Thursday, April 28, 2011

Bb Training for Students

The Distance Learning Office will be sponsoring a Blackboard training session for new online students.

Tuesday, August 9, from 6 PM - 8 PM, in the Learning Commons (Building A, Room 108) on the Leestown Campus.

The event will give students hands-on training with Blackboard and offer IT help from Distance Learning staff.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Sandy Cook Visit

Sandy Cook, the system office distance learning director, will be visiting BCTC on Wednesday, May 4.

Sandy is responsible for system-lead distance learning initiatives. Jay Box has asked her to visit all 16 colleges this year, and Sandy asked me to help arrange her visit to Bluegrass. I see this as an opportunity for us at Bluegrass to bring our vision about the future of online learning to the system administration.

Please join us on either the Leestown or Cooper Campus.  All faculty (part-time and full-time) and staff are welcome to atten.

Leestown Boardroom
5/4, 10:30 AM - 11:30AM

Cooper OB 246
5/4, 12:00PM - 1:00PM

Thursday, April 14, 2011

My Lab+

Many of you are familiar with Pearson's MyLab products.  MyLab Plus accounts provided Blackboard integration so that students have access to their MyLab from Day One.  Expect more information about this soon.  Click the link below for a PowerPoint presentation that was given to the Distance Learning Peer Team in April:

http://district.bluegrass.kctcs.edu/ben.worth/blog/mylabplus.pdf

Monday, April 11, 2011

KCTCS Peer Team Retreat

I attended the KCTCS Distance Learning Peer Team retreat/meeting last week and brought back a number of announcements...

  • KCTCS Transformations hold real changes for developmental studies.  You will hear more about this if you attend New Horizons this Spring. Expect to see growth in KCTCS Learn on Demand for developmental students with MAT 055 and MAT 065 coming as early as Fall.
  • The Department of Education has recommended changes for how online instructors determine student attendance.  In the old definition, a student attended if they entered the Bb course shell; the new definition requires student to interact with this course.  No action is needed for Spring but in the FAll expect new procedures for reporting last date of attendance.  This all has to do with R2T4 compliance.
  • The Center for Rural Development  has made significant changes to improve Bb reliability, adding "fiber channel adapters" and more and faster servers. Hopefully, this will resolve the access problems that plagued us last Fall.
  • Bb will be putting out upgrades on a regular basis (every 6 weeks). KCTCS will not be upgrading each time. Instead the Peer Team will evaluate the upgrades to determine system viability. Whenever possible, I will include DLAC in these evaluations. For now we are sticking with SP3.
  • Bb has purchased Wimba and Elluminate. These products will be rebundled into Bb Collaborate.
  • Bb has also purchased Presidium, which provides Bb Tech Support.  Read more about this here.
  • KCTCS has made arrangements with Pearson to provide immediate access to MyLab courseshells at the start of the semester; students will still have to pay but will be given a grace period.

Friday, April 1, 2011

May 6 Distance Learning Workshop

Friday, May 6, the Distance Learning Office will host a Distance Learning Workshop on the Leestown Campus.  The workshop is open to all faculty, part time and full time, and will cover topics to support both online, face-to-face and hybrid instruction.

Sessions are scheduled in the M-Building; the first session begins at 8:30.  Lunch is provided.  Sessions include presentations by Paige Brooks-Jeffiers, our system office distance learning coordinator, and Echo360, a lecture capture software company.

Workshop Schedule

To register, email Ben Worth and please let him know if you will be staying for lunch and if need a vegetarian option.