Spring session 2 rosters available

The session 2 class rosters are now available at https://at.ccconline.org/roster.

If you have any problems you can contact Frank Vazquez at frank.vazquez@cccs.edu or myself at john.schmahl@cccs.edu.

Thanks!
John

Downtime

Good Morning Everyone-

We are back up again this morning as of around 6:00. That would put last night's downtime at close to 12 hours. I don't have an update yet on why we were down, but I'll pass on information as I have it. We do appear to be stable at this time.

Lisa

Friday 2/15 ... 2-4 PM (MST) ... Online Tutoring and Library Resources Webinar!

CCCOnline Training and Professional Development invites you to attend today's webinar!

Who and What: Learn about Online Library and Tutor Services
John Huber, of SMARTHINKING, presenting on the service, faculty resources, experience sample sessions, the technology, session archives, and more! AND... Mary Cash, of CCCOnline, presenting on the CCCOnline library resources and methods for students (and faculty!) to search for subscription access to books, magazines and articles, and the many free/open online resources!

When: TODAY! Friday, February 15, 2008 .... 2:00 - 4:00 PM (MST)

Where: Online via Elluminate! Use the link below to access the session. Participantsmay enter 15 minutes before the session begins.
http://elm.elluminate.com:80/FRONTRANGE/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1194822750707

NOTE: Session will begin promptly at 2:00PM. If you are new to Elluminate or have not used it on the computer you will access the session from today, 15 minutes before the session, please go to the Elluminate support page and enter the Configuration Room before entering the actual session: http://www.elluminate.com/support/

Why: Why not? :^) ... This session is a great way to end the week and learn or refresh your skills and ideas for assisting students with writing and research excellence. Participation in this session counts as annual professional development credit for CCCOnline faculty.


See you there!
Lisa Marie Johnson
lisamarie.johnson@cccs.edu

Daylight Savings Time and Due Dates

Hi Everyone-

I have an update on daylight savings time and how that affects due dates and times in Blackboard Vista:

You can not set an assignment or quiz date/time due date to close with in an hour of midnight, March 9, without the time changing in the setup to the next day because of the daylight savings time change. We have had two courses do this on the March 9 date. When we set it for 10:58 PM it comes out 11:58 PM, as we want. If you set it for 11:58 it moves to the next day at 12:58 AM. (This is still only an hour later, but the date has changed). That is Bb’s explanation and I wanted to pass it along so you don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.

That was from David Chatham. Let me know if you have questions.

Also a reminder that registration is open for the free faculty conference in Colorado Springs on Friday, February 22nd. www.ppcc.edu/conference.


Lisa

Faculty Conference! Free Lunch!

Hi Everyone-

The Learning Technology Council is sponsoring a free one day conference on February 22nd at Pikes Peak Community College's Centennial campus (south end of Colorado Springs). We'd love to see you all there!

To register for this conference go to http://www.ppcc.edu/conference/ and click on the registration link.

The opening general session is at 9:00 am. It will include opening remarks from the system president Dr. Nancy McCallin and a presentation by Dr. Ellen Wagner, Vice-President of eLearning Solutions for Adobe. Individual conference sessions include the following:

SESSION ONE 10:45-11:30

The Three Dimensional Professional Electronic Portfolio: Development and Deployment
This presentation (lecture/presentation/discussion) will define and demonstrate the development and deployment of a three dimensional professional electronic portfolio. The presentation will focus on a template that may be modified using MS Word to fit individual work history and professional experiences.
Presenter: Frank J. Nosal, CIS Instructor, PCC
Room: Level: All


Who-o-o-o Are You? The Issue of Student Authentication in Online Learning

Do you really know who’s out there? Federal officials are concerned, and this presentation will tell us what online instructors need to know now.

Presenter: Rhonda Epper, Co-Executive Director, Learning Technology, CCCS
Room: Level: All


Online Writing Centers: Opportunities and Issues

Online writing centers have been around for awhile, but they continue to evolve and face challenges. This presentation will focus on what is happening now and what OWLs might look like in the future.

Presenter: Larry Giddings, Writing Center Director, PPCC
Room: Level: All


Getting Started with the Faculty WIKI

Participants will learn to access and navigate the Faculty Wiki and understand
features such as search, special pages, creating accounts, and using Flash media and RSS feeds. Using demonstration accounts, participants will practice accessing a User Page, creating pages, editing pages, adding content, such as text, links, images, and media.

Presenters:
Lisa Marie Johnson, Director of Training & Personal Development, CCCOnline
Kathy Miles, Special Projects Associate, CCCOnline
Jonathan Fuller, Web &Wikimaster, CCCOnline
Room: A-250 Level: Beginner


The Simulation Experience in Nursing Labs

This presentation will review the process of using human patient simulation in nursing education at a variety of levels.

Presenter: Geri Tierney, Nursing Simulation Lab Coordinator, PPCC
Room: Level: Intermediate



SESSION TWO 11:45-12:30

Teaching an Online Class in Three Hours a Week

The perception among online instructors is that teaching online classes takes significantly more time than teaching classroom courses. But, a lack of instructor presence is a common complaint of online students. We will explore the mismatch between faculty and student perceptions by investigating what “teaching” means in the online environment.

Presenter: Eric Salahub, Online Lead for Arts and Letters, FRCC
Room: Level: Intermediate


Grading Forms and Rubrics

Use Blackboard Vista Grading Forms to make your grading easier. Cut your grading time in half by setting up Grading Forms which automatically calculate grades, enter them in your grade book, and report explanation and comments to your students. A must for recurring or complex assignments.
Presenter: Mike Bleacher, Instructor, Educational Technology Training, CCA Room: Level: Intermediate

Faculty Mentoring

This presentation will examine ethical issues in mentoring new instructors and discuss the development of instructor mentoring programs. Participants will break into small groups and design a mentoring program.
Presenter: Cathy Taylor, Asst. Prof. of Management, Park University
Room: Level: Beginner

Collaboration Using Wikis in Online Courses

Participants will learn about practical and reflection applications of wikis in online courses, their role in collaborative learning experiences, and potential as resource and content specific repositories. Participants will collaborate on a small project using the Faculty Wiki to experience the processes for successfully incorporating wikis in the online classroom.
Presenters:
Cheryl Comstock, Director of Instructional Design, CCCOnline
Lisa Marie Johnson, Director, Training and Professional Development, CCCOnline
Room: A-250 Level: Intermediate

SESSION THREE 1:45-2:30

Using Webfolios in the Composition Classroom

Come learn how easy it can be to have your students publish their writing on the web. This workshop will show you how to use a webfolio instead of a final portfolio in English composition classes (or any classes using a portfolio system).
Presenter: Susan Achziger, English Faculty, CCA
Room: Level: Intermediate

Best Practices in Integrating Multimedia into the Learning Environment

This presentation explores best practices in integrating eLearning and mobile learning into traditional, hybrid, and online classes.
Presenter: James deHerrera, EDU, CIS, CSC Faculty, PPCC
Room: Level: Intermediate

A Comparison of Course Management Systems

This presentation showcases the same class materials in three different course management systems. Change is constant in online education, and this information might come in handy!
Presenters:
Lisa Cheney-Steen, Co-Executive Director, Learning Technology, CCCS
Aaron Leonard
Monica Falk
Room: Level: Beginner

Can you hear me now? Learn Why and Ways to Use Audio in Online Courses!

Experience Audacity™ and Gabcast™! Learn how these technologies are used at the Colorado Community Colleges Online for alternative delivery of course materials and to meet course outcomes related to speaking. Participants will also learn about engage in a discussion of current research concerning audio in the design of online learning.
Presenters:
Lisa Marie Johnson, Director of Training & Personal Development, CCCOnline
Karen Kaemmerling, Social Sciences Chair, CCC Online
Room: A250 Level: Beginner


SESSION FOUR 2:45-3:30

Using Elluminate in Online Foreign Language Courses

This presentation will showcase ways in which Elluminate Live! can be incorporated in Foreign Language Online courses, with ideas that can be used in other content courses.
Presenter: Jose Garcia-Paine, Foreign Languages Faculty, FRCC
Room: Level: Intermediate

Replacing Textbooks with Open Content Materials in Online History Classes

This presentation demonstrates how instructors can meet a variety of learning styles by incorporating online course materials from the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC).
Presenters:
Karen Kaemmerling, Social Sciences Chair, CCCOnline
Terri Rowenhorst, NROC Membership Director
Room: Level: Beginner

Podcasting

Learn to create educational podcasts! Anyone can create a podcast. It’s as easy as 1-2-3. We will also discuss some of the logistical and technical barriers. Most importantly, we will identify the elements of podcasting that engage our students and enhance the educational experience in online, hybrid and traditional courses.
Presenter: March Sustarsic, Foreign Languages Faculty, PPCC
Room: Level: Beginner

LTC Round Table

The transition to Blackboard Vista has been long and often difficult, and we all know that we still have issues. Come to the round table to ask questions, voice your concerns, and share your ideas about what the system’s distance learning programs should look like in the future.


See you there!

Lisa

Military Students and Access

Hi Everyone-

Some of our military students may not be able to access the classes at this time. Beginning last week the military in the middle east closed access to all but .mil and .gov websites due to some bandwidth issues. They do not expect the problem to last more than another week. Please allow your affected students some extra time to catch up.

If the problem continues we will work with the colleges centrally to find the best solution for the students.

Thanks!
Lisa

Webinar Reminder! Learn to Use the Faculty Wiki!

You are invited to attend the Wikimania webinar this Friday, 2/1, from 2-4PM. No registration is required. Come as you are and ready to learn navigating the Faculty Wiki, setting up a user account, conducting basic editing, content creation, and more! The session includes both presentation and practice time for the new skills. The Webinar will be conducted by Jonathan Fuller, Kathy Miles, and Lisa Marie Johnson.

During the Wikimania session, you will have an opportunity to practice with the wiki. To do so, you will need a user account. If you do not already have a user account, please set one up now. Click here to watch the demonstration!

The session officially begins at 2:00PM MST, Friday, February 1. However, you can enter early at 1:30 PM... we look forward to seeing you there! Use the link below to access the session: http://elm.elluminate.com:80/FRONTRANGE/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1194821409854

If you have not participated in an Elluminate session before, you will need to be sure your computer is set-up for the software prior to the session by going to the Elluminate support page and entering the Configuration Room: http://www.elluminate.com/support/

See you there!
Lisa Marie Johnson
lisamarie.johnson@cccs.edu

Last day to drop reminder

Dear Faculty,

Just a quick reminder, that students have until February 5 to drop their session 1 courses. They were e-mailed this morning and will receive another e-mail reminder on Monday.

Also, if you hear from a student with login problems, please refer them to the support center, http://ccconline.org/support/ or 1-800-801-5040. This allows us to track any issues and to keep records of student contacts.

Thanks again for all of your support and hard work!

John

John H Schmahl
Director, Student Services
CCCOnline

Need Training and Professional Development? Get it!

Just a quick reminder to faculty and staff you can register for 2008 training and professional development opportunities with CCCOnline from the following link:

http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?402726



Upcoming asynchronous sessions include:

• Managing Discussions (1/28 - 2/8)
  Facilitator: Karen Kaemmerling
  Registration closes 1/23
  Session Description
  
  
• Course Mapping (2/1-2/8)
  Facilitator: Lisa Marie Johnson
  Registration closes: 1/27
  Session Description


• Getting Started (2/1-2/8)
  Facilitator: Lisa Marie Johnson
  Registration closes: 1/27
  Session Description
  


• Vista Basic Training (2/1-2/15)
  Facilitator: Al Turner
  Registration closes: 1/27
  Session Description
  

Upcoming synchronous sessions include:

• Wikimania!
  Learn how to use and edit the CCCOnline Faculty Wiki
  Friday, February 1
  2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  To access the session, go to:
  http://elm.elluminate.com:80/FRONTRANGE/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1194821409854
  

• Using the Online Library & Tutor Services
  Learn about the online library and tutor services available to your students!
  Friday, February 15
  2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  To access the session, go to:
  http://elm.elluminate.com:80/FRONTRANGE/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1194822750707
  

Register today!
:) Lisa Marie Johnson

Rosters #2 - External EMail Addresses

Hi Everyone-

I think both John and I forgot to mention that you find external email addresses for your students on the roster at the following link:

https://www.cccodevelopment.cccs.edu/roster/login.php

(Same link I sent earlier and that John sent Saturday, but a little more explanation now.)

Lisa

Rosters

You may have already received a roster link from your chairs, but here is a better one:

https://www.cccodevelopment.cccs.edu/roster/login.php

Login using your SID and Vista Password.

(You may get a security warning pop-up. Just go ahead and click through that.)

YAY! First day of the semester and it's a whole new world of learning out there for our students!

Lisa

Silver Linings

Hi Everyone-

Last week was a bit challenging to put it mildly, but this week is looking much better. The good news (loose definition of good) from last week is that the majority of the issues we had were due to errors made by ASP hosting rather than problems with the software and hardware itself. That's good because those sorts of errors are much more easily corrected and less likely to continue to cause problems throughout the semester.

Monday 5 colleges started their semesters, including Frontrange, one of the largest users of BB Vista. As you may have noticed we did not see any significant slowing in the system. Given that we are looking forward to our own start on this coming Monday with a little more confidence.

We do have some downtime tentatively planned for this semester. We have an ongoing problem with garbage collection (deleted records in the database as opposed to the physical type of garbage.) We've never been able to truly delete old files and as a result our database has a lot of un-needed records. (This is probably the root of the file upload problems we have on a somewhat regular basis.) In an attempt to correct this we may need to install a patch. We'd like to tentatively schedule this for the weekend of Feb. 8-10. We won't be down for all three days, but I don't have an official schedule as yet. Most likely we will go down Saturday after 1:00 pm and be back up early Sunday morning. No promises though.

We also may want to upgrade to application pack 3 and do other server maintenance. Those changes are tentatively scheduled for the first weekend in April. Again tentative.

In our prior life as software managers for only CCCOnline we usually managed to get these regular maintenance processes taken care of between terms. Unfortunately when we look at not only our schedule, but also those of the other system colleges there is no between term time. That leaves us with option 2 -- mid-semester. We will always try to keep these to a minimum, but you can assume at least one a semester.

Most of you should have your course shells by now although we are waiting until Wednesday as usual to make final decisions on section numbers. Enrollment this semester is very strong -- we are up around 20% compared to this day last year. Spring 2 enrollments are up even more.

We will email rosters to each of you on Friday of this week. Those rosters will include external email addresses for your students so you can send them a welcome email if you choose. Encouraging students to get into their classes the first few days of the term does seem to help get the semester off to a good start.

One small piece of housekeeping. If you have moved there is only one way to officially change your mailing address with CCCOnline, HR, and PERA. You need to email Randy.Macy@cccs.edu. He will send you a PERA change of address form. If you mail that back to him (paper copy) he will take it to the system office and HR will make sure your address is changed with them and with PERA.

Thanks!
Lisa

Sandra Phillips Art Gallery has Best of 2007 Show!

Each year the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post do a Best of 2007 series of lists. This year the list of Best Art Shows included shows presented by 7 museums and only 3 private art galleries. One of those was "Masters in Clay" presented by the Sandra Phillips Gallery owned by Sandra Phillips, who many of you know as an Arts and Humanities faculty member for CCCOnline. Congratulations Sandra!

The article can be found at http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7823745?source=email)

I know many of you also have had events in your lives that we would all like to celebrate. We have an amazing group of faculty who bring a huge amount of talent and experience to our students. Thank you for teaching for us!

Lisa

New Associate Academic Dean

Hi Everyone-

We have a new Associate Academic Dean at long last! Monica Falk is stepping into Alice’s shoes for us. I think some of you know Monica already as she is a long-time CIS instructor for CCCOnline.

Monica comes to us from Trinidad State Junior College, where she has worn many, many hats. Most recently she was the interim director of institutional research and the interim registrar and of course she taught classes. She also served on the Learning Technology Committee and was a part of the search committee for the Exec. Director for CCCOnline. Monica has a history of working with all of the colleges as well, through membership on the state faculty advisory committee.

I am very happy to have Monica here with us now!

Lisa

Backing up Your Course and Deleting Back-ups

Lisa Marie has added a page to the wiki with instructions on how to back-up your course and how to then delete that back-up from the server.

You can find those instructions here: http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Creating_Course_Backups_and_Downloading

Thanks Everyone! Keeping our database as clean as possible will help performance significantly!

Lisa

Vista Update

Here's the latest news in a set of emails from John at BB to David:

The problems today are related to the build-up of files that haven't been removed in garbage collection (GC). I (David) am going to paste in John's (from BB) explanations below:

When you e-mailed Lee about having trouble uploading files I went in and added some indexes to the CMS tables and reported how much GC had to do to you. That's why it was slow. Once we reboot the system tonight GC will start cleaning up those 16 million content items in the CMS tables.

Right now GC has been cleaning up old student records and sections but not content items. I think this is why uploads have been so slow.

-John

I just finished adding the tracking job indexes to fix the tracking data.

That job will run Monday Wednesday and Friday starting at 5a.m. Please let me know if you see anymore Unknown Users after tomorrow evening.

I also added the indexes for Garbage Collection. That job will run Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday starting at 10p.m. and ending 8 hours later.

Finally I added indexes to the CMS tables. Uploads are now blazingly fast from my connection here at home and my neighbors DSL connection over wireless-b.

-John

John asked me earlier if we would ask instructors to delete their section backups once they have downloaded them. We need to put into our training and instructions to faculty about not leaving heavy files, like backups, in the MyFile area. As Vista administrators, we also need to delete backups – now would be a good time – so that the database is free of unnecessary data. The GC hasn’t worked, but after tonight we should be on the road to cleaning this up.

Thanks for your patience, and let’s see how the system works for the next couple of days.

David

I will get LisaMarie to write up directions for deleting back-ups you may have made, then if you would take care of that we could begin the semester reasonably clean.

Many thanks!
Lisa

Vista Update

Well folks it doesn't look like BB Vista is really working correctly right now. I don't recommend you do any work in your classes quite yet.

For those of you who are still waiting for your spring shells, David can't dupe.

And last, enrollment is up 24% for spring 1 and 34% for spring 2 when compared to this day last year.

Lisa

BB Vista Database Issues

Hi Everyone-

We are stil on the new databse hardware this morning, but have rolled back to Oracle version 9i from 10g. Several people around the system are testing this set-up as I type. If it appears to be both functional and stable we will settle here for awhile before we try to go to 10g.

On the theory that it's good to have options we also have two open-source learning management systems set up now for testing -- Moodle and Sakai. We don't have any formal plans around moving towards another LMS, but we are exploring options. (Moodle information is at moodle.org; Sakai is found at www.sakaiproject.org.) We may want to run a test course in each of those LMS's or we could offer a training course in each if enough of you are interested. Talk with your chair if you are interested in either project.

Lisa

Vista Update

BB ASP has asked us for the next 12 – 18 hours to try to rectify the Oracle 10 G issues in Vista. They will be applying a patch and rebuilding some indexes overnight. If this is not a successful operation, as far as remedying the issues, they may recommend a roll-back to Oracle 9i for the short-term until the issue is fixed in 10 G. Because of the need to be up and running for OJC on January 7, we have little time to troubleshoot the problem and must find a stable environment for the semester.

A splash page has been put up on the site, directing users to a brief explanation of the situation. I expect to have an update on the situation tomorrow morning sometime. There will be a decision point tomorrow whether the overnight work is fixing the problem or whether we need to roll-back, necessitating further downtime.

(Side-note from Rhonda and Lisa: We would be going back to the old version of Oracle, but staying on the new hardware.)

David Chatham
Dean of Academic Technology
CCCOnline

Database Crash

Hi Everyone-

The BB Vista database has crashed. Please don't try to do anything on Vista until further notice.

At this point all we know is that it is probably as Oracle problem. Oracle has been called in and is working on the problem.

We will let you know as soon as we have more information.

Sigh.

Lisa