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PowerPoint 2010: Audio and Video in Depth

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Watch the video trailer

In PowerPoint 2010: Audio and Video in Depth, Alicia Katz Pollock shows how to integrate and enhance video and audio to create a more engaging PowerPoint presentation. The course emphasizes the technical details necessary to make a multimedia presentation work: from working with appropriate file formats, to compressing video, to reducing the file size of multimedia presentations for sharing. Exercise files are included with the course.

Watch today at www.elon.edu/lynda.

Duration: 04h 38m

 

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University’s cell phone photography class teaches more than just how to take pretty pictures

A new cell phone photography class at Immaculata University, a suburban Philadelphia university, focuses on both the quality of the images and the ethical responsibilities that come with taking and publishing them. Read more of this article from the StarTribune.com and consider how you have been using images and where you have posted them.

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Blackboard Learn Upgrade: The Grade Center

The Blackboard Learn Grade Center is more than just a way to record students’ grades; it is a dynamic and interactive tool. The Grade Center can record data, monitor student progress and communicate information to students. Use this valuable tool to help understand student progress and make informed decisions on how to improve educational performance.

Grade Center Enhancements

  • Creating and taking Tests have several enhancements to reduce errors and increase efficiency.
    • Test-takers are reminded to submit answers before they are allowed to leave a test.
    • Random Blocks and Question Sets are both available for instructors to add groups of questions to tests. Random Blocks pull questions into a test from a pool based on certain criteria. They are dynamic and reflect changes to the question pool. Question Sets are static and are made up of specific questions selected to be in the Question Set used in the Test.
    • Question and response statistics are displayed for each question on the Assessments Attempts page.
  • The Grade Center has been enhanced to improve grading efficiencies and reduce errors.
    • Instructors are prompted to save or delete specific Grade Center columns when deleting a Group with gradable Blogs, Journals, Wikis, or Discussion Forums or Threads.
    • Instructors navigating away and then back to the Grade Center in one login session are returned to the last scroll point they   viewed or graded in the grid.www.blackboard.com
    • Instructors can color code Grade Center cells that meet certain criteria such as grade threshold, exempted grade and so on. This new feature helps instructors spot trends and action areas in large Grade Centers.

Additional Grade Center Resources

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Blackboard Learn Upgrade: Blogs, Wikis, and Journals

This week’s topic highlights the addition of blogs, wikis, and journals in the new Blackboard Learn. When used together, these tools allow students collaborate, share information with their classmates, and post private information seen only by the instructor. Learn more about each tool below and how you can integrate them into your course.

Blackboard Blogs

A blog is a collaborative collection of information, similar to an online discussion board. Collaboration occurs as entries from multiple people collect in one place, but each participant’s entry is only editable by that person.

  • What we did / will do in class” — created by the instructor, but students can comment. It saves instructor the time it takes to answer the question for multiple students, one by one, via Email.
  • If a classroom activity isn’t tied to a particular assignment, this can be a simple way to have your students hand in their work for “Class Participation” points. Then they can easily look at each others’ work, too.
  • Students could enter their “muddiest points” of what was covered in class. Then they and the instructor can see all the entries and know whether there is a trend or not.
  • Have an online discussion about a topic. Students who don’t usually participate verbally in class have a safe place to express their views.
  • When the blog is embedded in Blackboard, participants can find it easily and the grades are automatically entered into the Bb Grade Center. It is also shielded from the outside world, which can be considered both a plus and a minus.

Blackboard Wikis

A Wiki is a Web page(s) where people can work collaboratively. The most common example is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone in the world to contribute content to it. What makes a wiki unique is that multiple participants can edit the same page, and everyone can view it. The instructor can access the Wiki content and collaborate, too.

  • Allow groups to coordinate projects easily without the usual scheduling hassles of meeting in person.
  • Let the whole class access create/complete a study guide for the next test.
  • When the Wiki is embedded in Blackboard, participants can find it easily and the grades are automatically entered into the Bb Grade Center. It is also shielded from the outside world, which can be considered both a plus and a minus.

Blackboard Journals

A journal is an online diary which contains entries that normally only the individual student and the instructor can access. The privacy factor and the separate individual entries makes the journal different from a blog or a wiki. Journals are also indexed weekly or monthly.

Journals have two prime uses — as a personal writing space and as a private communication tool with the instructor. The most common use of a journal is as a private diary to share and store personal reflections. When the journal is embedded in Blackboard, participants can find it easily and the grades are automatically entered into the Bb Grade Center. It is also shielded from the outside world, which can be considered both a plus and a minus.

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Blackboard Learn Upgrade: The Course Environment

Blackboard Learn is coming December 22, 2010. This week’s post highlights some of the changes to the course environment within the Blackboard Learn interface.  The redesigned interface decreases the number of clicks, adds drag and drop functionality, and an edit button that allows you to quickly switch between instructor view and student view.

Here are a few course environment enhancements we think will improve your experience in Blackboard.

Fewer Clicks Everywhere
Users will enjoy using fewer clicks to navigate the system and complete tasks.

Reorganization of Course Management Actions
Course Management features, such as the Control Panel and action bars, have been re-organized to align with the day-to-day tasks performed by instructors, increasing efficiency and becoming more task-appropriate.

Edit in Place
The ability to easily edit the course menu and switch back and forth between student and instructor view saves time. Instructors also no longer need to switch to a separate control panel to perform course editing functions.

Course Pages
Courses can have a start page that provides a portal like environment with various modules, instead of the typical announcements list.  Items such as announcements, what’s new, calendar, and tasks as well as other modules can appear on the course home page.

Easily Accessible Control Panel
All options in the Control Panel are now available from the main course menu. Instructors no longer have to navigate to a separate area of the course to access these options.

In-line Add, Edit, and Drag and Drop
In-line actions and drag and drop results in quicker Course Menu set up and management; instructors no longer have to navigate to multiple areas of the course to access these controls and they can complete each action with fewer clicks.

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