Time to give SBU another blog post on how things are going for Instructional Technology this summer. Picking up from the last post, and going week by week...
During the week of July 7th, quite of bit of Electronic Classroom install work was done. The Blackboard login page was updated to provide some details and links to more information. ANGEL released their ePortfolio version 2.1, which we've added to our testing server. This week saw the end of ITV classes which ran from 7am to 6pm, and the first day of sales for the new iPhone 3G were on the 11th, which made for some interesting Twitter reading. People standing in line for hours, authorizing systems overwhelming, etc.
The week of July 14th started with the availability of the new Palm Treo 800w; while it starts with Sprint only, it will most likely be available on Alltel soon after. Now that Bolivar has the faster EV data service, my older Palm Treo 700wx feels even more useful than before, and the built-in features like GPS and Wi-Fi for the 800w would be a nice step up. Beyond dreams of a newer cell phone, this week had three days of Datatel training in the ITS computer lab, continued Electronic Classroom install work, and another ANGEL meeting. We started talking about Configuration details for our ANGEL server, and the abilities and features highlighted in those discussions were exciting and well-received. Another two week set of ITV classes started this week, but they are both start time of 1pm, so the workload is much lighter than the previous two weeks.
To close, how about a peek into the week of July 21st? We've just had the last of the full new Electronic Classroom installs for the Bolivar campus completed today. I'll still need to revisit them all for fine tuning and such well before August 25th. Work on the Salem campus is scheduled to begin on Wednesday this week. The last week of Summer 2008 ITV is underway, and another ANGEL meeting is scheduled for Thursday. At this meeting, we'll start applying the ideas discussed last week to our testing server.
The Summer semester has gone past very quickly, it will be Fall 2008 before I know it!
Monday, July 21, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
On the eve of the 4th of July 2008
I ran out of time and gumption to make a post last week, so I wanted to review the past two weeks in SBU Instructional Technology before enjoying a three day weekend.
On the LMS front, we have a testing ANGEL server running now, which has been of great use for the Administrator training. I just keep finding more and more reasons to like ANGEL, from both the Instructor and Administrator perspectives. For Blackboard, I did receive confirmation from the vendor for our previous My Courses module (with the red push pins and courses organized by semester) that it will not work on our downgraded server. So, I will soon need to make a post here dedicated to working with the original My Courses module. Basically, you can modify the list of courses it will show, that way you are not looking at courses from Fall 2005 if you don't want to.
Summer ITV started June 30th, and with a class that starts a 7am, and another that ends at 5:45pm, I've had rather long days in the office. Working towards a three day weekend has helped, and the classes themselves have all run very smoothly. It can be kinda quiet here without some students going in and out from ITV classes. And I always enjoy seeing communication technology making it possible to deliver face-to-face learning in a convenient-for-many way.
And today marked the first major installs for new Electronic Classrooms this summer. Jester Learning and Performance Center's 244 room now has all the equipment it needs. There are some minor issues to resolve, otherwise the room is nearly done. The list I have made to keep track of all the efforts is fairly long, such that I have to scroll up and down a fair amount in OneNote to see it all. But getting this room, and the projector mounted in the Art Department's computer lab, serves as a great way to start checking items off the list.
On the LMS front, we have a testing ANGEL server running now, which has been of great use for the Administrator training. I just keep finding more and more reasons to like ANGEL, from both the Instructor and Administrator perspectives. For Blackboard, I did receive confirmation from the vendor for our previous My Courses module (with the red push pins and courses organized by semester) that it will not work on our downgraded server. So, I will soon need to make a post here dedicated to working with the original My Courses module. Basically, you can modify the list of courses it will show, that way you are not looking at courses from Fall 2005 if you don't want to.
Summer ITV started June 30th, and with a class that starts a 7am, and another that ends at 5:45pm, I've had rather long days in the office. Working towards a three day weekend has helped, and the classes themselves have all run very smoothly. It can be kinda quiet here without some students going in and out from ITV classes. And I always enjoy seeing communication technology making it possible to deliver face-to-face learning in a convenient-for-many way.
And today marked the first major installs for new Electronic Classrooms this summer. Jester Learning and Performance Center's 244 room now has all the equipment it needs. There are some minor issues to resolve, otherwise the room is nearly done. The list I have made to keep track of all the efforts is fairly long, such that I have to scroll up and down a fair amount in OneNote to see it all. But getting this room, and the projector mounted in the Art Department's computer lab, serves as a great way to start checking items off the list.
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