Announcing Atomic Learning - Online Technology Training Tutorials

North Shore Community College is dedicated to ensuring that all learners have the 21st century technology skills needed for today's world.  That is why Instructional Technology and Design is pleased to announce Atomic Learning, a new online, on-demand training and professional development resource that will provide faculty, staff, and students 24/7 access to over 50,000 technology training tutorials. 

What is Atomic Learning?
Atomic Learning is an online technology and software tutorial service.  Through Atomic Learning, you can view short, easy-to-understand video tutorials to get just-in-time answers to your “how do I do that?” questions by clearly demonstrating how to accomplish specific tasks in over 200 software applications and technologies, such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suites, ANGEL, Google Apps, Windows and Apple operating systems, Web 2.0 tools and iDevices.  Or you can view a series of videos to learn an entire software application.  In addition to the technology training how-to tutorials, Atomic Learning also includes workshops on a variety of technology topics, such as avoiding plagiarism, computer literacy basics, using Microsoft Word to create MLA or APA citations, being an effective online student, Web 2.0, and effective presentation design. 

These online training tutorials are:

• Available on demand 24/7 on and off campus.
• Open to all NSCC students, faculty and staff.
• Answers to many of the common "how do I do that" technology questions.
• Expansive and includes many software programs and technologies such as Microsoft Office, Adobe, Windows and Apple operating systems, Web 2.0 tools, Google Apps, and iDevices.
• Easy to access by logging in with your Pipeline username and password.
• Easy to search using keywords, specific applications, versions, and/or platforms.
• Easy to share with direct links through email or in ANGEL to support necessary software or technical skills.
• Available on an iPad.

How do I access Atomic Learning?
Atomic Learning is available on and off campus and can be accessed through NSCC's portal, Pipeline, by clicking on the My Course tab – just look for the channel called Technology Training Tutorials - Learning Made Easy. Click on the Atomic Learning web site link and enter your Pipeline username and password.  Atomic Learning can also be accessed on an iPad.  Just download the app at the App Store. You will need to use your full NSCC email address as your username.

How do I log in?
From Pipeline (My Courses - Technology Training Tutorials), just log in with your Pipeline username and password.  If you are using the Atomic Learning iPad app, you will need to use your NSCC email address as your username.

How can it be used to support teaching and learning?
Atomic Learning can be used in a variety of ways to support the teaching and learning environment.  Here are just a few ideas.

• The how-to tutorials provide visual step-by-step directions on how to perform functions with a variety of software applications which can supplement and enhance the instruction of those software applications.
• The how-to tutorials can enable students to learn the necessary technology needed to be successful in their classes.
• The how-to tutorials can serve as a resource to support students in completing projects that utilize technology by providing directions and answering questions.
• The technology workshops can provide multimedia materials to aid faculty in infusing 21st century skills into the curriculum.

We are delighted to present this resource to the NSCC community and hope that you will take advantage of it with your students or for your own professional development!  If you have questions  about Atomic Learning or need assistance in using it, please contact us at itd@northshore.edu.

Have you viewed any of the tutorials or workshops in Atomic Learning?  Did you find them helpful?  How might you see these being used to support students?

MOOCS and Beyond: My Experience

Well, I have to admit the MOOC course wasa worthwhile endeavor.  While I participated in many of the activities, I did not complete the course.

It was a great way to learn about the subject matter (“Exploring Irish Identity”). I was able to experience various aspects of Irish Identity, including: History, Literature, Film, GAA, Art, Music, etc.

Offering free courses via the MOOC format is an opportunity to broaden your knowledge at no financial cost to you. The only thing you will spend is your time.  You can check out the range of MOOCs available across the Internet at the MOOC List website.

The course ran for 8 weeks and began about 5 weeks before my trip.  What I found is that before I took my trip to Ireland, I was dedicated to completing the course.  I would log in when I could, listen to the lectures, complete the discussion boards and do the quizzes.  While some days I wouldn’t be able to do the necessary assignments I would make sure to catch up when I did have the time. Through this, I learned a great deal about Ireland and its Identity.  However, once I was in Ireland I did not have access to WiFi and couldn’t get online. Many of the things I learned about in the course made me have a better experience.  I heard about the great many literary figures from Ireland and was able to see where some were born.  I heard wonderful Irish music and appreciated where some of it originated. I would see the GAA advertised in the different pubs and know what it was all about. I saw where the great Irish song, “Danny Boy” was written. 

Once I returned from the trip, my interest dimmed though.  I found the desire to complete the course was not there.  What I have determined was that a MOOC course is very beneficial as long as you have the time and desire to learn the subject matter.

Go ahead, find one that interests you and go for it!!

MOOC, MOOC, and more MOOC

I guess that is the buzz lately. What is a MOOC and what is it all about and is it a worthwhile endeavor?

According to Wikipedia: "A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and TAs. MOOCs are a recent development in distance education.

I have been hearing about MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) a lot lately.  There seem to be pros and cons and I wanted to find out more about it.

What a coincidence to see that Hibernian College in Dublin was offering a MOOC course in “Exploring Irish Identity”.  It just so happened that I visited Ireland in July and to explore my Irish Identity.  It seems like destiny!

I joined the course and found it amazing when I saw where the enrolled students were from.  It was truly a massive course with countries like Tanzania, Netherlands, Canada and Belgium represented, just to name a few.  I look forward to reporting back on my experience.  But it's great to see that there are such a variety of MOOCs out there to learn just about anything. 

Have you tried a MOOC?  What was the subject?  What was the experience?  

Locating and Evaluating Open Educational Resources

This blog feature was originally featured in NSCC Technology Across the Curriculum's annual publication: Mousetales.

Many faculty are looking to open educational resources to provide students with engaging and interactive multimedia resources or offer students low-cost quality content and materials that are alternatives to high-cost textbooks.  Open educational resources are “teaching and learning materials that are available freely for anyone to use” (from the Learn about the Movement page on the OER Commons web site).  These resources can range from individual items such as syllabi, lectures, learning activities, videos, simulations, and lab exercises to complete courses or textbooks.  Even though there are a lot of benefits to using open educational resources, it is often challenging to locate relevant and appropriate quality materials due to the large amount of resources available on the web.  This post aims to provide faculty with some resources that will help them find and evaluate open educational resources. 

Directories or repositories of open educational resources are one of the best places to start when looking for these types of materials.  There are also specific repositories for subject specific open education resources as well as ones for open courses and open textbooks.   Here are a few to start with.

OER Commons
OER Commons is a collection of over 40,000 resources that can be browsed by subject area, grade level or material type.  An advance search is also available to limit a search by a variety of different criteria including subject area, material type, media type, accessibility, and conditions of use.  Many of the resources have been reviewed and rated using the Achieve OER Evaluation Rubric.  And each resource is clearly marked with the conditions of use.  

Connexions
Connexions is a project of Rice University and is “a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc.” (from the Connexions web site).  There are over 21,000 reusable modules that can be browsed by subject area or searched by keyword.  Materials found here have a Creative Commons open license that allows for free use.

MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resource for Teaching and Learning
MERLOT is a “free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy. MERLOT is a leading edge, user-centered, collection of peer reviewed higher education, online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services” (from the About Us page on the MERLOT web site).  There are currently over 40,000 learning materials that can be browsed or searched.  An advanced search is also available to limit a search by keyword, language, material type, audience, resources with peer reviews and comments, resources released under Creative Commons, are not copyrighted or have no cost associated with them.

Open educational resources can also be located through a variety of search engines such as Google.  For example, Google allows you to search for materials that have a Creative Commons license.  This short video demonstrates how easy it is to locate open educational resources that have a Creative Commons license.  Resources that can be freely used can also be found through the Creative Commons search.  This search allows you to easily locate images, music, videos, and other media that can be reused, remixed, and shared. 

The next challenge in using open educational resources is evaluating the resource to determine their usefulness and appropriateness.  The Evaluating OER Rubric is a helpful tool as it provides some basic questions to consider about an open educational resource.    

Here are a few more resources if you would like more information about open educational resources.

• Open Educational Resources Guide by George Fox University Library
• Locating, Creating, Licensing and Utilizing OERs (an open, self-paced online course by Open SUNY)
• About Creative Commons

If you want to learn more about open educational resources or would like some assistance in incorporating them into your classes, please feel free to contact the Instructional Technology and Design team at itd@northshore.edu.  We would be happy to help.

Are you already using open educational resources in your classes?  If so, how are you using them?  And what resources are you using? 

What concerns do you have over using open educational resources in your classes?

3 Steps to Video Excellence

Over the last few months I've been presenting in several classrooms where faculty were looking to introduce students to instructional technology of some sort, which usually fall into the category of digital or face-to-face presentations.  In preparing and developing for these classes, I let my mind wander a bit on how to do this in a way that balanced the students' need to understand the tools, exciting enough for them to want to use the tools, and manageable for them to actually integrate the tools.  Here is the triangulation that I developed that can be done with using nothing more than your computer (an maybe an external microphone if you don't have an internal one) and little knowledge of basic programs.  In total, this entails creating a presentation that can be engaging and easily moved into a video for later use.

This process requires 3 programs--all of which are web-based (and free).  The only obstacles are that two require registration (Google and Prezi--though if you have a North Shore Community College account that is your Google account and Prezi offers an Educational License that is free when you use your school email account) and the video can be no longer that 15 minutes.  But for videos that are going in an online environment (for either face to face or online teaching), this is good because it helps the instructor or student keep focus on what they need to communicate is a confined time.

Step 1:  Google Slides (Presentation Tool)

We're talking primarily about Google Slides here, but Powerpoint works just as well for this part.  Either way, you'll need to opt to select "Download as a Powerpoint" when you are done with the Google Presentation in order to integrate it into Prezi.   For a good primer on Google Slides, check out their help feature which has really good information.

In Google Slides, you can compose your  specific content and information.  This might include images, videos, and text.  You can think of them as your "scenes" and what you want to convey in each scene.  When completed with the content, this is also a good time to work through the presentation to get a sense of how long it will take you and the flow of it.   

Step 2:  Prezi  (Optional)
Once you have  content settled into scenes in Google Slides, you'll want to download it as a Powerpoint file (pptx).  (If you've been using Powerpoint; you are all set).  Then you'll want to go to Prezi.com and create an account.  Be sure to sign up for an educational license if you are a college student or instructor.   This will provided you with additional benefits.  Like Google, Prezi has great support and guidance for learning the tool and for something like this, you don't need to know much about Prezi beyond the basics.  

Once you have created an account, and started a new Prezi, you'll want to select the "Insert" menu and choose "Powerpoint."  You'll be given the option of how many of your slides you want to import as well as the design you want to use.  Those are aesthetic choices you will need to consider in terms of what the information is you are conveying and how it should look laid out on Prezi.  

When you have sequenced and aligned your scenes in a way that works for you, you'll want to run through the sequence from start to finish at full screen.  This will benefit you in two ways.  The first is that it will make sure everything runs smoothly.  It will also give you another opportunity to pace through it and see how it works in terms of time.  

It should be noted that this is an optional step and one that you might not be ready to tackle with your first video or two.  Prezi can be a little overwhelming if you haven't used it much or are still not comfortable with Web 2.0 tools.  However, if you're just importing your entire Powerpoint and not necessarily manipulating much of the content besides cleaning it up any glitches in the transfer, it can be easy to do in an hour or so (at least the first time).  I've added it as a step here because the moving and fading tool features allow for your Powerpoint to come alive a bit more than just a typical Powerpoint.   We'd also recommend you check out our previous post on Prezi to get a better sense if the tool if you haven't used it before.  

Step 3:  Screencast-o-matic 
 Once you have created an excellent Prezi, now you can get ready to make a video of it with the use of Screencast-O-Matic.   We're big fans here of Screencast-O-Matic as we've mentioned before. Screencast-O-matic is a free tool that only requires a brief and easy installation of a browser applet in order to run.  The program will record what's on your screen (screencast) and whatever sound you create (or you can keep it mute).  

At this point, you'll want to have a tab on your browser to open up the Screencast-O-Matic tool while also having a tab open on your browser with your Prezi that you want to record.  Set your Screencast-O-Matic to capture the full screen and then set your Prezi to full screen.  When you are ready, press the big red button on Screencast-O-Matic and begin recording.  

3 Notes about recording:

1. Don't expect to get it right the first time.  You'll probably need to restart at least once.
2. Don't aim for perfection.  Look for a conversational voice and don't worry about a few mistakes.  If you aim for perfection, you will lose your mind and lots of time trying to get it "just right."
3. Do your best to prepare a script that you work from.  This is useful not just for you to follow along but you can make the script available so that it meets accessibility requirements for your students. 

Storage
This is not so much a step but a consideration. Now that you've made a great video, the question is where to put it.  You can certainly store it in your ANGEL course.  However, I find it useful to upload it to my Google Drive and then embed it into an ANGEL page.  This allows me to also share the video out with other people and places as I see fit.  If comfortable, you can also put it on YouTube.  The one challenge if you are going to use YouTube is that you would need to create a separate account since your NSCC account can't be used for Youtube accounts. 

Here is an example of a video (also reiterating much of what's in this blog post). 

Have you tried any of these tools?  How do you like them?  What challenges have you run into?  Have you produced any interesting content that's available to see (share the link below!)?

More Infographics To Think About: Part 2

There are a lot of great infographics out there about technology and education, despite the concerns and issues that some have identified with education-based infographics.  Here are a few more to review and think about.

These two infographics look at the use of technology by college students.  The "2012 Students and Technology" infographic is based on an annual survey of undergraduate students by EDUCAUSE and presents information on student technology ownership and student uses of technology in their college experiences.

Click to see full graphic. Source: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1208/EIG1208.pdf

 The "Technology Use on College Campuses" infographic presents similar data on how students are using technology and what their technology preferences are.

Click to see full graphic. Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/infographics/Techonology+Divide.png

These two infographics provide information on ways faculty are using social  media in the classroom.  The "Teachers' Guide to Social Media" infographic presents ideas on how social media can be used in classes to "connect, notify, teach, and currate". 

Click to see full graphic. Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/infographics/Teacher-Guide-Social-Media-800.png

The "How Today's Higher Education Faculty Use Social Media" infographic presents the results of research by Pearson Learning Solutions and Babson Survey Research Group on the various personal, professional and teaching uses of social media by faculty.

Click to see full graphic.  Source: http://www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/assets/downloads/pdfs/pearson-social-media-infographic-2012.pdf

The "Blended Learning: A Disruptive Innovation" infographic examines what blended learning is.  Even though the focus is K-12, it does provide some good background information and a general overview on blended learning models.

Click to see full graphic.  Source: http://knewton.marketing.s3.amazonaws.com/images/infographics/blended-learning.jpg

The "Status of Online Education" infographic is based on survey data from the Babson Survey Research Group and presents data on online education as seen by chief academic officers at institutions across the country.

Click to see full graphic.  Source: http://www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/assets/downloads/reports/changing-course-survey.pdf

The "Flipped Classroom" infographic presents information on what the flipped classroom model is and how it is implemented.

Click to see full graphic.  Source: http://knewton.marketing.s3.amazonaws.com/images/infographics/flipped-classroom.jpg

The "State of Digital Education" infographic looks at the impact of the Internet on education.

Click to see full graphic.  Source: http://knewton.marketing.s3.amazonaws.com/images/infographics/state-of-digital-education.jpg

And the "Envisioning the Future of Education Technology" infographic examines a variety of emerging technologies and what their impact might be on education.

Click to see full graphic.  Source: http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/envisioning-the-future-of-education-technology_50291a3e6125d.png

These are all infographics on technology and education.  What infographics are you seeing relative to your disciplines?  Do you see a use for infographics in the classroom?  Has anyone considered infographics as an output for a student research project?

Engaging Students with Web 2.0 Tools

In June, Academic Technology and the Information Technology Fluency Across the Curriculum Committee facilitated the 2nd Annual Faculty Technology Summer Institute.  15 faculty attended the Summer Institute to learn more about student-centered uses of technology in a variety of disciplines.  Several sessions focused on various Web 2.0 and instructional technology tools that could be used to engage students inside and outside of the classroom or for student-based projects or assignments that would allow students to use technology critically and creatively.
The following resources (with information to learn more) were highlighted at the Summer Institute.
Google Documents: A free online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that enables students to collaborate online in real time.  Google Documents is available to everyone at North Shore Community College.

• Using Google Documents to Foster Collaboration and Communication in the Learning Environment
• Using Google Tools to Organize Student Work

Prezi: Online software that enables students to create “visually captivating presentations”.

• Prezi Basics in 3 Lessons
• 7 Things You Should Know About Next-Generation Presentation Tools

VoiceThread:  An online program that enables students to have “conversations in the cloud” around images, documents and videos.  North Shore Community College has a departmental license to VoiceThread.  Please contact ITD if you are interested in using VoiceThread with your students.

• 7 Things You Should Know About VoiceThread
• Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement
• Using VoiceThread to Give Students a Voice Outside the Classroom

Diigo:  An online collaborative research tool that enables students to bookmark and share Web resources.

• I’m Digging Diigo; Are You?
• Classroom Collaboration Using Social Bookmarking Service Diigo
• 7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking

Screencast-o-matic:  A simple screen capture program that enables students to create online presentations with voice.

• Technology Spotlight: Screencast-o-matic
• Using Screencasting to Engage and Build Community with Online Learners
• Talking with Students through Screencasting: Experimentations with Video Feedback to Improve Student Learning

Glogster:  A Web program that enables students to create online multimedia posters.

• Glogster Step Guide

Quizlet: An online site that allows students to create and share flashcard sets.  Mobile apps are available for on-the-go studying.

• Closing in on Vocabulary Acquisition: Testing the Use of iPods and Flashcard Software to Eliminate Performance Gaps
• Revisiting Flashcards

Wordle: A web site to create word clouds to visually display prominence of words in texts.

• The Wonderful Ways of Using a Word Cloud
• Improve Writing and Reading Comprehension Using Word Clouds

Poll Everywhere: A Web-based classroom response system that allows instructors to get instant feedback from students.

• Enhancing Student Engagement with Polling

Dipity: A Web site to Create and share “interactive, visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links, and social media”.

• Dipity online tool helps tame timelines

If you are interested in learning how to integrate any of these resources into your classes, please contact us at itd@northshore.edu.

• Have you used any of these Web 2.0 tools?  If so, how are you using them to engage your students?
• What other Web 2.0 tools have you used in your classroom?  What are the benefits to using Web 2.0 tools?
• What challenges do you run into when using Web 2.0 tools?

A Guide to eContent for North Shore Community College

In addition to the eContent Fair that we had in late may, the NSCC Goverance Information Technology Committee has constructed this guide to understanding and using eContent materials at our college.  It should provide faculty with the clearest sense about how to move forward using eContent.  That being said, if you have further questions about using eContent in your class, we welcome you to contact us to talk.  

E-Books
 
Facts about purchasing e-books:
More and more students and faculty are getting on the e-book bandwagon.  The most common reason given is the reduced prices as compared to regular print books.
 
In most cases, e-text books aren’t bought so much as rented.  Often times, students only have rights to the e-book for the duration of semester or two.  In some cases, students will have rights to access the e-book until such time as a new edition is printed by the publisher.  Special allowances can sometimes be negotiated for e-books that a student will likely need throughout their college career (a nursing handbook for instance.) 

Publishing companies will offer pricing discounts on e-books based on the number of students in each class.  The more students who purchase the e-book, the lower the cost of the e-book will be.  Additionally, larger prices breaks are available if several classes or even an entire department decide to go with one e-book or a single publisher.

There are often different prices for people purchasing solely an e-book and for those purchasing the e-book along with additional online supplementary material.

The NSCC bookstore is part of consortium of college bookstores and, therefore, probably gets better prices on e-books than students buying on their own would.  

Many companies offer custom text book options.  This allows teachers to select just what they want out of a single book or allows them to combine sections of different books into one package for their students.  This can lower the cost of purchasing as the students don’t need to buy whole books when just chapters will do.

Students have the ability to download a copy of their e-text book to an e-reader such as a Kindle or an iPad.  As of right now, this type of feature is not widely possible, so most publishers encourage students to make use of an online portal. 

Facts about the nature of e-books and curriculum:
Most e-books are more than just flat text files or PDFs.  
 
Many publishers have created online course material to supplement their e-book offerings.  This supplemental material often takes the form of an internet portal.  

Students will have a username and password that they set up with which to log into the publisher’s portal.  There they may find various tools such as:

• Interactive version of the text book that allows for the insertion of student and instructor notes as well as bookmarking and highlighting
• Videos
• Interactive diagrams
• Sound recordings
• Sample test questions and guided examples
• Assignments or notes left by the professor
• Simulations and Learning Games

Professors can use the online portal to gather and track information about student use.  For instance, a professor would have the ability to see how often each student logs into the site and for how long they stay logged in.  Some publishers have even gone so far as to collect data about what sample questions students are answering correctly or incorrectly.  This could help a professor determine which content areas the class is struggling on.  

Note: Not all e-books have speech to text capability which may make accessibility an issue.  Some books will work with 3rd party accessibility software like JAWS (for more information on JAWS please contact Disability Services.)

Depending upon the publisher, some portals may interface directly with NSCC’s Learning Management System (ANGEL.)  This means that students can access the e-book materials from within an existing ANGEL course.  In virtually all cases, at a minimum, a link to the publisher’s portal can be placed within ANGEL.

Facts about e-book support:
Publishing companies provide technical support for their products to faculty and students.  There are FAQs and basic troubleshooting tutorials available 24x7 on the publishers’ websites.  Additionally, depending upon the publisher, live phone or internet chat support is available during daytime hours (for example, from 8AM – 7PM.)
 
Note:  While the college can provide instructional support, it cannot provide technical support for these online portals.

To support faculty who are making the transition to e-books, many publishers offer training videos as well as user group discussion panels and meetings.  

Some publishers will send a specialist to the campus to conduct live trainings for faculty or even provide in class demonstrations for students.  Often that specialist is then available at later date via phone or email.

Questions to ask yourself before you decide to use e-books in you classes:

1. Do I want both the print and e-versions of the text books to be offered to the class?
2. If I’m using several text books, is it possible to combine them into a single custom text book?  If I am only using a few select chapters from a text book, is it possible to create a custom text book?
3. Are other professors at the school using the same text book or publisher?  Perhaps greater cost benefits can be realized by placing a combined order.
4. Will using e-books and the expanded online tools offered by the publisher change my goals for the class?
5. Am I prepared to fully utilize all of the tools that come with e-books or am I just looking to provide the students with an electronic version of the book that is cheaper than a print version?
6. How, if at all, will my in class instruction change because of the options afforded me by the e-book?
7. How much training will I need before I feel comfortable teaching with the whole e-book package?
8. What type of usage would I and my students make of the publisher’s online portal?  Would I want to sign into the publisher’s portal during class and teach from that?  Will I ask students to complete assignments in the publisher’s online portal?

Next Steps:
Before making a decision about e-books please contact Academic Technology at itd@northshore.edu and/or Information Systems.
 
Academic Technology has experienced instructional technologists and designers that can help you formulate a plan to effectively use the new tools that will now be at your disposal.  Additionally, they may have pre-existing contacts or arrangements with the publishing company you’d like to use.   

Working along with you and Academic Technology, the Information Systems department will be able to help determine the amount of ANGEL integration that can be achieved.  This would possibly alleviate the need for a professor or students to manually register at publishers’ websites.  Additionally Information Systems can check to make sure that the computers available on campus are properly configured to support the media content provided in the publishers’ portals.

eContent: What's All That About?

Last week, as part of the Center for Teaching and Learning Assessment's annual "Teaching and Learning Conference," Academic Technology hosted an eContent Fair for faculty to meet with different publishers to discuss and discover what kinds of resources were available to them.  Over the two days, we had four different publishers talking about what they have available for a wide range of disciplines.  Cengage, Macmillan, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson had representatives to talk with faculty about what more these is to offer besides the traditional textbook.

Some of our reasoning in offering this to faculty and moving forward to do this again in the future is the fact that publishers have come a long way in what they have to offer faculty.  Years ago, when faculty thought of ebooks in lieu of textbooks, they mainly thought of a digital form of the textbook either as a website or .PDF.  But the fact is, the resources that publishers provide for students and faculty are rather substantial.  As faculty, we struggle with assigning an expensive textbook that will be financial hard to justify for many students, especially after having paid for the class.  But I think if you want to get the most out of the price they have to pay for the textbook, it would be beneficial to make use of the digital resources that many publishers have to offer.

So what are some of these resources available?  What follows are some of the highlights.  Not all publishers have all the features mentioned, but many have a good range of them and it’s worth contacting the publishers to find out what resources you will be able to use.

Enhanced Content
With many of the ebooks today, it’s not just the text in digital format, but more content can be added or even customized for particular purposes.  Assigning specific chapters, supplemental links, primary sources, additional videos and sound clips can take a few minutes and clicks to establish the course materials in the order you want them accomplished.   Faculty can add their own customized content such as instructor notes, added links, and files.

Interaction
Not only can faculty annotate the text, but the tools are present for students to annotate their readings with highlight and virtual sticky notes.  This encourages students to interact and engage their text in ways that older ebooks certainly couldn’t.  Beyond this, some ebooks come with additional programs that might include games (crosswords puzzles, virtual flash cards, trivia questions, etc) and some even have simulations and video games that make students work through different problems or projects (such as a virtual body to explore in an anatomy class).  Discussion forums can also be created (often with suggestions for questions by the publisher or with the faculty’s own choice).

Evaluation
Many of the ebooks provide a pool of hundreds of questions per chapter to create quizzes and tests.  Some of the publishers have created adaptive software and ranked the questions so that students will get increasingly hard questions as they are more successful—increasing the challenge or meeting the student at where he/she is at.   When used as formative evaluations to determine a student's understanding, quizzes like these can be highly useful for learning. But beyond standard quizzes, many ebooks offers other useful elements.  Papers and major assignments can be submitted and graded online by the faculty who can draw upon a pool of comments generated by the instructor in present and previous courses.  With everything centered in the portal for the course, students can chart their progress and learn about where their performance is lacking or where they need more assistance.

In the large picture, the usefulness of eContent material is to get the most out of a significant investment for both you and the students.  Additionally, the various materials (and means of tracking) allow for the instructor to have a much clearer sense of what the students are learning and where they are struggling.  This can mean better results in the class as you can better tailor your time with students in accordance with where they need the most help.  If you are further interested in eContent for a book you are already using or in a text you’re interested in using, click through to the publishers, see what they have to offer, and contact a rep.

Do you use econtent?  What are some of the advantages and disadvantages?  

Freeing The Course Part 3: Course Delivery

We’re back again with Part 3 of Freeing the Course.  Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 and be on the eye for our future pieces. 

By course delivery, we’re talking about what can produce and provide for your students that goes beyond the readings.  This may include videos (externally or internally created), podcasts or lecture recordings, or even the presentation programs that communicate your teaching in the classroom. 

Video Resources
There are a plethora of video resources Video resources out there for you to take advantage of including Learner.org, YouTube.com/EDU, TED (and check out their latest feature on flipping the classroom option), and of course, the Library’s FilmOnDemand.  For more information about these resources, check out this previous post on Video Resources for Your Classroom.

However, here’s one quick reminder about using videos in and outside the classroom.  Always be sure to provide a clear frame for watching the video and a clear sense of what they should be doing with the video—that is, how they should integrate it into the other course material.  Students need to be directed to what to focus on in order for videos to work the best.  Instructing them to watch the video but not making clear what they are watching for can make follow up discussions lackluster and problematic. 

Presenting Unique Content
Rather than use external material, if you want to create your own course material to deliver to students, there are some great resources available for that too. 

We’ve talked about Screen-Cast-O-Matic on this blog before and it’s because it’s a great (and easy!) tool that allow faculty to create narrated screencasts (of powerpoints, websites, etc).  It takes minutes to learn and then, faculty can focus their time and energy on thinking about how they want to present the material for their audience. 

Audacity is a free sound recording program that allows users to make recordings for whatever purpose they might find.  In particular, you can make mini-lecture podcasts for your students that recap the day’s lessons or cover other material. 

Prezi is a fun presentation tool that provides a 3-Dimensional infinite canvass for you to connect your ideas.  The fascinating element about Prezi is that it allows you to visually display relationships in ways that are not as well executed in programs like Powerpoint.  Additionally, you can integrate images and videos into this as well as convert them in PDF for your students if you choose to.  Check out our YouTube playlist that explores Prezi. 

Finally, there’s Google Presentation.  It has many of the features of Powerpoint, but again, is free.  You can choose to download it as a Powerpoint file if you choose or even PDF.  You’re also able to share it easily with students.  Where this also wins out against Powerpoint is that if you share it with students, you can utilize the “Comment” feature to spur a discussion around the Powerpoint or encourage students to annotate the powerpoint about what they found useful or care to elaborate on. 

For our final post, we’ll be exploring communicate and course extras that you might consider as you move forward. 

What other free resources do you use in order to delivery the course content to your students?

Technology Spotlight: Screencast-o-matic

Screencasts or “digital recording of computer screen output” that often contain audio narration can be powerful teaching tools and there are many tools available that can be used to create screencasts.  A great tool to quickly create short screencasts is Screen-cast-o-matic.  Screen-cast-o-matic  is a free, easy to use, online screen recording program.  Features of the free version include:

• a maximum recording time of 15 minutes per screen recording,
• free web hosting for screen recordings on Screen-cast-o-matic,
• the ability to record from a web camera,
• the ability to publish screen recordings directly to YouTube,
• and the ability to save screen recordings as video files (MP4, AVI or FLV).

To get started Screen-cast-o-matic, click the blue “Start Recording” button.  The screen recording program will open up on your screen.  Drag or resize the box to set the recording area.  Only the area of your computer screen inside the box will be captured.  You can place this box over Web pages, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, ANGEL, or other software programs.  Once you are ready to record, click the “Record” button.  You can pause your recordings if you need to switch programs.  When you are done, click the “Done” button.  At that point, you can decide if you want to save your recording as a video file or publish your recording on Screen-cast-o-matic or YouTube.  When downloading (publish to video file) a fullscreen screencast, make sure to rescale the width of the screencast size (600 px is a good size).  For more information, view this quick demo on using Screen-cast-o-matic.  If you would like to host your screen recordings on Screen-cast-o-matic, you will need to create an account.  To register for an account, just enter in your email address and a password and click “Register”.
Tips when creating a screen recording:

• Write out a script of your screen recording.  The script will be helpful when creating the screen recording but can also be used as a transcript or for captioning to help make your screen recording accessible.
• Chunk longer lectures into shorter presentations to allow students to process the concepts.
• Use a headset microphone for best audio quality and set your microphone volume before starting.
• Record in a location with minimal noise distractions.  You might also want to put a sign up on your door so you won’t be interrupted.

Screencasts can be used to:

• Produce lessons that students can watch anywhere at any time
• Allow students to feel more connected to their instructors in an online class
• Share information with students through video and audio
• Demonstrate how to use specific software programs or create tutorials and how-tos
• Perform regular and standardized training
• Narrate PowerPoint mini-lectures
• Explain difficult concepts or illustrate confusing tasks
• Provide explanations for solutions to problems
• Provide feedback to students on assignments
• Walk students through discipline specific Web sites
• Orient students to an online course

Examples of screencasts created with

• Designing and Teaching an Online or Hybrid Course at NSCC (narrated PowerPoint)
• Accessing Content Orientations (tutorial or how-to on particular task in software program)

Additional resources on screencasts:

• 7 Things You Should Know About Screencasting 
• Screencasts as a Pedagogical Tool
• Using Screencasting to Engage and Build Community with Online Learners
• Screencasting for the Online Classroom 
• Talking with Students through Screencasting: Experimentations with Video Feedback to Improve Student Learning

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of screencasts in your teaching or would like to learn more about using Screen-cast-o-matic, please feel free to contact Instructional Technology and Design at itd@northshore.edu.

• Do you think screencasts have potential as a learning/teaching tool?
• Have you used screencasts in your teaching? If so, in what ways?  If not, do you see any uses for screencasts in your teaching and how might you use them? 
• Have you used Screen-cast-o-matic or another tool before?  What have been your experiences in using those tools?

Freeing The Course Part 2: Course Readings

So now we come to the next part in our series on “Freeing the Course.”  In the first part, we dealt with free programs and tools, this time, we're looking at free readings and material for your class.  We all know that textbooks are a significant challenge for any course.  The prices are challenging for students between affording them, getting them from the bookstore, and glitches or problems with financial aid.  Then, of course, there is the problem of ordering them online on their own and waiting.

So what about free material online?  There’s lots of it.  Vast amounts, in fact.  So what do we make of that and how do we use it?  There are several considerations that you want to think about before venturing onto using online materials that is worth considering.

1.    How much will they be reading online?  Reading on screen has been found to be more challenging than reading a physical text.  Some of this may come to change with improved technology, but it’s something worth keeping in mind.  One way to offset this is to make sure the physical text may be available (on reserve in the library, as a “recommended” purchase in the bookstore, or just through the library and inter-library loan.

2.    Do you want students to have the readings in class?  Many faculty members will want students to have them in hand in class.  So this might mean you need to clarify your technology usage policy in your classroom to encourage students to bring laptop or tablet devices.  However, many of your students may want to print the material.  If that’s the case, please make sure you provide them with sufficient guidelines on how to print efficiently (such as double-sided or printing 2 pages on 1 side of a paper to get 4 pages per piece of paper).  Not only does this promote more environmentally friendly results, but students are limited in the amount they can print before the school charges them and you don’t want to use the student’s entire semester budget for just your class.

3.    How reliable are the readings to stay where they are?  We know the internet can be quirky.  That awesome site that’s here today can be gone tomorrow.  So in selecting readings, make sure you choose reliable sites or sites that have been around for several years (though that’s no guarantee that they will always be around).  You might want to find the source in several places or alternatives to each reading.

4.    What do you want the students (or yourself) to do with the readings?  As we’ll see below, the online environment allows for something that you cannot with regular texts (at least not as easily) and that is create a collaboratively annotated online text.  So maybe all you want your students to do is to read the material.  But you can also start to push the students to engage with the material and voice opinions or thoughts on particular passages directly onto the page, using tools like Diigo.

Ok, so what are some of those resources that you may want to consider:

The first handful sources of particular use for the Humanities and Social Sciences (though other disciplines are apt to find great nuggets to include in their courses from these sites):  The Internet Archive, The Gutenberg Project, Wikisource, and Librivox.  There are large repositories of the public domain which includes books and textual material in the case of Archive, Gutenberg Project, and Wikisource, but also sound in the case of Librivox and images, sounds, videos, text, programs, and well, the entire internet, in the case of The Internet Archive.  Some of these sites only offer html-based text resources, but Archive does a decent job of providing formats that are operable in different eReaders.

Librivox offers user-based sound recordings of works that are in the public domain.  This can be great for giving students access to audio renderings of readings.  However, it could also be a great idea as an assignment for students to create additional reading in the public domain; it might be a great service learning project for a communications, media, or English course.
Meanwhile, if you are looking for a standard textbook, Flatworld Knowledge might be your place to be.  From this site, you can select and use an online textbook FOR FREE for your class.  As the site explains it, "It’s this easy: search our catalog, request a print review copy or review our book online, complete an online adoption form, give a URL to your students, and download our supplements. Done. It really is that easy."    The text is free for students to read online and if they want to order a physical copy, they can for a reasonable price.  Faculty can also chose to customize the text if they so choose.

In addition to these Internet-based sources, there are also two great tools that are available through the library.  The first is Ebrary, the library’s digital library, giving students access to 1000s of books both popular and academic.  Faculty can assign entire books or individual chapters from a range of books.  Ebrary also includes some great tools such as a notes section, annotations, and highlight so students can engage more with the text.  Overdrive is another great source for access to digital copies of both books (more popular books in this case) and audiobooks.  The one drawback with Overdrive is that there are limitations on the amount of students that can virtually check out a book.  But it might be useful to direct students if you have them doing research or required to read an outside book on their own.

Finally, for developing content online as opposed to standard pay-for texts, I’d highly recommend Diigo.  This is a social bookmarking tool that allows you to not only create and share bookmarks, but if you create a group, you can collaboratively annotate and highlight any page you bookmark (or that students bookmark).  Some faculty enjoy using a variety of websites including blogs, newspapers, and other online sources.  They can create a Diigo group for their class, organize the links into different “chapters” or “weekly readings.”  But what’s great is that the faculty can annotate and highlight passages on the website that students will be able to see or faculty can require students to write commentary on the website.  In effect, this creates a “living text” that the faculty member can use each semester, adding or subtracting as it makes sense to do so.  For more exploration of Diigo’s uses, check out our playlist on Youtube.

One last note.  It’s important that you explain to students the expectations around your course material in terms of how they should be used.  Students may not have had material online to read and so giving them some directions and guidelines about how to read (and notate) online as well as resources to overcome problems and alternative places they can find the material is really important.  It’s frustrating to the faculty member when the student doesn’t do the reading, but it’s equally frustrating for the student when the reading isn’t accessible.

• What are barriers for you to keep you from using online materials instead of the standard physical text?
• What kind of online material have you used?  What did you like and dislike about it?
• What would be your ideal for online materials?  How would it work?