Practice using Elluminate

Elluminate is a live web conferencing tool available to all faculty and staff members within the community and technical college system. Come practice with colleagues in a casual setting. These sessions, led by Ann Garnsey-Harter and Larry Cheng of Shoreline Community College and Scott Dennis of the State Board, are open to all interested parties.

Connect from your computer, contact Cascadia's eLearning Department for the link!

Then all you will have to do is enter your name - you do not need a password to participate.

Tuesday, Dec 1st, Noon- 1 PM
Tuesday, Dec 7th, 2-3 PM
Thursday Dec 16th, 11:30-12:30 PM
Monday, Dec 20th, Noon-1 PM

YouTube Videos and Tegrity

YouTube Videos and Tegrity

Scenario: While recording in Tegrity you play a YouTube Video, MP3 file or other audio output but the sound isn’t recorded on the Tegrity recording.
Problem: Tegrity can only record from one audio source at a time and the source that it is usually recording is your microphone. So, it does not record the internal audio of your video.
Solution: The easy solution is to hold your microphone to your speakers to capture the audio. However, you might find this awkward. Alternately, there are software and device options that will help convert this output audio into the input for the recording.

For PC Users:

• Here is a link to a third-party application for Windows: http://www.actualsolution.com/
• Here is a freeware solution from another vendor: http://www.topshareware.com/free-windows-sound-mixer/downloads/1.htm
• And here is information on the built-in functionality in Windows Vista: http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Windows-Vista-Volume-Mixer-41882.shtml

For Mac Users:

• Download the software called SoundFlower http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower

Devices (Mixers):

• http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/421979-REG/Behringer_502_XENYX_502_Compact.html
• http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/294026-REG/Samson_SASMIX.html
• This one is the most computer friendly as it has a USB output for the computer. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/678867-REG/Pyle_Pro_PAD10_PAD10MXU_2_Channel_Mixer_and.html

Top 100 Tools for Learning (Presentation)

Top100 Tools for Learning 2010

View more presentations from Jane Hart.

Course/Instructor Evaluations

Course/Instructor Evaluations (CIEs) start this Monday, November 22 and are open until Friday December 10, 2010. Please post this link for your students on your Angel site so they have the opportunity to fill out the CIE. The software has been updated and the link inside looks a bit different but once inside the questions and statements are all the same. There is a Thank you page at the end if you should need the students to send you that page.

Instructions for Students:

Course/Instructor Evaluations
Dates: November 22, 2010 thru December 10, 2010

Assessment is an integral part of your learning experience and growth, assessment is an equally important part of my growth as a teacher. Please take the time to provide me with an honest assessment of your experience in this class. The process will take 5 minutes or so.

To assess my teaching, please follow these steps:

1. Open Internet Explorer (Do not use any other browser)
2. Go to: http://assessment.cascadia.edu
3. *Enter your SID and Pin #
4. Select the class from the drop down menu
5. Click on the Start Evaluation button
6. Fill out and submit the survey

*Your SID # is only used to verify what classes you are taking this quarter, it does not tie you to the assessment in any way—your confidentiality is ensured.
*Your SID # is your student identification number and the Pin # is your birthdate.
(month-day-year) example: 081182

Thank you for taking your time to fill out this assessment!

Doom and gloom

The final presentation is from Jean Floten, president of Bellevue College. This is the doom and gloom presentation that is graphically explaining the new normal:

• dramatically reduced funding
• what funding there is is earmarked so colleges have less flexibility in meeting locally identified 
• no new buildings anywhere for 10 - 15 years
• foundations setting priorities and driving agendas through funding
• concern about freezing out poor people from higher education
• Universities took big hits in the last round and they may be arguing that it is the community college's turn
• new legislature will make it harder to meet CC priorities
• transfer agreements with UW may result in a reduction of the students being able to transfer in.

She recommended that, even in these grim times, we look to the future and engage in systems thinking.

The musings of a futurist

The next speaker, Dan Rasmus, is a futurist and a fellow at Bellevue College. He started by asking people to step away from the assumption of completion. He argues that, in a knowledge economy, completion is not what students are hiring us for (noting that he does not reject the idea of students as customer). This is interesting since the last speaker said that we should't fool ourselves into thinking that many students come to college not seeking completion and if they don't complete we are failing them.

I'm not sure what the takeaway is from this presentation. Isn't that often the case with presentations like this?  He asked several interesting questions, but I didn't really hear any answers. There certainly wasn't anything I can take back to my office and improve the way I do things.

Analytics

Dr. Baer is still talking about stuff. She's now onto trends to watch.  One that is particularly interesting to me is the use of analytics to improve student success. Analytics is what sites like Amazon use to figure out what book you'd like to buy.  This idea is fascinating to me and one that I plan to watch closely in the future. The cool thing is that there is stuff we could be doing now - ANGEL collects an amazing amount of data that we could be using to track and predict and help students to succeed.

Competition for grants is the new normal

Listening to another presentation on the "New Normal".  The presenter, Dr. Linda Baer from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, started with a reference to Shift Happens, a You Tube video that talks about the rapid pace of change.

she notes that even with the high unemployment, millions of jobs are going unfilled because there are not enough trained workers. This is a big opportunity for us, but also shows that we aren't really doing our jobs. Lots of students who are coming through the door are not completing, those who are completing are not the diverse people we need in our workforce. Employers are having to do a lot of training for entry level workers.

Skills for America's Future is a program with $2 billion in grants for community colleges to compete for. Also lots of money from the Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, etc. Sounds like grant writing is something we need to be really good at!

Dr. Baer noted that Washington is innovative and has continued to be innovative and that we need to really hang on to innovation to be successful in the future.

So, what I'm taking away from this is that there are giant problems, we will continue to have reduced resources (that is the new normal - we're not going back to the way things used to be) and we will need to compete vigorously to survive.

The New Normal

Today I am at the Association conference, listening to a variety of presentations on the "new normal". Charlie Earle, the head of the SBCTC, is speaking now. He's noted that our colleges are mobile and agile, but have to realize that constant change is the path of the future and the key to staying in the good graces of the legislature. It is also making our system a model nationally.

On budgets, Earle expects to be cut for the next 3 years, but thinks that, relative to other organizations, it won't be as bad, based on our good reputation with the legislature and our ability to be responsive to change and the needs of our constituents.