OIT-ELN Blog Project

e-Learning Snippets, Tips and Workshops

• OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW. Welcome back, faculty. Now that Spring Term 2010 is up and running on Blackboard-CE6, we will be archiving Spring Term 2009 and removing the year-old courses to make more room for future courses. If you wish to save any courses or course materials from Spring Term 2009, please copy them into master copies or back-up and download a copy on your office computer. To request a master copy, just complete this online form: http://eln.deltastate.edu/forms/master_copy.htm. We will begin removing Spring 2009 courses from server on January 18, and plan to complete the removal by January 29.
• IT’S 2010… AND TIME TO EVOLVE. Not everyone can take a trip to Jupiter and become an energy-based life form, but you can still evolve a little right here on Earth, right here at Delta State—and in just a few hours a month! The Office of Instructional Technology is offering faculty a higher plane of existence this year through software training and electronically mediated experiences designed to make instructors savvier, hipper, and more efficient. Just ask your savvier, hipper, and more efficient colleagues; they love instructional technology workshops. Geek is the new sage. Listed below are the workshops offered in January. Please visit http://eln.deltastate/edu/workshops.htm for a narrative description of the workshops offered as well as meeting dates and times; there’s a convenient sign-up form, too.
• ONE-ON-ONES AND SMALL-GROUPS FOR EVERYONE. If you’re a DSU faculty member and your schedule is such that you cannot attend the OIT-ELN workshops you want to attend, you can always set up a one-on-one or small-group session for training. Don’t hesitate to contact us for all your instructional technology training needs. We’re happy to come to your offices and classrooms—whatever it takes to tame the technology so the education can get underway. To set up a customized one-on-one or group session, contact Susan Hines at: shines@deltastate.edu.
• CAN’T GET ANYTHING DONE IN YOUR OFFICE? Come over to ours! The OIT Lab in Bailey Hall is first and foremost a faculty lab, reserved for faculty every day from 8 am to 12 noon. It’s also populated with knowledgeable, sympathetic, and entertaining staffers to help you with instructional design, technology and training issues. In addition, we have a Podcast Studio, which faculty can reserve to develop and post-produce audio and video. Our Lab and Podcast Studio is equipped with industry-standard software for online test creation, web design, podcasting, screencasting, video capture, and image, audio and video editing. We also loan out new media equipment, including e-readers (Kindles), AVI camcorders (Flip cameras), MP3 players/recorders (iRivers and Trios), still cameras (Canon ELPHs), and digital headsets (Plantronics). For more information about the Lab and to check out new media equipment, visit http://eln.deltastate.edu/lab.htm.
• WHERE OH WHERE IS BLACKBOARD 9? It’s coming, folks, but we are waiting for Blackboard, Inc. to improve upon their system before we upgrade Blackboard-CE6 and migrate all of DSU’s course content to a new course management system. The current version of Blackboard 9 omits some key features that many of you use in Blackboard-CE6, such as the content modules. We are hoping that Blackboard’s version 9.2 will be more to our liking, and should know more about the new system and our course migration trajectory around April or May of this year. Stay tuned.

Workshops for Faculty

Instructional technology workshops are offered in the OIT Lab in Bailey Hall 114. Each workshop is limited to 8
participants. To sign up for a session, go to: http://eln.deltastate.edu/workshops.htm.

• Tuesday, 1/19, 12-2 pm
  ELN 101: Teaching Online with Blackboard-CE6
• Thursday, 1/21, 12-2 pm
  ELN 103: An Introduction to Web Design
• Monday, 1/25, 2-4 pm
  ELN 104: Graphic Imaging for the WWW
• Wednesday, 1/27, 2-4 pm
  ELN 101: Teaching Online with Blackboard-CE6
• Friday, 1/29, 8-10 am
  ELN 105: Configuring Your Virtual Desktop

Volume 4, Issue 1.1-2. The OIT-ELN Bi-Monthly is published by the Office of Instructional Technology’s Electronic Learning Network. For additional information contact Dr. Susan Hines, Director of Instructional Technology (shines@deltastate.edu or x4038). Find the “blogged” back issues at http://eln.deltastate.edu/wordpress.