Why it's Awesome to be the IT Gal works great for the the other IT.

I LOVED this graphic at first. Of course, I LOVE infographics period.  But I'd make some changes - first of all the Title would change to: "Why it's Awesome to be the IT Gal"!  In my world IT stands not for Information Technology but Instructional Technology.  I (wo)man  the Blackboard help phones and tickets.  I love online courses and and think that with the innovation and creativity faculty are capable of, and bunches of front load time and support - online courses can match or even beat the face to face course.  What Bean Counters in financial  areas may not realize (my assumption based on money issues) is that the development of a stellar courses is extremely time consuming for both the subject matter expert (faculty member) and the staff who support them. They also don't realize  is that not all faculty shine on stage. Some do best in a tutorial support model. Some do best in seminars - small groups with intimate connections and others shine on stage in large groups. I love small group and one to one. Technology can be involved or not. I love working the phones, Skype or Communicator or visiting an office. I like working in a departmental group on a project.  My colleague in Blackboard support loves to be on stage and prefers that most. We both can do both - it's just a matter of comfort and enjoyment of the methods.  Technology mediation doesn't change that!

Where this poster resonates is that I use technical issues as a conduit to the attention of the faculty member. When they have a technical problem related to instruction, I go into overdrive problem solving mode.  I don't just give them the solution they asked for but through probing questions, I find out what instructional need they have and then seek to find a solution.  I also use the opportunity to build trust which will let me help them take instructional risks.  That's how IT (Instructional technologist) and IT (Information Technologist differ. We both are great problem solvers. The instructional folks don't go as deep into the technology side and the information folks don't want to touch the instructional needs.  We work well together as a team in an educational environment.  Add instructional designers, video folks and graphic artists and a faculty member and you have a team who can transform a class.

My title "Why it's Awesome to be the IT Gal works great for the the other IT".

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Infographic: Why it Sucks Being the IT Guy

Today I found a cool site - from Center for 21st Century Universities and Georgia Tech. Tech Bursts are short instructional videos done by students and explain a singe topic in a entertaining way. 

Have you wondered how you can do more than lecture in a large class class? Check out Associate Professor Amy Pritchett and her large engineering course at GA Tech. She uses problem based learning and just in time lectures - how cool is that? 

I guess I need to set up a spreadsheet of these sites! Unless you'd like to look into my diigo site that is.

Tips and Mental Wanderings

Nice tip from professor Luis Cano on what to do if Blackboard Learn won't download.  He was trying to download the Grade Center before the annual purge and it just wouldn't work. He was doing all the steps correctly - and me being new at this - had little to offer.  His research turned up a problem with Firefox which was preventing the download. This link led to the fix
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/cant-download-or-save-files#w_remove-download-manager-plugins 

One project assigned to me by Rosie was to catalog the print materials people have in their offices.  Being a lazy sort who didn't want to write down all that information, I began looking for an app.  I wanted one which would snag all the relevant information from the ISBN and catalog it. That's a hard app to find - there were apps but it too awhile to find one which would do what I wanted it to do. I finally found BookManager  ($1.99 purchase).  It even allows for a tab delimited or comma delimited download for import to excel. I hope it will also upload to my bibliographic software. 

When I asked that question, I left this blog to find the answer.  The answer was a new even cooler tool that's free! I found the EasyBib app for iPhone.  Video of App

It will email me the bibliography in APA, Chicago or MLA format - how cool it that! In 3 minutes I scanned the ISBN codes of two shelves of books!   

I've decided that I've put so much energy into my never to be finished dissertation bibliography that I might as well put it together as a publication of sorts. Now where did I put that file?  I have multiple old computers with dissertation materials. I guess it's time to pull it all together. Stay tuned!

Today, I met with Patrice Cole, a professor teaching Sustainability: Reducing our Impact on Planet Earth   We had such fun talking about her course and how to use Blackboard Learn to enhance it.  We covered the technology introduction to Blackboard, which had been our goal, but then we talked about how to design the course for today's student. 

How do you build in a sense of community online? What active learning projects and assessments do you use to maintain attention? How can you leverage the hand held technology they all carry? What makes a good PowerPoint slide in a traditional lecture room with a 100+ students? It does get me excited to introduce online teaching and best practices to a faculty member who is excited to be teaching and loves their discipline as much as I love mine!

Thinking about relationships

I've been thinking about departmental relationships and how they play into the development of quality online courses.  I've also been thinking about how to graphically represent functions within and supportive to OIT.  It's funny how you drop back to what you learn in elementary school - the only graphic that came to mind as valid was a Venn diagram. What do you think? Did I manage to link the resources needed to design a quality course?

Cool App! and an update!

Just found a cool app! for my iPhone. Anyone who knows me, knows I buy books over and over because I forget titles and author combinations.  I also maintain a huge annotated bibliography of my research interests.  I hate, hate, hate to type all that bibliographic info into my database. I found BookManager.  So far it captures info from the ISBN nicely. Next trick is to see if I can get the data out in a form I can use in multiple locations. Stay tuned for that bit of fun!

Beginning to get my feet on the ground with Blackboard!  The grade books function is so far the only area I feel shaky on still.  So far so good.  We'll see how the start of the semester goes!

Week One At UTK-OIT

Welcome to Room 511 Greve Hall!

I've started with a new team at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.  As of the end of the first week I am jazzed! This is a great bunch of folks. It's a much bigger group than I've ever worked in. The University is large but seems pretty efficient at first glance. The biggest challenge so far has been completing the benefit package! That took forever.

So what have I done this first week other than the benefits?  I investigated and compared two plagiarizer prevention application SafeAssign and iThenticate, I've viewed Blackboard tutorials and looked at the ticket system and knowledge base. I've also observed my colleagues present BbC (Collaborate) and wikis in Bb Learn. I've also looked into social aspects of online learning and assessment.

I wanted a cool way to introduce myself to the group. I've decided to use a QR code on my door with a bio landing page.  Not!

Possible project - per: Rosie is to catalog the books we each have in our offices.

The book I'm reading is Self, Peer and Group Assessment in E-Learning.  (LB1028.2.S38885 2006 ) by Roberts, Tim S.