developing and implementing academic technology solutions for the college, and training faculty, staff, and students on instructional technology, software, and the creation of creative multimedia content.

In 2010, Sean moved to Denver, Colorado, where he began working at CCCOnline as an Instructional Designer, collaborating with instructors to create innovative courses for CCCOnline as well as helping to develop multimedia professional development opportunities for staff and instructors. Sean is excited about being a relatively new Colorado resident, as he loves spending time outdoors. Sean is also known as a seasoned traveler and a lover of all things musical.