24x7 Student Technical Support Now Available

We have just launched a new 24x7 technical support service for students in Vista courses. All students can now get technical support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for their Vista course. The announcement below has been sent to all Spring students. The phone number is 1-888-800-9198.

This support service is also available to faculty for after-hours emergencies and access questions, however, Amy will continue to provide technical support for all of our faculty at profhelp@ccconline.org.

Please let your students know about this great new service.

Thanks once again, for all you do for our students!
John H Schmahl
CCCOnline
Student Services

GET HELP ANY TIME!

CCCOnline now offers 24x7 Technical Support for students and faculty who use Blackboard Vista. Students can get support via:

• Phone at 1-888-800-9198
• Live chat at http://help.cccs.edu – click on Chat With Us
• A support request form at http://help.cccs.edu – click on Submit a Problem
• Or the CCCOnline Student Wiki: http://students.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Main_Page.

The specialists at the 24x7 Technical Support help desk are trained to assist users on a variety of topics including:

• Configuring your computer to use Blackboard Vista
• Logging into Blackboard Vista
• Troubleshooting problems using your online course
• Setting up your browser to support Blackboard Vista
• Questions about how to use features in Blackboard Vista
• Uploading and downloading assignments/email attachments.

Student Survey Pop-up Window

Hi Everyone-

I am sure you've noticed by now that the student survey is open. If you type your S# into the pop-up about the survey you will stop getting it each time you log in. (Although if you use multiple computers and/or multiple browsers you will have to enter your S# multiple times - the survey uses cookies for tracking purposes, so has to set one for each browser.)

Please encourage your students to take the survey. Some of you use extra credit successfully for that (you have to let students tell you when they have completed the survey). I think that's a good technique that helps up get valid data, but even reminders help!

Thank you!

Lisa

Student Survey Open

Hi Everyone-

The student survey is open now and will remain available for students through the end of the semester. They will see the pop-up window reminding them to take the survey each time they login until they have completed the survey.

Please remind your students to take the survey - we'd like to see good participation this year and that only happens with a lot of faculty encouragement.

Thanks-
Lisa

Memorial Service for Kevin Stever

Kevin's friends have planned a memorial service for him:

Kevin's memorial is scheduled from 4:30 pm - 7:30 pm on Saturday, May 17, at Strings Restaurant in Denver.

www.stringsrestaurant.com

1700 Humboldt St Denver, CO 80218 (303) 831-7310

Please let everyone at CCCS (students, staff, other faculty) that it is an open invitation and we'd love for anyone to attend who wishes to join us in remembering Kevin.

We are also encouraging donations to "The Center" in Kevin's name. That address is P.O. Box 9798, Denver, CO 80209-0798.

At the celebration, we will be collecting messages of condolence to send to the family as well.

Thanks, and please let me know if you have any questions.

Lisa

Reading for A Good Cause

From Sean Law, ENG chair:

Subject: FW: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
(RFB&D)
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 07:47:20 -0600

Hello! I'm Betsy Boudreau, Executive Director or RFB&D/Rocky Mountain Unit.

I would like to invite you to donate an hour of your time to help record a textbook for a student who is blind, dyslexic or physically struggling.

Our 13th Annual Recordathon will be held the week of April 28-May 2, a time when our volunteers record more hours of textbooks than any week during the year, invite friends and family to donate to RFB&D, and when we invite the Mayor, First Lady and other local celebrities to come in and read for an hour.

If you have the time, please let me know. We are offering times from 9am to 7pm, at the top of the hour, for one hour of reading.

Thank you!

Help us help students in need of audio textbooks to succeed in school and life! Volunteer and/or donate to RFB&D. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Betsy Boudreau, Executive Director
Rocky Mountain Unit/Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic

1355 S. Colorado Blvd., Ste. C-406, Denver, CO, 80222
303-692-9213/ www.rfbd.org

If there is enough interest we could pick a CCCOnline day and all go down together. :^)

Lisa

Faculty Questions re Maintenance and Thumbtacks

Hi Everyone-

We've gotten the same questions from several of you, so bear with me as I answer them in this forum for everyone.

First that irritating little thumbtack. Unfortunately that is in Blackboard development, so it won't be corrected until the next release. Think fall.

Then there is maintenance. Back in the olden days we ran the learning management system for CCCOnline only. Now we run the system for all of the colleges plus CCCOnline. Everyone has a different schedule, some colleges have intercession courses, some colleges have training that has to occur between terms, everyone is frantically duping and developing courses between terms... and really, when you look at everyone's schedules there is no "between terms" other than the long Christmas break and even that is shorter than you would think.

Given all that, the Learning Technology Council (that is the group of college representatives that provides oversight for Vista) has decided we just need to schedule some planned downtime for upgrades and maintenance during each term. The only alternative is to save everything for Christmas break - but that is a little dangerous and means we'd only have one shot a year at correcting problems like the irritating green thumbtack.

So I understand that everyone is busy and that it is a hassle to have to schedule around a planned downtime each semester. However, I think as long as the downtime is scheduled before the semester begins it is a reasonable solution. Many of us want to install fixes the first moment we can - we have to balance that with downtime schedules.

On the other hand, I can take your concerns back to LTC if you want me to.

Thanks-
Lisa

Kevin Stever

Today I bring sad news. Kevin Stever, a long time CSC instructor for CCCOnline, passed away last weekend. He had been ill, but didn't think it was serious.

His friends are planning a memorial service in the next week or two. I will let you know when I have more information.

Lisa

Weekend Downtime

Hi Everyone-

Please don't forget this weekend's downtime for Blackboard Vista. We will be going down at 1:00 pm on Saturday, April 5th and coming back up again by 1:00 pm on Sunday the 6th. This downtime will be used to install SP3 and a hot fix. I don't think you will notice much on your side, but there are significant changes on the back-end.

Thank you-
Lisa

English Program Chair Needed

Hello Everyone-
Our current English Program Chair, Sean Law, is retiring from his position, not leaving CCCOnline, mind you, just redefining his role again. We would like to replace Sean from within CCCOnline, but we are open to other thoughts. I've added the job description below. If you want to see a more detailed description of the life of a program chair please see the Chair handbook on the wiki at http://www.facultywiki.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Program_Chair_Handbook.

English Program Chair Position

CCCOnline is a consortial program for online courses/program development and management for Colorado Community College System. The Colorado Community Colleges Online (CCCOnline) is comprised of the 13 member colleges in the Colorado Community College System, Dawson Community College, Northwest Missouri State University, and Pickens Technical College.

Through CCCOnline, students can complete accredited Associate of Arts Degrees, Associate of Applied Science Degrees and Certificates in various disciplines. Colorado Community Colleges are accredited by North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Instructional designers support faculty in the development of new courses and current courses by offering course design assistance, technical assistance, and assisting in the development of media for use in the courses.

Job Summary:

The program chair provides leadership and expertise in the development and maintenance of effective instructional models for CCCOnline. A major portion of this part-time role is email, phone, and web-based communication to provide support and coaching to faculty. The chair hires qualified faculty as needed and assigns faculty to courses each term. The chair oversees the development of new online courses and the redesign of existing online courses. This role includes participation in the ongoing exchange of ideas with CCCOnline faculty and program chairs pertaining to online educational theory and practice.

Duties and responsibilities include the following:

• Membership in the CCCOnline academic team, attendance at bi-monthly meetings
• Faculty Support
• Work with faculty throughout the faculty training and evaluation processes
• Regularly visit classes and maintain communication with faculty regarding any recommended changes to their classrooms/course shells
• Continuously support and coach faculty teaching practices
• Provide a communication path between faculty and administrative staff
• Ensure faculty stay current with respect to CCCOnline, program issues, and events
• Recommend training as needed to faculty; ensure faculty are up-to-date regarding professional workshop requirements
• Advise faculty regarding pay grades and changes in pay grades due to stipend increases, professional development requirements, and quality assurance evaluations
• Scheduling
• Schedule courses and sections each term
• Provide course shell dupe information to CCCOnline staff
• Maintain master and term calendars
• Provide faculty information (name and pay rate) to instructional coordinator
• Hire qualified, enthusiastic faculty
• Assign faculty section load
• Assign mentors as appropriate
• Conflict Resolution
• Mediate issues which may arise between faculty and students
• Mediate issues which may arise between faculty and staff
• Address academic integrity issues
• Coordination of Program Development/Changes
• Provide leadership for program initiatives
• Coordinate and assist faculty and designers in the development of new courses
• Coordinate and assist faculty and designers in the re-design of current courses
• Coordinate department/program marketing
• Maintain active and accurate program home page online
• Coordination of selection and distribution of textbooks and other course materials including bookstore and faculty copies
• Develop and teach faculty workshops covering both technology and teaching
• Other duties as assigned

Minimum Qualifications:

• MA/MS degree in English or appropriate field
• Exemplary communication skills
• Online teaching experience

Start Date: late-April 2008

Salary Range: $20,000 - $24,000 annually; part-time position; no benefits; may teach CCCOnline student courses for additional compensation

Application Process:
Submit a current resume, list of three professional references, copies of your transcripts (unofficial are acceptable as part of the application process – official copies will be required prior to hire) and cover letter addressing the position requirements by Friday, April 11, 2008 to:
E-Mail: monica.falk@cccs.edu
Fax: 303.365.8822

Or mail to:
English Program Chair Position
c/o Monica Falk, Associate Academic Dean
Colorado Community Colleges Online
9026 E. Severn Place
Denver, CO 80230

Google Docs for Collaboration and More! (free training videos until May)

Google what? If you have only heard of Google Docs, but not had a chance to experiment, now is a great time to be you! Free training is available in the form of video tutorials from atomiclearning.com through May.

Access the "Google Docs" video tutorials from:
http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/google_docs

At its foundation, Google Docs is a free tool collaborative authorship. Think of this tool as a wiki-style technology (group editing, or single-person editing on the fly from anywhere you can access the WWW, tracking of changes) with the coolness of document portability allowing users to save in a variety of formats and edit collaboratively online.... anytime!

A few links to resources about Google Docs in education:

• VanDrimmelen at EduTechie.com
  http://www.edutechie.com/2006/11/google-docs-education/
  
  
• YouTube Tutorial on Google Docs...
  Another review of the tech with the 'why' ... Collaboration, of course! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqUE6IHTEA
  

Posting this information was sparked by recent inquiries during the Four Ps: Proactive Preparation Prevents Plagiarism Webinar (held 3/21) about the tool. View this and other webinars from: http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=TPD_Webinars


Lisa Marie
lisamarie.johnson@cccs.edu

Are you ready to start Teaching with Style?

Learning Styles Registration is open! Register today for Learning Styles and other Professional Development sessions from: https://www.rsvpbook.com/event.php?402726

• What: Learning Styles (listed under recommended sessions)
• Where: Two-week asynchronous online via Bb Vista
• Who: Kathy Miles
• When: March 31 - April 11
• Why: ...... read on!

Style… everyone has his or her own and we’re not talking What To Wear!

“Learning Styles” refers mainly to theories on how people perceive and process information in order to learn. You may like to read step-by-step instructions before tackling a project, whereas your best friend may just glance at a picture and plunge in. Perhaps you remember what you hear better than what you see, but your friend remembers best what she reads or what he sees in a picture. Or when you read or study you need a quiet space, but your friend likes to have the radio or the TV going in the background or to be in the middle of a room with lots of activity.

Such differences reflect the very different ways in which we learn.“Learning Styles” also refers to a group of models for conceptualizing a learner’s style and designing instruction to better meet the needs of diverse learners. How do our own learning-style differences translate into our teaching and what is their effect on our students’ learning? What implications are there for course design?

Typically, the most common method of communication and presentation in an online class is text-based – meaning students mostly read a lot of material displayed on Web pages. What if that is not the most appropriate method through which your students learn? How can you adjust assignments to provide the best context for student learning? This two-week workshop (including one weekend of course activity) takes on these questions, examining learning styles and how to address their diversity in an online environment. Come join us: Explore the world of learning styles, your own as well as others’; then practice designing an instructional activity which supports a variety of learners and their styles.

Register for the Learning Styles workshop today to get ...

1. Information on common Learning Styles.
2. Methods for measuring Learning Styles.
3. Information for understanding your learning style and why that matters.
4. Information for designing course activities in alternative learning styles.
5. Practice in designing course activities to engage and support different styles.

Don't delay! Register today!

Thank you Kathy Miles for the redevelopment of this workshop, facilitation, guidance on training and development opportunities and the above summary!

Questions? Just ask!
Lisa Marie
lisamarie.johnson@cccs.edu

Webinar Recordings

Hi Everyone-

LisaMarie Johnson, our fearless Director of Training, has recordings of all of the webinars available for your viewing pleasure on the Training and Professional Development wiki pages.

You can access them at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=TPD_Webinars.

Of course they are better in person, but this gives you a fall-back position in case there is a topic you really don't want to miss, but can't make the time-slot it's offered in.

Happy viewing!

Lisa

Webinar Friday, March 21 - Plagiarism!

CCCOnline Training and Professional Development invites you to attend a webinar on everyone's (least) favorite subject... plagiarism!

What: The Four Ps: Proactive Preparation Prevents Plagairism
Objectives include.. Recognizing how Plagiarism is defined by CCCOnline and why our policies are only half the consideration; Locating and interpreting the policies for CCCOnline that relate to Plagiarism; Recognizing procedures for reporting infractions and communicating with stakeholders; Participation in an activity for identifying plagiarism and reflect on examples of plagiarism and consequences for students; Identifying and discussing resources to assist learners with good writing and scholarship; Discussing proactive strategies for designing activities to prevent plagiarism; and Discussing proactive methods to use in courses to teach about and prevent plagiarism. A handout will be provided as part of the session.

Who: Monica Falk, Sean Law, Jesse Stommel and Lisa Marie Johnson

When: Friday, March 21, 2008 .... 2:00 - 4:00 PM (MDT)

Where: Online via Elluminate! Participants may enter 30 minutes before the session begins. Use the link below to access the session.

http://elm.elluminate.com/FRONTRANGE/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1204149123966

Why... Why not? :^) ... Participation in this session counts as annual professional development credit for CCCOnline faculty. More importantly, you'll interact with fellow faculty and gain skills, perspectives, and understanding about plagiarism in CCCOnline courses.

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


NOTE: If you are a new user of Elluminate, please go to http://www.elluminate.com/support/ ... and then through the steps for first time users. Once your computer is set-up, view the Participant Training Materials for Elluminate Version 8: http://www.elluminate.com/support/docs/8.0/participant.jsp ... If you are attending the live session, please prepare your computer to attend the session at least 1/2 hour in advance! All sessions begin promptly at 2:00PM MST, but participants can enter the session 30 minutes before to make sure your headsets/voice, speakers, and other features are working properly.

Qwest Maintenance

Hi Everyone-

I have a note from CCCS-IT about some maintenance Qwest is performing this weekend that probably doesn't affect you. This will only affect you if you are doing something on the CCCS Network during the time of the maintenance. So if you are accessing Vista from home, no problem. If you want to access Banner or if you are on a campus than it will affect you. From IT:

We have been informed that Qwest will be performing maintenance on their equipment tomorrow morning, March 15th, between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM. This maintenance will effect the primary circuits coming into our facilities at Lowry. This will cause an outage for Internet access for the schools, inbound and outbound telephone calls at Lowry, and Wide Area Network connectivity into and out of Lowry for all schools. While the circuits are down access to FRS, Banner, VPN Connectivity, and inbound and outbound e-mail will be unavailable.

Thanks for your understanding

Bryan Crawford

Same effect for students -- if they are on campus at 3:00 am they won't be able to get to your online class. :^)

Lisa

Adding Audio to Your Courses! - Webinar Friday 3/14

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

What: Adding Audio to Your Courses!
Focus is on types of audio you can add to your courses, the process for storing files on the CCCOnline Media Server, accessibility considerations and design for engaging learning and authentic assessment with audio. We'll explore some free programs available for you and students to use in creating audio as well!

When: Friday, March 14, 2008 .... 2:00 - 4:00 PM (MDT)

Where: Online via Elluminate! Use the link below to access the session. Participants may enter 30 minutes before the session begins.
http://elm.elluminate.com:80/FRONTRANGE/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1203215523142

NOTE: If you are a new user of Elluminate, please go to http://www.elluminate.com/support/ ... and then through the steps for first time users. Once your computer is set-up, view the Participant Training Materials for Elluminate Version 8: http://www.elluminate.com/support/docs/8.0/participant.jsp ... If you are attending the live session, please prepare your computer to attend the session at least 1/2 hour in advance! All sessions begin promptly at 2:00PM MST, but participants can enter the session 30 minutes before to make sure your headsets/voice, speakers, and other features are working properly.

Why... Why not? :^) ... Participation in this session counts as annual professional development credit for CCCOnline faculty. More importantly, you'll have a chance to interact with fellow faculty and explore ways to incorporate audio components in your course to meet a wider range of learning styles!


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

New Student Enrollment and Drop Records

Well, we have a new record for most enrollments in CCCOnline courses and a new record for the lowest drop rate. With the passing of census for Spring session 2, we hit an all time high in enrollments, 12,035. The previous record was set 2 years ago at 10,702 in Spring 2006.

And part of the reason for that record enrollment was the lowest ever drop rate this Spring session 2. Only 10.55% of session 2 students dropped their online courses. Last year's drop rate for session 2 was 17.4%. For session 1 this year we had a drop rate of 15.4%, one of the lowest ever as well.

The hard work by all of you in building quality courses and keeping students engaged throughout the semester shows clearly in our continued growth. Thanks again to all of you for the hard work you put in every day.

And thanks as well to Debra Michel and Kathy Miles for the hard work they do with the new Student Orientation course. Making sure our students are ready to start class on day 1 and keeping them supported throughout the semester let's you focus more on teaching.

Once again, thanks to everyone for the hard work done every day on behalf of our students!

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

Remember that the Blackboard Vista servers will be down for planned maintenance today through Sunday while we move to a newer, larger, faster, database server. We expect to be back up Sunday morning, although the downtime is not officially scheduled to end until Monday morning at midnight.

Hope your break is going well!

regards,
Lisa

Hardware Upgrade Update

The Bb ASP has revised the schedule on the hardware upgrade to be from 8 a.m. MT on December 28 until 8 a.m. MT on December 30. David will make changes on the domain level to provide that announcement.

Lisa

Managing Your MyCCCOnline Page in BB Vista

Good Morning Everyone-

When we begin duping sections for a new term I typically get a set of emails from faculty. About half of you are worried that we will remove access to shells from past terms and the other half of you are frustrated with a very long list of courses in your MyCCCOnline page and would like to get rid of all of the old terms.

We would like to get to the point where you can manage what you would like to keep around yourself, but until then here is a link to a training module LisaMarie Johnson made to help you organize what shows on your MyCCCOnline page:

http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Editing_the_My_CCCOnline_Course_List_FLASH

Lisa

Downtime over Christmas Break

I want to wish everyone a happy happy Christmas break!

CCCOnline offices will be closing Friday the 21st and not re-opening until Wednesday, January 2nd. We are making some hardware changes during that time however. We are moving to a new big database server for Vista. Blackboard hosting will be making the switch for us December 28-30; Vista will be down for at least the 28th and 29th (beginning at 12:01 am on the 28th). We are not making any software upgrades or patches, so you shouldn't see any changes in your courses after the weekend. You might check anyway though, just to be sure.

The Banner student information system is also going through a major upgrade the weekend before Christmas, so Frank is coming in Christmas Eve to do some testing of our scripts.

We'll e-see you all in the next year!

Lisa

Only training shells

Hi All-

Only old training and profesional development shells are going away. Your fall course shells will still wait around for you for awhile yet. (For the half of you who want to get rid of your old course shells..... eventually we will clean those out also.)

Lisa

Grades!

Thanks to all of you who sent your grades in promptly! We offered nearly 550 sections this fall and all but 8 had grades in by yesterday evening!

Lisa

Training Clean-up

We will be cleaning up the old training courses (deleting old shells) and unenrolling you from any shells you are still enrolled in from past training session early next week. If you need to keep any information from old sessions around please copy it this weekend.

Thanks-
Lisa

League for Innovation Conference

Hi All-

I think I sent this out, but wanted to blog it so I can find it again.

CCD is hosting the League for Innovations conference in Denver this year. If you volunteer for 6 or more hours the League will pick up the conference fee.

If any of you wish to attend this conference as a volunteer please let me know and I will see if I can get you on the list.

The League website is http://www.league.org/index.cfm.

Lisa

Lisa Cheney-Steen
Co-Executive Director for Learning Technology
Colorado Community College System
www.CCCOnline.org

Original Message:

The League for Innovations Conference will be held in Denver at the Adams Mark Hotel in downtown Denver 3/2-3/5 2008. Community College of Denver is hosting this event. Three thousand people are expected to attend. Although the League is adept at putting on a conference of this size, we need volunteers to help at this event.

Please get the word out that volunteers are needed to help with staffing the registration booth, being guides and go-fors, assisting with answering questions, etc. Conference registration is free for people who volunteer for six hours or more. Please ask interested people to contact our volunteer coordinator, Connie Strand connie.strand@ccd.edu .

Thanks in advance for getting the word out.

Academic Technology Schedule

Thought you all might be interested in this also (my notes in italics):

Academic Technology Schedule

• Dec. 9 – end of term but sections open for two weeks, until Dec. 23
• Dec. 10 & 11 - Process Student Survey and limit release to QA and Chairs. This will be distributed to appropriate users.

• Dec. 13 – Grades due
• Dec. 17 – Student Surveys are released to faculty
• Dec. 24 – testing of the Banner-Vista scripts (Banner upgrade happens the prior weekend, Banner is the current student information system used.)
• Dec. 28 – 30 – Vista Server will be off-line for a period of 48 – 60 hours beginning sometime on Dec. 28 for a hardware change. (New database server).
• Jan. 2 – continued testing of changes to both Banner and Vista
• Jan. 3 – resume processing of the dup requests
• Jan. 15 – all section dup requests due by 12 noon; all duping that can be done prior to splits should be finished this day
• Jan. 16 – section splits
• Jan. 17 – 12 midnight, regular registration closes; late registration until Jan. 24
• Jan. 21 – Spring term opens
• Feb. 1 – Open dup site for Spring II requests
• Feb. 19 - all section dup requests due by 12 noon; all duping that can be done prior to splits should be finished this day
• Feb. 20 – split meeting
• Feb. 21 – Close of registration at midnight; late registration goes one week to Feb. 28
• Feb. 25 – Start of Spring II

Further explanation:

Dup requests: Every semester David and his team copy your shells for the coming term from either a master shell or your shell from a past term. This is of course a time-consuming process that takes place on a regular schedule. Your program chair turns in the specific dup request (which shell to copy from), so be sure they know what your preference is.

Split meeting: The Wednesday before classes we sit down as a group and decide exactly how many sections of each course we will offer. This typically involves much negotiation around class size, grading load, availability of faculty, and cost. So when your program chair says they don't know for sure how many sections we will offer two weeks before the start of classes they are being honest with you.


Unrelated side note on late work:

Late work of course causes the vast majority of the student/faculty conflicts I mediate each semester. Today while surfing I saw this policy on a course David Wiley teaches:

Late Work Policy

If your work is ever late, I may or may not accept the work and may or may not penalize the work, depending completely on my possibly grumpy, biased, or elated mood. If this does not seem fair to you, then do not be late with your work.

I like it because it reflects my own -- I let students turn in work as late as they want (although before the end of the semester), but I noted that I truly hate to get a mass of grading the last week of class and will probably be extremely grumpy at the sight of it. They should reflect that grumpiness to be reflected on their grade.

My high school daughter has a math class this semester which allows late work up to a point -- 5 days. She hasn't managed to turn in all of her assignments because she does tend to let them pile up for the entire 5 days, however she is learning a valuable lesson her other teachers are skipping - she is trying to figure out how to manage her own schedule -- school, work, social, etc. I appreciate the math teacher for giving her this flexibility and of course the rope with which to hang herself. :^)

Lisa

Vista Review of Recent Downtime

I wanted to give you a quick review of the past couple of weeks, since it may affect a few responses to students:

• December 1 and 2 - students were unable to submit attachments through Vista.
• December 3rd - BB re-booted the database and server (we have 9). This corrected the attachment problem, but meant BB was down from 11:30 am until almost 1:00 pm.
• December 7th: More attachment submission problems.
• December 8th: BB re-booted the system unexpectedly, down for approximately 25 minutes Saturday am.

That means there was at least one weekend when your students were genuinely unable to submit attachments and a couple of times when they may have been booted out of an in-process exam.

So what are we doing about this? We are upgrading to a snazzy new database server with more and faster processors. BB hosting has scheduled the transition to the new hardware for December 28 through 30. It should take 48 hours; when I have specific times I will let you know. You can assume that BB Vista will be down for most of the 28th through the 30th though. When we come up again we hope to be more stable.

Thanks for a good semester everyone! Technical issues aside we have once again had very few student complaints this semester. We truly do appreciate all of the time and effort you put into your classes!
Lisa

Vista Issues Today

Dear Faculty,

Some of you may be noticing "exception errors" or other system errors in Blackboard. David and his team are aware of the problem, and working with Blackboard to fix the problem. Please be patient, and we will keep you informed as we know more. I know this is not a good time, being the last couple of days in the semester.

Thanks,

Rhonda

Bad URL for grades

The link for the grade book in the original e-mail for entering fall grades had an error in it. Please use the following URL to access the grade book for your fall courses.

Sorry for any inconvenience.
John

Grade book URL

https://at.ccconline.org/gradebook/input/.

Bad Grade Book URL

The link for the grade book in the original e-mail for entering fall grades had an error in it. Please use the following URL to access the grade book for your fall courses.

Sorry for any inconvenience.
John

Grade book URL

https://at.ccconline.org/gradebook/input/.

Entering Fall Grades

Dear Faculty;

It’s that time of year again, the end of the semester and time to enter grades. Please follow the directions below to enter grades for your courses. If you have any questions regarding grades, please contact me (john.schmahl@cccs.edu)

All grades are due no later than Thursday, December 13, 2007.

Once you have submitted your grades, we will pull a daily report listing the grades and they will be manually entered into Banner for the students. Grades will not be viewable by the students until the day after they are manually entered.

If you have any students needing their grades earlier, please contact John Schmahl, john.schmahl@cccs.edu or Roxanne Manske, roxanne.manske@cccs.edu.

To submit final grades:

go to the online Grade Book here, https://at.ccconline.org/gradebook/input.

Login using your Blackboard Vista login credentials

Select the appropriate section

If you are missing any section(s) or have extra section(s) listed, please contact Frank Vazquez, frank.vazquez@cccs.edu

Enter the appropriate grade for each student, accepted grades are listed below

Remember, developmental courses (those with course numbers under 100) must use the developmental grades, see below

**All students must be given a grade, even if they have not participated in the section**

Enter a Last Date of Attendance for any students receiving a grade of “F” or “W”

Click “Update” and return to the menu to select the next section if needed

Approved grades

Standard courses (course numbers 100 and above, e.g., PSY 101)
A
B
C
D
F (must include last day of attendance)
I (must include incomplete contract)
W (must include last day of attendance)

Developmental courses (course number less than 100, e.g., MAT 060)
S/A
S/B
S/C
U/D
U/F (must include last day of attendance)
I (must include incomplete contract)
W (must include last day of attendance)