Technology & Instruction for UNEX

I use the free version of Dropbox to backup some of my files and give myself access to important documents from any of my computers. It's a great deal, but I frequently have to move files to keep under my 9.5 GB space limit. A new account on Dropbox starts with 2 GB of storage. I also use Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive, which offer similar features and a little more space. If you aren't familiar with how these services work, the simple version is that they duplicate any file you add to them across all your devices plus their website. There are also additional features which make sharing files with others easy. Dropbox also has integration with Moodle 2.x , which makes it very useful for adding files to your online class. A new alternative to Dropbox/Google Drive/SkyDrive is Copy, which offers 15GB for free to start but will also add 5GB through a referral link like this one . So if you sign up for Copy, you get an additional 5GB and so do I. Copy works with MacOS...

I recently read through all of the online course evaluations for the Winter and Spring quarters. Most evaluations are positive, as are most comments, but there are always some courses which generate enough negative comments to cause concern.  The majority of comments are concerned with the instructor's interaction with individual students. When an instructor provides prompt and meaningful feedback on student work, replies to questions sent via email and participates actively in class discussions, students are happy. Issues which also generate positive comments, though less often, are clear instructions and good organization. I think all of these are related to the isolation of the online learner. Contact with the unseen instructor is very important in an online class and when feedback is not prompt or is generic, students are not happy. Creating the online class may be considerable work, but staying active in the class and interacting with students is what makes the biggest diff...

Link to PDF version of post. Prior to version 2 of Moodle, if you were creating a new 10 week class and needed a Forum in each week, you needed to set up each Forum individually. That was a very tedious process. There are a couple of features in Moodle 2.4 that make this a little bit easier. The Duplicate feature allows you to create a copy of any Activity or Resource with just a couple of clicks. The Quick Rename feature lets you change the name of an Activity or Resource without going into the Settings page. In this tutorial, we will use both features to duplicate a Forum . Forum I've added a Forum to my course and left Editing turned on. We'll use the Duplicate option to make a copy of this Forum . Duplicate Click the Duplicate icon next to the Resource or Activity you wish to copy. Duplicate Dialog Box Click the Continue button to Duplicate the Resource or Activity . Edit the copy To make changes to the Resource o...

Link to PDF version of this post . The dock was introduced in Moodle 2.0 and it allows students and teachers to customize the look of the class home page by moving blocks off of the home page and into the dock, located on the upper left edge of the browser window. The following instructions cover how to dock and undock blocks. The advantages of docking blocks is that they remove some of the clutter on the screen by getting items that may be used less frequently out of the way. They also allow access to blocks from the dock, something that is very handy when you have scrolled down on the class home page. Without the dock, you would need to scroll all the way back up to see the blocks. Instead, they are always accessible at the upper left edge of your browser window. The option to move blocks to the dock can be turned off system-wide. Three column class home page The contents of a class will appear in the same format as it did in Moodle 1.9. By default, each class has t...

Never. Peter Norvig's Powerpoint version of the Gettysburg Address One of the most common mistakes I see in online courses that have been converted from face-to-face is the use of Powerpoint files as replacements for what was an in-class presentation complete with live audio and a real person talking. Sure, it's tempting to think that all you need to do is upload the Powerpoint file to your online course and you are done. Your students will login, go through the trouble of downloading your file and opening it in Powerpoint or some other application. They may marvel at your choice of template as long as they haven't seen it before, but they will find one important thing missing with the presentation – You. Without your voice, the Powerpoint file is at best just an outline or rough sketch of your presentation and may lead to more confusion than learning. Most of the solitary Powerpoint files I see were not inspired by the kinds of design examples you'll find on Pr...

It looks like we will be able to upgrade from Moodle 1.9 to 2.4 starting with the fall quarter, assuming everything goes well during the summer when we need to get our course and student information into the new version of Moodle. Along with the many changes and new features we will have available in Moodle 2.4, this update will also involve moving the hosting of Moodle from our internal server to a server hosted by Remote-Learner . As a result of these changes, our summer courses for instructors will use Moodle 2.4. I will be putting together a self-paced course introducing some of the new features available in Moodle 2.4 for those online instructors who are already familiar with Moodle 1.9.  _______________________________________________________________ We have four free classes for instructors which are now available for registration for the Summer quarter. All classes will be using Moodle 2.4 to prepare instructors for the Fall quarter or later when we expect to have al...

One of the easiest ways to add instructor-produced multimedia to an online class is to create a narrated presentation. Adding narration in Powerpoint is relatively easy (though not necessarily easy to do well). The tricky part is creating output that will playback online and does not require the student to download the entire file and open it in Powerpoint. I have a license for the Mac version of Adobe Captivate 5 and used that for a couple of years to convert Powerpoint presentations with audio narration into videos. That version only produced Flash video, but it is easy enough to convert that to another format for students who are not using Flash (primarily iOS users). The problem with Adobe Captivate is that it never did a very good job converting the Powerpoint files and it is one of the least Mac-like applications I've used. I never enjoyed using it and until I did a search a few weeks ago, I didn't realize that it was supposed to be able to automatically convert a PP...

It's tough to compete with free -- that's one of the points of " UC online courses fail to lure outsiders, " by Nanette Asimov in the January 8th San Francisco Chronicle. The appeal of UC credits is apparently not enough to overcome the relatively high prices of $1400 to $2400 per course, particularly when compared with free MOOCs which don't offer credit. After a year, only one student from outside the UC system has enrolled in any of the UC Online course offerings, although 4 more have recently registered. The one class from UC Online highlighted in the article is from UC Riverside: In a demonstration of UC Online, Williams powered up Professor Jacqueline Shey-Murphy's online course "Dance Cultures and Context," which attracted more than 120 students last quarter at UC Riverside. Shey-Murphy introduced the class on video, with the syllabus and calendar at left. Students joined in "synchronous discussions" - a chat room - each Friday...