Deleting Old Archives and Exports From Your Course

We are happy to see that so many of you have archived and exported your Fall 12 courses for safe keeping. We ask that once you download the archives and exports, to please take another minute and go back into your Fall 12 courses (or any others that are still on your list) and delete the archives and exports from the course.

Archives and exports can use a lot of storage space on Blackboard and we need these removed before we install sp10 starting Dec. 14.

More information and detailed instructions for End of the Semester processes can be found under Blackboard on KOLTS.

Need more help? All Blackboard functional questions, technical support, and performance issues are best resolved by calling the helpdesk or filing a ticket on our help desk site. When filing your ticket, it is very important to capture as much detail as possible in order for either Bb Support or eLearning Services to troubleshoot. Helpful details include screenshots, student id, course id, navigation path, error messages, etc. 

When the Semester Ends, It Isn’t Really Over

Figuring out final grades feels like closure. It’s the last time we think carefully about each student we’ve had in this set of classes. Some of them have done so well, and if they are students we’ve had in multiple courses, we feel such satisfaction as we watch what they are becoming. They make teaching worth the work. But then there are other students—the ones who failed because it just wasn’t the time in their lives to learn this content, the ones who didn’t have the skills they needed to make it, and the ones who passed the course but never connected with the content, the teacher, and sometimes, not even with their classmates. These are the students who some days make us wonder why we even bother. Read more...

Designing Assignments that Accomplish Course Goals

I’m betting that many of you are in the midst of grading a large stack of papers, projects or other final assignments. Too often these end-of-course pieces of work don’t live up to our expectations or students’ potential. It’s easy for us (especially the elders among us) to bemoan the fact that students aren't what they used to be. It’s better to use our discontent to consider whether our course assignments are effectively accomplishing our course goals. Read more...

How Much?! Calculating the Cost of Online Education

Is an online education a better bargain financially than a traditional program? There are conflicting reports and old assumptions may not be accurate anymore. For-profit and not-for-profit, four-year and two-year, changes in the economy are affecting all sectors. It's important for you to do the math on your own, comparing the schools and programs you are interested in, and ultimately choose a program that meets your career and education needs, and is within your budget. Read more... and feel free to share with students.

End-of-Course Evaluations: Making Sense of Student Comments

At most colleges, courses are starting to wind down and that means it’s course evaluation time. It’s an activity not always eagerly anticipated by faculty, largely because of those ambiguous comments students write. Just what are they trying to say? Read more...  

How to Design a Digital Media Assignment

Each year, faculty members would like to assign students a digital media project as an alternative to a formal written paper. Often their first thought is a video, but project ideas have also involved academic posters and podcasts. When it is designed well, a digital media assignment can be an excellent learning activity for students. This article provides a summary of best practices, some ideas for projects, and a list of resources to get you started. Read more...

Creating an Engaging Student Experience: SP10 Global Navigation and My Blackboard Webinar Event

Live Webinar Event: Thursday, December 6 @ 1:30pm Eastern Time 

By now you’ve heard the news – Blackboard Learn SP10 has been released and it is getting rave reviews.  Frankly it’s just SIMPLY. BETTER. And KCTCS will be installing SP 10 December 14 (5:00 p.m.) to December 18 (7:00 a.m.).

Learn how to put it into practice for you.  This training webinar will explore the new Global Navigation elements of SP10.  This navigation provides an entry point to My Blackboard and other Social Learning elements of Blackboard Learn.  In this training, we will explore the key components of Global Navigation and My Blackboard and look at ways that an instructor can build a more engaging learning space. Read more and sign up...

Online Course Provider Paves Path to College Credit

An increasing push for online courses with no student tuition has helped address the education access problem. But it's also left a gap when it comes to course credit. Massively open online courses do not offer college credit currently for students, even though established universities create them. And that's a problem for students who want to have something to show for their time, said Jessica Bayliss, director of education for Education Portal, a for-profit course provider. Read more...

Blackboard To Be Updated to SP10

KCTCS eLearning Services will be installing Blackboard service pack 10 during an extended maintenance period beginning Friday, December 14 at 5:00 p.m. ET until Tuesday morning, December 18 at 7:00 a.m. ET.

All Blackboard courses will be unavailable during this time. All content and student work on the current system will remain intact when Blackboard is back online Tuesday morning. When you browse to http://elearning.kctcs.edu, a maintenance notice explaining the offline activities will display. 

Once online, you will have access to Blackboard’s new My Blackboard feature, a facebook type page that pulls items into an active stream keeping you up-to-date on what’s happening in all your courses and organizations. Learn more at http://blackboardlearn.com/sp10#students. 

KCTCS eLearning Services

Helping Students Manage Their eRuputation

We often hear complaints about what students say and do online, but we often neglect to look into educators helping them manage their online reputation. This infographic is geared toward adults, but it can serve as a great starting point for conversations and activities that educators can engage in with students to help them to establish an active digital footprint that represents who they want to be perceived as online.

Deep Learning vs. Surface Learning

Sometimes our understanding of deep learning isn’t all that deep. Typically, it’s defined by what it is not. It’s not memorizing only to forget and it’s not reciting or regurgitating what really isn’t understood and can’t be applied. The essence of deep learning is understanding—true knowing. Read more...

Online college courses gaining popularity in Kentucky

Mirroring a national trend, online courses are exploding in popularity across Kentucky, grabbing an expanding share of students’ college educations, according to a recent Council on Postsecondary Education report. Roughly one in three students now take at least one online course each year, the report found, and nearly one in 10 take all their courses online. Read more...

81 Ways Teachers Can Use Google Forms with Their Students

Google Apps is one of the powerful digital toolkit for teachers. It is packed with all kinds of apps you can use both  in your teaching and for your professional growth . Think about services such as Gmail, Google Docs, Presentations, Forms, Google Calendar, Google Education, and the list goes on and on. Most of these tools are free and are part and parcel of our digital being. Read more...

Does Online Education Need to Be Free to Succeed?

A prominent venture capital fund—Union Square Ventures—reckons so, but it adds that academic credentials will also remain vital. At Technology Review, they have been doing some research for an upcoming business report on digital education. It’s an area that’s been receiving a lot of interest from venture capitalists and entrepreneurs—the general idea being that technology will “disrupt” education as we know it, and maybe create a few billion-dollar companies along the way. Read more...

Six Paths to More Authentic Teaching

Most frequently, authenticity is described as being “real” or “genuine,” and the advice often given to faculty wanting to develop authenticity in their teaching is to “just do what comes naturally.” But obvious definitions and easy advice frequently obfuscate deeper complexities, and that is definitely the case with authenticity. Read more...

KCTCS Online Trainings

Remember KCTCS Online Webinars are archived so you can access them at anytime. The trainings for this semester end this week. More will be available in the spring term. To access, go to Blackboard and login. Search for the KCTCS Blackboard Training Module (window) on your portal page and click the Fall 2012 Online Training Schedule.

Upcoming Webinars from SoftChalk

Check out upcoming webinars from SoftChalk.

Google Search Education: Empowering Digital Citizens

The new Google Search Education hub is a free site with materials for teachers to help their students learn skills to search the web, connecting them with a world of information and resources. Visit the site to access lesson plans, videos, and more.

KOLTS Support Site for Faculty

The KOLTS website provides a collection of resources; tools, tutorials, and information to enable you to develop a successful elearning experience for you and your students. Be sure to check out the different areas under Teaching & Learning and Professional Development. Additional resources are listed in the red/orange sub-list on the right side of the page.Great resources and tools will continue to be added to the site. If you have something you would like to share, contact Lisa Jackson of Paige Brooks-Jeffiers.

The blog is a weekly event where one member from our team will let you know what is going on in their area. Well, this was a special week, since we are announcing it, so you got to hear from two of us! But who knows, maybe we’ll even have a surprise blogger or two every now and then!
Be sure to add us to your RSS feed (by clicking the RSS icon) or come back weekly to check out what’s new and to be kept in the loop of initiatives going on with KCTCS Online and around the system. Read more...

Teaching Metacognition to Improve Student Learning

Metacognition can be a word that gets in the way of students’ understanding that this “thinking about thinking” is really about their awareness of themselves as learners. Most students don’t spend much time thinking about learning generally or how they learn specifically. In order to become independent, self-directed learners, they need to be able to “orchestrate” their learning. That’s the metaphor the National Research Council uses to describe planning for learning, monitoring it as it occurs, and then evaluating both what has been learned and how it was learned. Read more...

Training Opportunity

In-Person Training Sessions at the Hazard Campus Today

Financial concerns a major source of stress for faculty at U.S. public colleges, universities

Faculty members at U.S. colleges and universities continue to experience multiple sources of work–life stress, but those at public institutions in particular cited financial concerns as a top source of stress over the last two years, according to a new UCLA report on teaching faculty at the nation’s institutions of higher education. Read more...

Understanding the Flipped Classroom: Part 2

Although the flipped classroom is garnering a lot of attention of late, simply flipping the classroom alone does not increase student success. The instructor must seize the opportunity to guide and interact with the students. Looking at this new definition of homework in a flipped classroom, there are many details to consider. Read more...

Understanding the Flipped Classroom: Part 1

The flipped classroom seems to be the latest buzz in educational trends. Is this truly a new revolutionary approach or a revision of a technique used throughout the ages? To be clear, in simplest terms, flipping the classroom refers to swapping classroom lecture time for hands-on practice time. Read more...

Webinar on Making a Difference with Distance Learning

Whether it’s a student needing some summer course credits, a soldier serving the nation in Afghanistan, or a working parent trying to finish her degree, The University of Toledo strives to make learning personal for its students. Ten thousand students from Ohio and abroad benefit from the instruction they receive from UT Online. Designated “Best Practices in Student Services” by the Ohio Learning Network, UT Online created Learning Ventures, a team built to bring the best blended learning experience to the diverse student population. Attend this free Webinar on Making a Difference with Distance Learning. Read more...

Upcoming SoftChalk Webinars

Register for free, live SoftChalk presentations delivered to your desktop via web conferencing. We offer short courses, introductory demos and our popular “Innovators in Online Learning” webinar series with guest speakers from leading educational institutions. Check what's coming up...

Legal Issues in Higher Ed: Common Ways Institutions Violate Fair Use

A faculty member brings a ragged photocopy of a book chapter to the library to be scanned and loaded to the e-reserves for enrolled students. Does this fall within fair use of the document?  Read more...

Do Students Like Your Communication Style?

Should instructors care whether or not students find their exchanges satisfying? They should, because as this research (and previous studies) document, those levels of satisfaction correlate positively and significantly with something these researchers call “affective learning.” Affective learning involves student feelings and emotions toward the subject matter and the teacher. Read more...

Coming Soon -- KOLTS – KCTCS Online Learning & Teaching Support
A new website is being finalized that will be dedicated to online support and resources for online faculty. http://kolts.kctcs.edu/ If you have suggestions for changes, send them to Lisa Jackson.

Developing Online Learning Communities with Faculty and Students

In a recent faculty-development program focusing on online learning, the number one request from participants was “How do I create a sense of community in my online course?” Online tools and technologies can help us create a sense of community to enhance teaching and learning at our institution. Read more...

vCN Request Submissions

It is that time of the semester again. The HCTC courses for the Spring 2013 term have been completed and is now published; this means it is time for Faculty to complete the vCN Request through the Kentucky Virtual Campus (KyVC). Remember that KyVC is a website that advertises our online courses. This site does get heavy usage from student looking for online classes and we want to be sure we have our classes listed. In order for your online class to be listed/published on the KyVC site, we need you to complete the cVN request form. You will need to list your required textbooks, supplies, and any notes about the class. Instructions are attached. Students will be able to register for classes beginning October 1, so if at all possible, please complete the vCN request prior to October 1. Thanks.

KCTCS Online Learn On Demand Advising Article

KCTCS Learn On Demand program is in the news! Read what Eric Stoller, the Learn on Demand Student Success Coaches’ NACADA recommended consultant, wrote for Inside Higher Ed about dedicated Student Success Coaches entitled “High-Tech, High-Touch Academic Advising.” (click here to view article.)

Bb Mobile App for all IOS and Android Users!!

Great news: the Blackboard app is available for ALL iOS and Android users! Starting September 10th, you and your students can use your iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch®, and Android® devices on any carrier or network to access and update announcements, discussions, content, and much more with the Blackboard Mobile Learn app.

To use Blackboard Mobile Learn, you will be prompted to subscribe to the app via one of two options:

• $1.99* for 1 year of access
• $5.99* for unlimited access

You can find the app by searching for “Blackboard Mobile Learn” in the App Store or Google Play store, or by scanning the codes below:

...............

*Plus any applicable taxes

 Be sure to follow @Bb_Mobile and @BbMobileSupport for updates, and if you’re looking to really engage your students with mobile learning, check out Blackboard’s Best Practices for Mobile-Friendly Courses.

Welcome!

To keep up with changes, news, and updates related to distance learning at HCTC, this blog has been created. This blog will be updated weekly as new technology or updates are available, so check back regularly.

Remember HCTC Distance Learning is on thePoint

All documents and resources related to Distance Learning are now on thePoint for your convenience under documents.  

The DL Committee Documents link contains all the meeting minutes submitted by the DL Committee.  Inside the DL Documents link you will find Divisional Updates, access to the DL Guide, DL Quality Assurance, DL Readiness, Data Reports, and a template import files for your Bb course. Check out Brainfuse Virtual Tutoring under DL Resources.

To add Distance Learning on thePoint to your list of team sites (do only one time):

1.       Goto thePoint

2.       Click My Team Sites

3.       Click Manage My Team Sites

4.        The listing on the far right are all team sites that have open access for all KCTCS employees, look for HCTC Distance Learning

5.       Check the box to the left

6.       Scroll to the bottom and click add (this will add the team site to My Team Site links [to your favorites])