Conference Archive

Hi Everyone,
The 2008 Faculty Conference Archive pages are up for you to revisit presentations that you loved or review information about sessions you missed. Also, we have already gotten some thoughtful and useful suggestions on our conference survey. If you have not taken the survey yet, please take a moment to share with us your comments about our conference this year and what you would like to see from training in the upcoming year. The direct link is http://faculty.conference.org/2008Faculty_Conference_Survey

Karen Kaemmerling

CCCOnline Employee of the Year

Dear Faculty;

Please join with me in congratulating our CCCOnline Employee of the Year, Roxanne Manske!

Roxanne started with CCCOnline over 9 years ago when we had less than 300 students. Today, thousands of students and hundreds of thousands of e-mails and phone calls later, Roxanne continues to be the star behind the scenes at CCCOnline. Her hard work and dedication keeps us afloat each semester and helps ensure the fantastic service and support that you have all come to expect.

It is no exaggeration to say that without her, our growth and success would not be possible. So, please join with me in thanking her for all of the work she does everyday and for helping us better serve you and our students!

Thank you Roxanne and congratulations!

John H Schmahl

What’s going on @t your CCCOnline Online Library?

Hi Everyone,

We’ve decided to start up a monthly blog posting on all things library at CCCOnline, so welcome to the first posting Some of this is information that you may already know, but it’s always good to be reminded of what’s out there.

CCCOnline/FRCC College Hill Article Databases:

Do you have students in the middle of a research project who are having problems finding good, solid and trustworthy information? Remember, all CCCOnline students can use the CCCOnline/FRCC College Hill article databases. Students can search on 30 different databases, including Academic Search Premier, Biomedical Reference Collection, ERIC, Business Source Premier, Consumer Health Complete, History Reference Center, Literary Reference Center, Newspaper Source, Nursing and Allied Health Collection, and more. In order to use the article databases, students will need to request a bar code and pin from the College Hill Library.

For more information, visit the Article Database information page on our student wiki ( http://www.studentwiki.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Search_Our_Online_Article_Databases).

The Research and Writing Toolkit:

Another valuable resource available to both faculty and students through our Online Library pages on the student wiki is the Research and Writing Toolkit at http://www.studentwiki.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Research_%26_Writing_Toolkit. The toolkit offers information on plagiarism, research and writing resource as well as information on different citation styles including MLA, APA, and more.

Ask a Librarian:

Two very important Ask a Librarian resources are available to CCCOnline students.

Ask Your Librarian - email service through College Hill Library (FRCC - Westminster). See http://www.frontrange.edu/form.aspx?id=2931

Ask Colorado - 24/7 Live Chat with a Librarian, an online information service provided by Colorado Libraries. See http://www.askcolorado.org/

Visit CCCOnline’s Online Library on the student wiki for more library and research resources: http://www.studentwiki.ccconline.org/index.php?title=CCCOnline%27s_Online_Library.

And, look for the “What’s going on @ your CCCOnline Online Library” post next month. If you have any questions, email me at mary.cash@cccs.edu. If I don’t know the answer to your question, I can steer you to someone who does know.

Mary Cash,
CCCOnline Instructional Designer/Library

Faculty Conference 2008

Thank you to everyone who attended the 2008 Birthday Conference! We had a great time and learned a lot from all of you!

We started the conference with a slide show --- just some of the wonderful and talented people who have helped to make CCCOnline what it is through the years.



It's a little larger on the wiki if you want to watch it there -- http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=08FacConf_Slide_Show.

Mary Beth Susman, past president of the Colorado Electronic College, the first incarnation of CCCOnline, was our keynote speaker. She left us with a raft of interesting links and things to think about as we enter our second decade.

We've place many ,inks to her information on the faculty wiki at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=08FacConf_Keynote_Materials.

Some of the hightlights:

FURMAN COLLEGE that gives students video cameras to tell what they like about FURMAN
Example: www.engagefurman.com/home_1col2.asp

UNIGO – A beta site that is having students at colleges rate their colleges: specifically designed for high school students deciding on colleges. This link is to what they have about CU.
http://www.unigo.com/Colleges/UnigoReview/Default.aspx?CollegeId=50

3D Technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIqNdMqA7Kc





ITUNES U- Wonderful video/audio lectures

Walter H.G. Lewin M.I.T. Lectures, Promo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zc9Nuoe2Ow
(There are many physics lectures online fo this professor also.)

Randy Pausch Your Childhood Dreams- Carnegie Mellon, the entire lecture is available on Youtube -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Dan Ariely Predictably Irrational - Duke and M.I.T.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ5baAOrxXY

Online Course

Langdon Hammer Modern Poetry -Yale, http://oyc.yale.edu/english/modern-poetry.


RADIOHEAD

My inspiration that college needs to be free, because if the music industry can do it, we can.
http://stereogum.com/archives/new-radiohead-album-in-rainbows-out-october-10th_006620.html. (Here's a comment from an econ blog on that model though that isn't entirely positive. http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/10/pay-what-you-wa.html.)

More information about conference materials coming soon.

Lisa Cheney-Steen

ADA Training Opportunities

Hi Everyone,
Please check out another non-credit training tool that you can visit over and over on the wiki. Lisa Marie Johnson and John Schmahl collaborated to create this wonderful, interactive tutorial on Learners with Disabilities. Check it out at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Learners_with_Disabilities_-_Identification%2C_Documentation%2C_and_Accommodations

Then join John Schmahl and Lisa Marie Johnson for the webinar on Friday Oct 24 at 1pm with your questions regarding ADA and FERPA at http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/ (Attending the webinar does earn you training credit. No RSVP is required.)

Can’t attend webinars? We record them and archive them for you to listen to at your convenience at http://www.facultywiki.ccconline.org/index.php?title=TPD_Webinars

Karen Kaemmerling

Upcoming Training Available

Hi Everyone,
I really enjoyed seeing so many of you at our faculty conference this year. We learned a lot from the conference sessions and from collaborating face to face. Congratulations to Lisa Marie Johnson who earned the Faculty Leadership Award and to Roxanne Manske who earned Staff of the Year. Also, congratulations to all those who were recognized as Gold Medal Faculty.

If you were not able to join us at the Faculty Conference, we do still have several training opportunities available this year.

This Friday, Oct 24 at 1 pm John Schmahl from student services will host a webinar on ADA and FERPA issues. No need to RSVP in advance, just join us at http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/

Also you can register for facilitated training, E-Portfolios and Measuring What Matters, at https://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?402726

Faculty Conference This Friday!

Yeh! It's here, It's here, the Faculty Conference is Friday Oct 17th at Arapahoe Community College. I am looking forward to seeing all of you and hearing some fantasitc presentations. This year we celebrate 10 years of creativity, innovation, and leadership. A continental breakfast will be served during registration from 8-9.

Including some great give aways for everyone, this year we will raffle software during the Round Table sessions including Snagit and Camtasia from TechSmith. If you haven't registered yet, please do so right away. Registration will officially close Wednesday at midnight. You can go directly to registration at this link http://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?445037.

Please contact me with questions at karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu .

Ses 2 Pay

Dear Faculty,

The following note is forwarded from Randy Macy:

Faculty will not get paid for session two classes on today’s paycheck. Session two classes will not start paying until October 24th. Bonus contracts for session two will not start paying until November 7th.

If oyu have any questions, please contact Randy Macy at randy.macy@cccs.edu

Thanks.
RDM

Lots and Lots of Students!

So if you feel like you have a lot of students in your classes you are correct! If you know more people who would like to teach for us please give their names to your program chair.

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Webcast: Education Advisors to the Presidential Candidates

Education and the Next President: McCain and Obama Advisors to Debate

On October 21, the education advisors to the presidential candidates will face off in a debate at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City. The debate will feature Lisa Graham Keegan, former Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction and advisor to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), and Linda Darling-Hammond, the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University and advisor to Senator Barack Obama (D-IL).

The debate is set to begin at 7:00 p.m. EST and will be webcast by Education Week. Susan Fuhrman, president of Teachers College, will serve as the moderator.

Individuals who want to examine the candidates’ education platforms prior to the debate can do so by visiting the following websites:

Senator McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/

Senator Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

To register for the webcast, visit http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html and look for a banner with information on the debate in the upper right corner of the page.

No-Show Reporting

Dear Faculty;

In session 1 we asked you to help us report no-show students because we did not have a report in BB Vista that allowed us to pull this information. Now, thanks to Frank’s great work with the folks at Blackboard, we have a report that gives will tell us which students have not yet logged in to courses. So, we will be running this report tomorrow, Wednesday.

What this means for you is that you don’t have to do anything to report no-show students. As always, if you have any questions about any student in your course, please feel free to contact me.

As always, thanks for your hard work!

John

Student Authentication

Hi Everyone-

Below is an email Julie Witherow from PPCC sent out to PPCC faculty on the implications of the Higher Ed Opportunity Act recently passed by Congress on student authentication. I think I previously mentioned a webcast on this topic sponsored by WCET with a panel of experts moderated by Rhonda Epper.

From Julie W:

As some of you know, the national Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOC)that passed this summer presents a potentially serious problem for online courses: student authentication. The legislation stipulates that colleges be able to verify that the student who registers for an online course is the same student who does the work and takes the tests. It is one sentence in a long bill, but we need to be prepared to defend our current practices and make changes if necessary.

First I want to review some course design techniques that help to ensure that enrolled students are doing their own work; we have discussed them before, and many of you are employing them already in the interest of academic integrity. Then I will summarize other possibilities that came from our Learning Technologies Conference last February and from a webcast presented this week by the Western Cooperative for Educational Technology (WCET).

(The webcast, moderated by Rhonda Epper, is archived here: https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2008-10-01.1008.M.31ED1FF6F672C98DC29674A39C3EDB.vcr)

Course Design Techniques

Include a variety of assessments for each class: exams, individual and group projects, discussions, papers, etc.
Change paper and project topics frequently
Provide clear information about what plagiarism is and how it will impact a student’s grade in a class
Ask students to turn in papers and projects in stages (working outlines, for instance)
Randomize questions on objective tests; randomize order of responses for each question in a multiple choice test
Use essay and short answer exams
Base some of the answers on tests on information that comes from online discussions and blogs
True “closed book” tests are impossible online, but time tests appropriately to make it difficult for students who are looking up answers to complete all the questions within the timeframe
Send students to a testing center to take exams in a proctored environment

In short, make it as difficult as possible for someone to step in and complete the work for someone else. Sending students to a testing center is the simplest way to control exams, but since our centers have limited hours and capacity, math and science classes should get first dibs on that option at this point.

One of the webcast presenters pointed out that legislators in general know very little about distance education, and potential solutions from the webcast focused on testing controls rather than on course design:

Browser lockdown software that prevents students from accessing the rest of a course or the Internet while taking an exam (I think we need to look into this)
Software currently used in online banking, for instance, that asks several authenticating questions of each student before and sometimes during an online test
(These questions are not based on information from the school. There is a lot of information about all of us on the web, and the software draws from that. Scary? I have seen a demonstration of Acxiom, a produce that provides this service. The student can access an exam only after he answers enough authenticating questions correctly. One of the webcast speakers said that the cost for this is $10 per student per test.)

A camera (not inexpensive) that students must purchase so that instructors can watch them as they take an exam

That next thing that will happen, probably, is communication from accrediting bodies, in our case North Central. Beyond that, it is difficult to know whether the government will pursue the topic. The best thing to do now, I think, is to incorporate as many of the course design suggestions as possible in our courses. The testing center issue is not a new one , but this legislation has the potential to make it even more critical.

With the exception of course design, all of the solutions are expensive. I will keep you posted as I hear more about the issue, and I hope you will share your ideas with me.

Thanks,
Julie Witherow, PPCC

Create your own Video Welcome Message at this Year’s Faculty Conference!

Can you believe our faculty conference is just two weeks away?!! If you haven't registered yet, do so today as sessions are filling up fast.

This year at the conference on October 17th at Arapahoe Community College, the design team volunteered to video record you welcoming students to your online classes. Our time is limited, so we are offering 10 minute blocks for you to record your well rehearsed 3 minute script. This is a first come-first serve offer. You will be assigned specific time during the conference day to meet with the design team to make your recording.

Following the conference, the design team will add your recording to our media server and add a link in your course for students to view your recording. (This will not be instantaneous but before the spring semester)

Send me your name, email address, department, and script and I’ll register you to record a video welcome to your class!

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