Volume I, Issue 8  
April/May 2004

Instructional Technology @ PhilaU provides faculty with news, information, resources,
and tips for using technology and integrating it into their curricula.
Instructional Technology @ PhilaU is published monthly by the Paul J. Gutman Library.

Welcome to the last issue of Instructional Technology @ PhilaU for the 2003-2004 Academic Year. I have enjoyed writing this monthly guide and sharing with you information and ideas that you can bring into your courses.

This Summer looks to be full of activity as we upgrade our existing Blackboard server to the latest version and upgrade the support materials as well. In addition, I am working on a new Blackboard instruction format for the Fall and working with several faculty on some interesting technology integration projects. If you are planning an instructional technology-based project for the Summer, please let me know. I'd be more than happy to assist in any way possible.

I know that during the Academic Year you may have been too busy to keep up with all of these guides. I invite you to take some time this Summer and read through the archives, or even re-read them to refresh your memory as you begin planning for the Fall Semester. You can find the archives at http://www.philau.edu/ITS, click on IT@PhilaU in the menu on the left.

This month's guide includes lots of important and interesting information. You will find Part II of my introduction to Blogs & RSS Feeds, the latest information on the Blackboard upgrade, the list of workshops for the TLTR May Workshop Series and much more.

If there is a topic you'd like to see investigated more deeply, a tip for your colleagues, a website to be shared, or any other thoughts and comments on this monthly guide, please let me know and I'll be sure to include it in next year's editions.

                                                                                                   Kristopher Wiemer
                                                                                                            Instructional Technology Specialist

Table of Contents

Blackboard Update

As was announced previously this semester, we are upgrading our Blackboard software and server this Summer. We have begun Phase I of our migration and will continue the process through the next couple of months. For a detailed description of our migration plan, please click here.

For detailed descriptions of the new features that are available with Blackboard 6.1, click on each of the following links. This is the second upgrade for Blackboard, hence the two files.

I will be offering a Sneak Preview of Blackboard 6.1 at the TLTR Tech Expo on Monday May 10 from 1:00pm to 3:00pm in the lower level of the Gutman Library. There will be two demonstrations of the software during the Expo: the first at 1:30pm and the second at 2:30pm in the Media Classroom.

A website has been created to provide you with the latest up-to-the minute news on the upgrade process. You can find it at http://www.philau.edu/ITS/bbnews.htm.

If you have any questions about the migration process or about the new features, please let me know.

Summer Course Availability
Requests for Summer 2004 Blackboard Course sites are now being accepted. If you will be teaching this Summer and would like to have a Blackboard site setup for you, please complete the form found at http://www.philau.edu/ITS/bbreq.htm.

If you are planning to use an existing site from a previous semester, please read the following options and follow the directions for the one that best fits your situation. If you are unsure, please call/e-mail me.

  1. If the course existed prior to Fall 2003, that course still resides on the Blackboard Development Server (http://bbdev.philau.edu). Please indicate in the Special Instructions section the Course Name and ID Number of the course you would like to use. That course will be copied into your Summer Course site.
  2. If the course is from the Fall 2003 semester, you will need to send an archived copy of this course to me. Please indicate in the Special Instructions section that you have an archived course and I will contact you with further instructions.
  3. If the course is from the Spring 2004 semester, please indicate in the Special Instructions section the Course Name and ID Number and it will be copied into the Summer Course site.

Once your course has been created from one of these methods, you can then use the Course Recycler to prepare your course for Summer 2004.

Step-by-step written instructions and Flash Movie demonstrations for the Course Recycler can be found at http://www.philau.edu/ITS, click on Tutorials and then End of Semester Maintenance or Recycling Your Course.

Students will be enrolled into Summer Session courses according to the following schedule:

May 12, 14, 17, 19, 21 (Summer Session I and Summer-long Courses)

June 23, 25, 28, 30, July 1 (Summer Session II)

By the Numbers
These are the final numbers for Spring 2004. We have 166 Blackboard courses servicing 183 course sections (19.66% of all sections offered). This is an increase over last semester and I hope indicates a growing trend of Blackboard use. If you aren't yet using Blackboard and would like to incorporate it into your course, please contact me to set up an orientation session (wiemerk@philau.edu).

School or Program
Number of
Course Sections
Number of
Faculty Using Bb

School of Architecture & Design
11
10
School of Business Administration
58
30
School of General Studies
48
20
School of Science & Health
17
16
School of Textiles & Materials Technology
25
13
Instructional Design and Technology
13
9
Training/Prof Development/Other
11
4

April & May Workshops

Following is a list of workshops that are being offered during the months of January and February. Descriptions and registration information can be found at http://www.philau.edu/ITS, click on the Workshops link.

Blackboard Course Maintenance Apr. 29, 11:15a - 12:15p
Blackboard Course Maintenance May 5, 4:00p - 5:00p
Blackboard Course Maintenance May 6, 11:15a - 12:15p

TLTR May Workshop Series
As in years past, the Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtable will be sponsoring a series of technology workshops during the week between Final Exams and Commencement (May 10 – 14). We have some exciting sessions planned for you this year.

We’ll be kicking off our weeklong workshop series with our Tech Expo to be held on the Lower Level of the Paul J. Gutman Library. There will be members of the Library Staff, OIT Staff and more to answer your questions, teach you new skills, and share your thoughts and ideas about how you would like to use technology in your curriculum. As part of this event, there will be two sneak previews of Blackboard 6.1 (1:30pm, 2:30pm) in the Media Classroom.

This year’s workshops include:

  • Integrating Atomic Learning & Other Multimedia Resources
  • Integrating Technology Through the Creation of a Hybrid Course
  • Active Learning with Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Learning Theories and Active Learning
  • Using Electronic Tools to Respond to Student Writing
  • Using Blogs and RSS Feeds for PD & Enhanced Learning
  • RefWorks
  • Introduction to Photoshop

For more information on this week long event, including workshop descriptions and registration information, go to http://www.philau.edu/ITS/tltrmay.htm.

We hope to see you all there!!
Teaching, Learning and Technology Roundtable

Blogs and RSS Part II

Last month, we examined the definition of blogs and RSS and looked at a few examples of each (click here for last month's article). This month we will we'll take a closer look at how they are being used in the academic realm for research, professional development, and education.

Blogs in Education
Blogs have a diverse number of uses. We'll look at the three most common.

In its most basic form, a blog is used as a journaling tool. Here are a few scenarios where you might use a blog journal:

  • Each semester while your students are creating their latest design pieces, they have been asked to keep a journal of the creative process in a notebook. Next semester, you might allow you students the option of keeping a blog, where they can not only keep a record of their thoughts, but also images of concepts, works in progress and/or works that have inspired their project.
  • Your students are required to write a persuasive essay. As benchmarks for the process, you ask them to submit research backing up their position and basic arguments. Next semester, allow them to create a blog that tracks their arguments, supportive research, and drafts of the essay. As an additional assignment, you ask each student to read one or two of their classmates blogs and provide constructive feedback prior to submitting the final draft. This also provides you with an electronic record of each students progress.
  • You have been doing some research work on a new stain resistant fiber/environmental protocol/business strategy, perhaps solo; perhaps with a colleague at another institution. You could keep a private blog of your progress that is only open to those of you on the research team. Or you could open it to the public where perhaps an unknown colleague in another country, or part of this country, is also working on a similar research project. You could then share ideas, findings, etc. to bring your research project further along more quickly.
  • Your students are required to evaluate a variety of sources, print and electronic, through an exercise where they create an annotated bibliography about a particular topic. As an alternative to creating a series of index cards or printing out several pages, the students can create a blog where each blog entry is a separate bibliographic entry. This would provide you with a time stamped assignment that can be used to check to see if the did all the work at the last minute, or if you have deadlines, it allows you to check for met deadlines even well after the fact (blog dates can't be changed). The end product can then be used by you and your students for future research projects.

If we go back to the second and third examples above, you might imagine that this type of chronicling can be taken a step further. In some ways, these examples are very simplistic examples of portfolios. Several colleges and universities have begun experimenting with the use of blogs as ePortfolios. Students can exhibit there best works with remarks by professors and peers. Or they can exhibit their progress, by showing earlier works and how s/he has improved over time through successive pieces. Similarly you could use a blog to demonstrate your own works. For example, you may include an image of a piece you designed along with a textual description and history of its development, either textually or graphically, as well as links to other places online that exhibit your works.

The third most common use of blogs in education is as a course management system. Due to the ability of blogs to date stamp each entry and its ability to be easily updated, many faculty are starting to replace their web pages and in some cases their Blackboard and WebCT sites with blogs. A course blog can be as basic as sharing course documents and assignments to as complex as discussion boards. While it is not possible to submit assignments to a blog, unless the student is responding to a posted article or the discussion board, those faculty who are using blogs as a course management tool will have links to every student's blog on his/her course page. This makes it easy for the faculty member to jump to a site to grade assignments and easy for students to see what their classmates are doing.

These are but a few uses for blogs in education and doesn't even get into the next generation blog, wikis (web pages that are built by group). For more information on using blogs in your courses, research or professional development and for examples of blogs being used in education, go to one of these websites:

RSS in Education
RSS has one function - transmit information to those who want to "hear" it. Whether you are running a blog or a website with frequently updated information, you can use RSS to share this information with others on the web. If you are using a commercial blogging site (e.g., Blogger), they often have quick tools that will allow you to set up an RSS feed for your blog relatively painlessly. Even for those of you who may be hosting your own blog, there are "free" scripts that you can download to help you with the syndication process. I say "free" because while the code may not cost you anything, it will take some time and work to get the feed to work properly. Often there are help features on the site that will help you, or a discussion board where you can post questions and seek assistance.

The most common use of RSS in education however comes from the use of feed aggregators (e.g., Bloglines, Amphetadesk). As you recall from last month's article, these aggregators allow you to collect RSS feeds into one location either through a computer-based program (e.g., Amphetadesk) or a web-based program (e.g., Bloglines). I strongly recommend using the web-based variety as you will have access to the feeds from many more locations.

RSS feeds can serve you in one of two ways:

1. Your Course

  • If your students are using blogs for assignments, you can collect their RSS feeds and read them in one location. Have each student create an RSS feed for their blog and then collect each one into your aggregator for easy one stop reading.
  • In many of our courses, we like to be able to share the latest news on our subject matter with our students. You can create a collection of RSS feeds from news sources, blogs, and other websites related to your topic and then make this collection available to your students. The Bloglines aggregator allows you to make your RSS collection available to the public (either outright or with a password). You could place a link to this collection on your Blackboard site or course web page, or give it out in class. Students could then easily go read items that you have chosen as relevant.
  • Similar to the current events example above, your students can create RSS feeds of search results. Suppose one of your students has chosen to do a research project on the use of blogs in education. Using their aggregator, they can collect RSS feeds from the popular search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo!). These feeds will send them any new items that appear for their chosen search criteria as they are added to the search engine.

2. Your Professional Development

  • If you have a collection of websites that you go to on a regular basis to keep yourself up-to-date on the latest events in your field of interest (or even your hobbies), you can collect RSS feeds from many sites into your aggregator. Most aggregators update each hour and you only have to go to one site to check up on the latest news.
  • Just like your students, you too can set up a RSS search engine feed to keep you up-to-date on the latest items added to the web about a given topic.

For more information on using RSS feeds in your course or for your own professional development, go to one of these websites:

Request for Information

What are you doing in your classes? Do you have a technology strategy/tool that has worked well for you and your students? Are you doing something innovative with Blackboard? Do you have a tip or trick for making Blackboard easier to use? Is there a topic you’d like to see investigated in this newsletter?

Send your ideas, questions, comments, concerns, best practices, etc. to wiemerk@philau.edu.

Contact Information

Kristopher Wiemer, Instructional Technology Specialist
Paul J. Gutman Library, Room 111
(215)951-6332
wiemerk@philau.edu
http://www.philau.edu/ITS (click on IT@PhilaU for archives)
http://staff.philau.edu/wiemerk