Oct. (already!) Online Ed News You Can Use

Opportunities to Earn Flex Credit

  • Oct. 8, 5:30-6:50 pm, Karen Korstad will run an online workshop on the Blackboard Discussion Board. Sign up via MyFlex.
  • Oct. 9, 8:30 am – 3:30 pm, San Diego CC District is hosting a Distance Learning Summit. See event page and program. The morning features a variety of instructor-led sessions; the afternoon includes a presentation of Canvas and a comparison of Blackboard and Canvas. Breakfast and lunch are included. If you would like to attend all or part of the day, please email me your interest ASAP as SDCCD wants attendee names in advance.
  • Two four-week (Oct. 19-Nov. 13) @One online classes (Designing Effective Online Assessments and Creating Accessible Online Documents) are being run regionally through Grossmont-Cuyamaca and they have invited our participation (at no cost). Please email me ASAP if you are interested.

Student Success Resources to Share with All Students

  • How to Get the Most Out of Studying video series – 6 videos, each about 7 minutes long
  • MiraCosta’s Library iQ Information Literacy tutorial
  • OEI’s interactive tutorials on student success – 11 interactive modules on a variety of topics, some specific to online learning and some more general. Each is under 15 minutes

And as midterms approach, please share MiraCosta’s free online tutoring, online writing support, and 24×7 Ask-A-Librarian (under Ask Us) services.

Blackboard notes

  • If you use percentage Weighted Total or Calculated Total in the Blackboard grade center, you may have noticed a lot (5) of decimal places being displayed. Rest assured that your students still see just 2 decimal places. Blackboard will fix this for the instructor view in an upcoming release.
  • Next summer, Blackboard is retiring its Voice Authoring tools, many of which have become unusable. In its place we will be looking at VoiceThread as a replacement – this is a much more modern tool for creating multimedia-rich online discussions, including easy student inclusion of their own video or audio. More info coming soon.
  • If you are experiencing difficulties using Google Chrome with Blackboard, you’re not alone. Most of Blackboard still works fine with Chrome, but if you’re having problems, try another browser.

Two Final Fall Student Orientation to Online Learning Sessions

… on Oct. 19 and 20. See TASC’s site for details.

Did you know you can review previous editions of Online Ed. News You Can Use?

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education

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