Friday, December 19, 2014

Preparing your ANGEL Courses for the Winter/Spring Semester

As you start to think about your winter or spring face-to-face courses, we wanted to share with you the following important information that will help you prepare your course site in ANGEL.

Please review the “Preparing your ANGEL Course for a New Semester” checklist for directions on getting your course site set up for a new semester.

If you have any questions, please contact us at angel@northshore.edu.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

iDevelop – NSCC’s Faculty Profession​al Developmen​t eNewslette​r (12/15/201​4)

Welcome to iDevelop, a weekly eNewsletter providing faculty with information about professional development opportunities at NSCC. The intent of this eNewsletter is to spotlight the various professional development events for faculty in one convenient location as well as share best practices, resources and tips related to the teaching practice. iDevelop is being brought to you by Academic Technology and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. 

20 Minute Online Professional Development

The Monday Morning Mentor series, professional development in twenty minute snippets, will kick off the spring semester on January 26, 2015 with What Kinds of Questions Encourage Student Interaction? More information will be available in an upcoming issue of iDevelop.

Other Professional Development Opportunities

To stay current on professional development opportunities offered by Instructional Technology over the winter break and during the spring semester, be sure to:
  • Read the Learning, Education, Technology and Support (LETS) Blog at http://nscclets.blogspot.com/. ITD’s goal with this blog is to provide an informative and useful resource for faculty and staff by highlighting events, spotlighting projects, and presenting current information around instructional technology while also providing a growing pool of resources, recommendations, tools, and materials for teaching and learning purposes.
        
  • "Like" the North Shore Community College Academic Technology Page on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/myNSCC.acadtech. On the Academic Technology Facebook page, AT provides information about upcoming professional development opportunities, links to interesting articles on integrating technology into the teaching and learning environment, and presents tips on using the various instructional technology resources.
This will be the last issue of iDevelop for the fall semester. We will publish the first one of the spring semester on January 19, 2015. We hope you have enjoyed this weekly eNewsletter and would love your input. Please let us know if you have any feedback on the format, content, and resources or if there is anything else you would like to see in the eNewsletter.

Thank you,
Academic Technology and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

iDevelop – NSCC’s Faculty Profession​al Developmen​t eNewslette​r (12/8/201​4)

Welcome to iDevelop, a weekly eNewsletter providing faculty with information about professional development opportunities at NSCC. The intent of this eNewsletter is to spotlight the various professional development events for faculty in one convenient location as well as share best practices, resources and tips related to the teaching practice.

20 Minute Online Professional Development: Where Can I Find Flippable Moments in My Classes?
The Monday Morning Mentor series will be available over the fall semester to bring you professional development in twenty minute snippets. The topic for the week of December 8th is Where Can I Find Flippable Moments in My Classes?

The presentation is available Monday at 10:00am and is accessible through Sunday of that week. For information on accessing the presentation and supplemental materials, please view the email version of iDevelop or the Bulletin notice.

More information about this session (including description, topics, and learning goals) is available at http://www.magnapubs.com/online/mentor/where-can-i-find-flippable-moments-in-my-classes-11979-1.html.

Other Professional Development Opportunities
  1. ALL INTERESTED NSCC FACULTY: Are you interested in taking a graduate course locally and tuition-free? By virtue of the CTLA's partnership with Merrimack College's Community Engagement graduate program, we can send one faculty member to take a course tuition-free from Merrimack College's graduate education catalog or a course in the Child, Family and Community Studies bachelor's program. Check out the offerings in the two respective areas online, and if you're ready to make that commitment to continuous learning, contact Rebecca in the CTLA. We'll give the voucher to the first person who chooses a course and contacts us. And we'll announce the lucky learner in the next installment of iDevelop!
Share your Teaching Strategies
Please send your teaching strategies to itd@northshore.edu and we will share them in the upcoming issues of iDevelop.  

Resources
iDevelop is being brought to you by Academic Technology and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.  If you have any professional development events, best practices, resources or tips to share with other faculty, please send them our way.  Also, we would love your input on this eNewsletter.

Thank you,
Academic Technology and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Course Migration from ANGEL to Blackboard Learn

As part of the implementation of Blackboard Learn, Instructional Technology and Design will be migrated over ANGEL course sites to Blackboard Learn for faculty. The content (including files, pages, announcements, discussion forums, drop box activities, and tests) from an ANGEL course site will easily migrated over to Blackboard Learn. 

The following points outline what faculty will see when they open their migrated course site in Blackboard Learn. 

  • All content in the Lessons tab (ANGEL) will go into a content area called Content (Blackboard Learn).
  • A syllabus uploaded in the Syllabus nugget on the course home page (ANGEL) will go into an area called Information (Blackboard Learn).
  • All discussion forums (ANGEL) will go into the Discussion Board tool page (Blackboard Learn) and will also be linked from the appropriate content folder.
  • Any private journal discussions (ANGEL) will go into the Journals tool page (Blackboard Learn) and will also be linked from the appropriate content folder.
  • Announcements (ANGEL) will go into the Announcements tool page (Blackboard Learn).
  • Drop Box assignments (ANGEL) will be recreated as Assignments in a content area called Content  within the appropriate content folder (Blackboard Learn).
  • Quizzes, tests, surveys, and question pools (ANGEL) will migrate over to the Tests, Surveys, and Pools course tools area (Blackboard Learn) as well as be deployed within the appropriate content folder.
  • Any gradable item (ANGEL) will be set up in the Full Grade Center (Blackboard Learn).
  • Any teams (ANGEL) will be set up in the Groups area of the Control Panel (Blackboard Learn).
  • Any rubrics (ANGEL) will be set up in the Rubrics course tools area (Blackboard Learn).

Here are some things to be aware of with the course migration.

  • Student data: No student data is brought over with the course migration - just the course content.
  • First name token: This will not work in  Blackboard Learn and any references to $FIRST_NAME$ will need to be removed.  
  • Subtitles: There are no subtitles for content items in Blackboard so any subtitles used in an ANGEL course will not carry over to Blackboard. If subtitles were used, here are some recommendations:
    • For assignment and discussion due dates, please use the due date feature within the Assignments and Discussion Board tools or add into the Calendar.
    • For instructions, please use the text box editor for the item in Blackboard Learn to enter those instruction materials.
    • For other types of subtitles, consider including them in the title field (for example, Syllabus: Start Here).
  • Assessments: Algorithmic questions in tests might not import correctly during the course migration. If so, these types of questions would need to be recreated manually.
  • Agents: There are no agents in Blackboard Learn.  
    • If agents were used in ANGEL to release content, the Adaptive Release feature of Blackboard Learn can be used.  
    • If agents were used to automatically send email to students based on a certain condition, there is, unfortunately, no corresponding feature in Blackboard Learn. But there are various ways to easily see students’ progress and email them.
  • Games: Games (crossword puzzle or quiz show) will not migrate over since there is no corresponding feature in Blackboard Learn.
  • Resources and RSS Feeds: Course resources or RSS feeds added in the Resources tab will not migrate over to Blackboard Learn. Course resources can be set up as Web Links in Blackboard Learn.
  • Learning Objects Repository: Items linked into a course from the Learning Objects Repository in ANGEL will not migrate over to Blackboard Learn. These items can be stored in the Content Collection in Blackboard Learn and then linked into the course.

If there are any questions about the migration, please email the NSCC Blackboard Learn Helpdesk at bbhelp@northshore.edu.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

iDevelop – NSCC’s Faculty Profession​al Developmen​t eNewslette​r (12/1/201​4)

Welcome to iDevelop, a weekly eNewsletter providing faculty with information about professional development opportunities at NSCC. The intent of this eNewsletter is to spotlight the various professional development events for faculty in one convenient location as well as share best practices, resources and tips related to the teaching practice.

20 Minute Online Professional Development: How Can I Design Copyright Compliant Online Courses?
The Monday Morning Mentor series will be available over the fall semester to bring you professional development in twenty minute snippets. The topic for the week of December 1st is How Can I Design Copyright Compliant Online Courses?

The presentation is available Monday at 10:00am and is accessible through Sunday of that week. For information on accessing the presentation and supplemental materials, please view the email version of iDevelop or the Bulletin notice.
Other Professional Development Opportunities
  1. ALL INTERESTED NSCC FACULTY are warmly invited to attend a presentation by Lucy Bayard on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in the CTLA (Danvers, DB 388) THIS THURSDAY, December 4th. Refreshments will be served starting at 2PM, and the presentation will begin at 2:30PM. Come meet with Lucy, a wise and warm campus innovator, and learn techniques about how to optimize the learning experience for ALL of your students, regardless of learning style or challenges.
  2. All interested NSCC faculty are also welcome at the Saturday, December 6th Professional Development morning. You will learn about the latest news from Disability Services, and learn about NCBI. What an informative and transformative morning! Coffee and every treat you can think of served prior to the 9AM start; the morning wraps up at noon.

    Please contact Rebecca in the CTLA to RSVP to both or either event!
Share your Teaching Strategies
Do you have questions about using certain outside resources and materials in your courses?  Please send us your questions to itd@northshore.edu and we will do our best to answer them in the upcoming issues of iDevelop

Resources
iDevelop is being brought to you by Academic Technology and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.  If you have any professional development events, best practices, resources or tips to share with other faculty, please send them our way.  Also, we would love your input on this eNewsletter.

Thank you,
Academic Technology and the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment