News

Instructional Technology Stats

FACULTY AT THE COLLEGE FA18 SP19
% of faculty using Blackboard 79% 76%
% of faculty using Tegrity 40% 36%

NOTE: Course usage of Blackboard was identified by courses with five additional Grade Center columns.

FA18 Bb Tools Announcements Grade

Book Columns

Wikis Blogs & Journals Assignments Rubrics Disc Posts Tests & Quizzes
Average 13 25.99 7.26 10.71 9.21 4.54 120.02 7.72
Median 8 21 6 6 7 4 69 7
N 192 258 16 22 113 33 41 55

NOTE:  “N (number of courses)” indicates courses using the tool one time or more.

 

SP19 Bb Tools Announcements Grade

Book Columns

Wikis Blogs & Journals Assignments Rubrics Disc

Posts

Tests & Quizzes
Average 11 23.77 5.9 10.6 8.4 5.48 116.16 9.88
Median 6 20 5 8 7 4 76.5 6.5
N 191 249 25 30 135 41 44 54

NOTE:  “N (number of courses)” indicates courses using the tool one time or more.

Learning Space Enhancements through IT

Learning Space Enhancements through IT

SM200, SM206, SM222, SM317, and SM327 have transitioned from analog to digital.  What does this mean?  A push button control panel has been added to the top of the instructor’s desk.  The document camera is now high definition (HD) and software based.  The document camera activates using the Hovercam Flex 11 icon on the computer’s desktop.  Laptop / tablet computers can be captured as a recorded source but all Tegrity recordings will take place from the desktop PC in these classrooms, just like the SLC classrooms.  Playing back DVDs will require using the computer and VLC player in these rooms.  VCRs (video cassette recorder) have been taken out of Winona campus classrooms.

Tegrity Update

I continue to encourage the use of Tegrity in your courses.  Students greatly appreciate it too!  I would like to thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey on Tegrity use.  There was a 60% response rate from College faculty and a significant response rate from staff and students too. The comments and experiences shared are very helpful in moving to the next stage of the process.  A request for proposal (RFP) will be going out to leading vendors in the market.  More information on the next steps will be coming forward after the RFP review has taken place.

Activate Your Blackboard Course

Activate Your Blackboard Course

Activate your Blackboard Course
Are your Blackboard course sites ready to go?  Don’t forget to activate each course allowing students to access them!  Here are the steps:

Step 1:  In your Bb course, find the “Customization” area under Control Panel area

Step 2:  Select “Properties

Step 3:  Set availability to “Yes

Step 4:  Click “Submit” to apply the changes to your course

Additional Resources  
  • Too many old courses filling up your My SMUMN home page in Blackboard?  Here are the instructions on how to hide courses (and bring them back again when needed) in Blackboard.
  • If your PDF files are only reading as a single image file, that can be trouble.  Sending the PDF documents through Snapverter to apply optical character recognition (OCR) is easy to do!  These Snapverter instructions are helpful with getting started.
Improving Writing Assignments with Chris Anson

Improving Writing Assignments with Chris Anson

Sponsored by CELT and the Office of Writing, noted Writing Across the Curriculum speaker Chris Anson will be visiting Saint Mary’s on Friday, September 13th at noon to discuss the latest thinking on writing interesting writing assignments. He will discuss which principles can help us to shape effective and meaningful assignments. Based on an instructional design model, the presentation will offer several strategies for creating well-designed, interesting, and imaginative writing assignments that foster students’ learning while helping them to write more effective papers.

We will also be serving a Mexican Fiesta lunch with gluten-free and vegetarian options. Because it’s lunchtime and we wouldn’t want you to go hungry!

Chris Anson is Distinguished University Professor, Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Professor, and Director of the Campus Writing and Speaking Program at North Carolina State University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in language, composition, and literacy and works with faculty across disciplines to enhance writing and speaking instruction. He has published 19 books and 130 articles and book chapters relating to writing and has spoken widely across the US and in 31 other countries. He is Past Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and Past President of the Council of Writing Program Administrators. His full c.v. is at www.ansonica.net.

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