ATRC @ Palomar College: NewsWe are consolidating this blog into our departmental blog called Academic Technology @ Palomar College, or AT@PC for short. Therefore, this will be the final post in this blog. We will leave it up for a while, then delete the blog. There will not be a formal redirector. The new blog is at:
http://www2.palomar.edu/pages/atrc/
We hope you will join us there.
Join the Academic Technology staff for the fourth annual Summer Tech Camp, being held this year from August 1–4, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. each day in room LL-109 on the ground floor of the San Marcos campus library. Read more here…
We have developed our training schedule for fall 2011. Descriptions of the workshops—online and in person—can be found at http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/attraining.htm. A tabular schedule can be found at http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/attrainingschedule.htm.
We will have the Blackboard system down June 2-3 to do system updates. We will be applying service pack 5, which will fix the item copy problem, among others. Mark your calendars. Blackboard will not be available on those days.
When content items that include file attachments are copied or moved from one course to another using the copy item tool the files are not accessible to students. The copied files continue to work for the instructor.
This problem will be fixed after the end of this semester, at our next scheduled Blackboard system upgrade, but for the remainder of the semester (or if you are preparing summer or spring classes early) please be aware of this issue. To fix it, delete the copied item and upload the original to the course area in question. Click here for more information.
Blackboard has released a fix for the YouTube mashup problem in our implementation of Blackboard and we have applied the fix to our production system. Starting today, February 10, we have re-enabled the mashup tool in Blackboard and you no longer need to use the Object Code embed method to embed YouTube videos in Blackboard.
While the semester has begun well with the new version of Blackboard, there are several issues that have caused problems for instructors and which require workarounds until Blackboard can get them fixed. There are three in particular:
1. The course copy tool is not working correctly. If you have copied a course in its entirety on the Bb 9.1 system chances are that the links to files and other resources in your course will not work correctly for the students in the target course. The reason is that the links all point back to the files in the original course. This is a known Bb error that was supposed to have been fixed in the version we are using (9.1, SP3, but was not). The symptom is that when students click on links they get an access denied or no permissions error. The quick workaround is to delete the defective link and upload the file to the target course.
2. Instructors grading items in the grade center using IE 8 are getting access denied or no permission errors. The grading actually works, but the error message they receive is confusing. The quick and easy workaround until Bb gets this one fixed is to use Firefox rather than IE 8.
3. This issue developed after the semester began. The YouTube mashup tool is not working. Rather, it returns an error message from YouTube. This is true whether you search by keyword or search for a specific URL. The quick workaround is to use the old Object embed code, and embed YouTube videos in the same way as in Bb version 8. Here is a screen video that explains the problem and fix, with a warning about not using iframe embeds.
We have requested that Bb fix these problems, and will report to the community when they do. In the mean time please use the workarounds. If you have questions call our tech support at (760) 744-1140 ext. 2862.
We had overflow crowds for all three of our part-time faculty plenary events on January 13. David Gray presented “New to Nine,” for faculty members who were aware that a new version of Blackboard was being implemented this semester, but had not yet learned exactly how to use it. Chris Norcorss presnented “Blackboard Essentials” for those not yet using Blackboard, or those just starting out. And Haydn Davis, Terry Gray and David Gray presented AT@PC, or Academic Technology at Palomar College, during the evening breakout session. A summary of that breakout, for those unable to attend, can be found here.
Thanks to all who attended our 2011 Winter Tech Camp. The camp was held from January 3-6, and was well attended by enthusiastic faculty members busily mastering the new Blackboard 9.1 system. We appreciate the effort made by faculty to attend during intersession “down time.”
At this point, if you will be teaching using Blackboard during the spring semester, and have not yet received training, please call the Academic Technology help line, (760) 744-1150 ext. 2862 to arrange personal training. For those wishing to deepen their knowledge of the new system, we will be offering a series of workshops this semester, beginning on January 14. See our training schedule for details. Sign up for PD credit through the PD office web site.
We have been producing screencasts and tutorials lately on academic uses of Office 2010 and the new Blackb0ard version 9.1. Here are links to some of the latest:
Office 2010
Using Quick Parts in Outlook (and Word) 2010
Using the Navigation Pane in Word 2010
How to Make a PDF Document from an Office 2010 Application
How to Embed PowerPoint and Excel from MS Web Apps
Blackboard 9.1
How to Create/Control URL (“external”) Links in Blackboard 9
How to Use Learning Modules in Bb 9
How to Use the Slideshare Mashup Tool in Bb 9
How to Use the Wimba Voice Authoring Tool in Bb 9
For more, and for the latest, visit our web site and look in the sidebar titled “Our Latest Screencasts” and “Latest Help Documents:”
