Category Archives: Drupal

Reflection 08/27/12-08/31/12


Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
    • Here is a reflection that I did on another one of Donald Clarke’s blogs on educational philosophers: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/08/30/reflection-on-locke/
    • Signed up and started a massive open online course (MOOC) through coursera
      • 1st impressions are that I like the interface and the concept seems doable.
      • The videos are talking head to start the course. I need more evaluation to make sure I’m getting it. Addendum – There are some quizzes, but they didn’t pop up while I was in FireFox. They work in Chrome, so I plan to do the rest of the course in Chrome.
      • Took the homework quiz after doing half of the course to see what I learned since I already had complete some of the course. 3.75/5.00, but I’m taking the course to learn, not the grade. Addendum – Over night, the score changed b/c of difference in grading algorithm to 4.25. We have 100 attempts possible, but you receive an effective grade which is the average of your scores. 
      • Discussion forums are so large and unmanageable. It’s important to have a cohort of people to make the process of learning more within a reasonable scope. Here is a screen shot of what Kent and I saw in the forums:

      kent's_forum_view.PNG

V_forum_view.png

  • Fall ’12
  • Courses
    • ANGEL had a huge issue on 8/27 in the evening
    • IST 110 Sec 003
      • Start date was off
      • Request to update the Course Project Document b/c of inconsistent info 4-6 v 5-7
    • IST 110 Sec 004
      • Submitted a survey for an Elive room for this course
    • IST 210 Sec 002
      • Had to replace elive survey b/c instructor inputted info in editor mode instead of previewing as a student
    • IST 240
      • Received materials on 8/27 to update course
        • Participation 1-3 – updated 8/27
        • Assignment 5 – updated 8/27
        • Assignment 6 – updated 8/27
    • IST 250 Sec 001
      • Received a note about an item to fix on 8/28 – fixed on 8/28
    • IST 250 Sec 002
      • Received a note that the pdf link didn’t work on 8/27
      • Look more closely at this and Amy sent a note to IT to fix on 8/28 and it was determined and students fixed on 8/28
    • IST 260W
      • Same issue as 250 with pdf
      • Sent a printer-friendly link to student to take care of this for the time being
    • IST 301
      • Helped fix a syllabus issue. In the tab settings there was a link for the syllabus in drupal, but instructor wanted to upload a file instead
    • IST 302
      • WC Helpdesk asked to have an End Date updated
      • Had some back and forth about this
      • Note to WC Helpdesk about an ANGEL issue
      • Provided assistance with a resident course
    • IST 420
      • Fixed an issue with a discussion forum not allow students to make new posts
      • Also helped instructor to change to an advanced user under the ANGEL profile
    • IST 440W
      • Helped instructor to get info about how to set up an Elive room
  • Fall ’12 revisions/developments
    • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Need to meet to discuss after the 27th about next steps
    • IST 402 (Saab)
        • Had meeting on 8/27with David
          • David and I went over the mind map that he had put together
          • David will keep working on building content
          • Set up meeting with Chris Stubbs and Brett Bixler about gamification of the course for Friday, September 21 from 10 AM to Noon at the IST Building
          • After gamify meeting, we will meet every 1 or 2 weeks using skype or google hangouts.
  • Spring ’13 Course Prep – Need to map out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done by the first week in December
    • IST 110
      • Sec 001
    • IST 111S
      • Sec 001
    • IST 210
      • Sec 001
    • IST 220
      • Sec 001
    • IST 230
      • Sec 001
    • IST 240
      • Sec 001
    • IST 250
      • Sec 001
    • IST 260W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 295A
      • Sec 001
    • IST 301
      • Sec 001
    • IST 302
      • Sec 001
    • IST 402 TIE-
      • Sec 001
    • IST 421
      • Sec 001
    • IST 440W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 495
      • Sec 001

Ongoing Projects:

    • Created google spreadsheet for Spring ’13 

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

Back Burner:

    • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

Days off / Conferences:

  • August 1 Wikispaces
  • August 2, 3 Acting
  • August 7-10 Madison Conference
  • August 20 Vacation
  • August 21 Vacation
  • August 27- October 5 Gamification MOOC
  • September 19 Educational Brown Bag
  • September 20 MS-Office Training for Accessiblity
  • Nov 1 AM Sick time for Dental Appt

Reflection 06/11/12-06/15/12


Accomplishments:

  • Summer ’12 courses running
    • IST 210
      • Mike shared out an Elluminate Live session that he created
      • I provided feedback, and he is thinking of making 1-way videos & holding live sessions as a way to follow up
    • IST 220
      • Spoke to Lisa B at the Penn Stater on Monday
        • Looks like she would like to back off the difficulty of the labs
        • I think there is still too much in the course
          • We need to choose online content or a book
          • Cut down the end of chapter questions to 5 at most
          • Tie the labs in with the project

    • IST 240
      • Published the UML Assessment on 6/11 at 8:30 AM
        • Hal provided some adjustments
        • Went to the office to complete the task in the pm
      • Tim also had some requests but only sent to me
        • Not getting a team sense here
    • IST 301
      • Worked out an Elluminate Live issues
        • The confirmation email must have gone to the student’s junk/spam folder
    • IST 302
      • No email to start this week 🙂

    • Summer ’12 revisions/developments
      • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Asked about the amount of a textbook that we can use in a course (15%)
        • Also asked about whether the 15% can come from each edition of the text
          • Checked with Kathy Highbaugh who encouraged me to speak with Chris Holobar
          • Sent not to Holobar and will let Rosalie know when I hear back from Chris
      • IST 402 (Saab)
        • Next meeting is June 18
        • Need to look at syllabus and set up the development space before then
    • Madison proposal
      • Received confirmation that I have been selected to present for the 28th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison, WI in the lightning session format. The session title is “An overview to providing accessible videos using free tools.”
      • Deadlines
    • Fall ’12 Course Prep – mapped out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done before we head out to Madison
      • IST 110
        • Sec 001
          • Copied Jan’s Spring ’12 section into the Fall ’12 space
          • Notified Jan, but didn’t receive word about how to proceed
          • Followed up and received request for deadline
            • Provided my thinking and overall schedule
            • We’ll reconvene on 8/15 to see if the 1st section is ready to populate section 002
        • Sec 002
          • Plan is to fix section 001, then copy into section 002
        • Sec 003
          • Copied master course section into the space
        • Sec 004 Pearson Pilot
          • No longer a Pearson Pilot
          • Probably will not be used based upon into from Amy S

      • IST 111S
        • Sec 001
          • Emailed Deirdre to give her a heads up that I’m moving on to populating her section next week.
          • Received confirmation and populated the section on 6/11
          • Set up new schedule, etc. to complete
          • Received confirmation email from Deirdre that she’ll check and let me know what adjustments to make
      • IST 210 (This will probably need to be backed up since I’m still waiting on a few items from Gary)
        • Sec 001
        • Sec 002
      • IST 220 (This is going to need to be backed up so that we can make adjustments to the course before the next running)
        • Sec 001
        • Sec 002
      • IST 230
        • Sec 001
          • Emailed Larry to give him a heads up that I’m moving on to populating his section next week.
      • IST 240
        • Sec 001
      • IST 250
        • Sec 001
        • Sec 002
      • IST 260W
        • Sec 001
      • IST 302
        • Sec 001
      • IST 331
        • Sec 001
        • Sec 002
      • IST 402 SMO
        • Sec 001
      • IST 420 –
        • Made adjustments to Sec 001
          • Links updated
          • Course schedule updated
          • Team Work elements moved
          • Discussion forum rubric created and linked
        • When I hear back from John H about the rubric, I plan to…
          • export, merge sections 1-3, import materials into merged section
        • Sec 001
        • Sec 002
        • Sec 003
      • IST 440W
        • Sec 001
        • Sec 002
      • IST 495
        • Sec 001

    Ongoing Projects:

    • Updating google spreadsheet for Summer ’12 &  Fall ’12 
    • Created a new end of the semester survey for Spring ’12 & received good feedback from the team before implementation
      • Have a plan of sending out a survey a day until all Spring course surveys have been sent out
    • Thinking about how to point out to places that will be updated from the syllabus
      • Meeting next week with Kent to sure this up
    • Working on Fall ’12 Courses listed above
    • Set up Virtual Team Group in Yammer: https://www.yammer.com/psu.edu/#/threads/inGroup?type=in_group&feedId=567058
      • I’m trying to get discussion going but not getting alot of participation
    • Spent most of the time this week in the office on interviewing for a new candidate
    • IST 260W content added in drupal – finally finished this up
      • Topic 1 is completed
      • Topic 2 is completed
      • Topic 3 is completed
      • Topic 4 is completed
      • Topic 5 is completed
      • Topic 6 is completed
      • Supplemental Topic A is completed
      • Supplemental Topic B is completed
      • Supplemental Topic C is completed
      • Supplemental Topic D is completed

    Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

    Back Burner:

    • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

    Something New I worked on this Week

    • Worked out a few issues with displaying flash in drupal for IST 260W
    • Working with prezi on the presentation for Madison this summer

    Days off / Conferences:

    • June 4 – 4 hours vaction in AM
    • June 11 & 12 Web 2012 Conference
    • June 22, 25-28 vacation days
    • June 29 – Personal holiday
    • July 10 AM Sick time for Dental Appt
    • August 8-10 Madison Conference

Reflection 04/02/12-04/06/12


Accomplishments:

  • Spring ’12 courses running
    • IST 110
      • Got a note from an instructor about screenr not working which I had also experienced earlier in the week
      • Sent a request to IT but it turned out to be the screenr site itself, now working 🙂
    • IST 230
      • Received a call from Larry about the file size for the voice-over ppt for solutions to problems of the week impacting ANGEL.
      • Added the ppts to drupal in lieu of the older recorded sessions from elive
      • Larry communicated that there are two benefits that students have shared with him about this approach
        • Instead of having to fast forward through the recorded session, students can easily maneuver and locate the problems that they need assistance
        • Many students are placing these on flash drives and making them mobile
        • This second comment made me think of making these ppts into podcasts that could be shared on mobile devices
    • IST 301
      • Got an im that peer evals may have been lost due to a server going down
        • Plan to contact instructor to send out a note to resubmit
    • Spring ’12 revisions
      • IST 210 (Heberling)
        • Gary will be adjusting Labs and Team Project
        • Gary will be going through the assessment questions to see what should be removed from the banks
      • IST 220 (Bertin)
        • I completed my adjustments to the space and added Lisa B and Abbi D to the space for their input
        • I also emailed Lisa to set up a time to review the dev section before copying materials into the summer ’12 spaces
        • Met with Lisa and she was open to my ideas
        • Cleaned things up a bit and ran things by John Fulmer to see if he saw anything that I missed
        • Populated all 3 summer sections
      • IST 240 (Smith)
        • Waiting for rest of content before making whole section adjustments
        • Sent a note to IST Helpdesk about items that should be included on vlabs
      • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
      • IST 402 (Saab)
        • Met with David on April 2
          • He is still working on the course
          • Planned another meeting on April 30
      • IST 421 (Hill)
        • I have been making adjustments to the dev space
        • John has been making more adjustments to the course
        • I fixed the course up to the point where I need info from John to continue forward
        • We decided that we’ll change up the types of individual assignments to include
          • Multiple choice assessments on readings
          • Discussion forums
          • 1 page papers in reply to a prompt or question
    • Madison proposal
      • Received confirmation that I have been selected to present for the 28th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning in Madison, WI in the lightning session format. The session title is “An overview to providing accessible videos using free tools.”
      • Deadlines
        • May 4 – Upload required paper for Conference Proceedings and Resources publication
        • June 4 – Register for the conference (instructions will be sent)
        • July 4 – Upload session handout(s)
      • Worked on my sections for April 12 meeting
        • I also need to run our ideas by the OIDI group to get feedback
    • Started reading a blog about learning design theories. Here are a few reflections:
    • Revamped how I’m staying connected. Here is my latest plan: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/04/04/spring-cleaning-on-staying-connected/
    • Summer ’12 Course Prep
      • IST 110
        • Sec 001 Followed up to find out which section to export/import from
          • Larry notified about course being prepped and consulted about whether it was okay to use the dev space materials or Fall ’11
          • Sent a reply that he would check & then I can move from there
        • Sec 002
          • Completed the update of Rob’s section and awaiting feedback from Larry about the course schedule
        • Sec 003
          • Awaiting Larry’s reply before populating the space
          • Amy G will be teaching this section as a Pearson pilot
        • Sec 004
          • Awaiting Larry’s reply before populating the space
          • Deirdre will be teaching this section
      • IST 111S Followed up about which section to import/export from
        • Sec 001
          • Deirdre notified about course being prepped and consulted about whether it is okay to use Spring ’12 as the section to copy
          • Plan to remove course schedule from the syllabus since she already places the course schedule under the Lessons tab in ANGEL
      • IST 220
        • Sec 001
          • Completed all items for Summer ’12 opening
        • Sec 002
          • Completed all items for Summer ’12 opening
        • Sec 003
          • Completed all items for Summer ’12 opening
      • IST 230
        • Sec 001
          • Emailed Larry to confirm that it is okay to export Spring ’12 materials to import into the Summer ’12 space
          • Received confirmation to set up space
          • Completed all items for Summer ’12 opening
      • IST 295B
        • Sec 001
          • Completed all items for Summer ’12 opening
      • IST 301
        • Rosalie set up HBR articles and provided me a link
        • She’s also going to populate her spaces
      • IST 495
        • Sec 001
          • Completed all items for Summer ’12 opening

    Ongoing Projects:

    • Updating google spreadsheet for Summer ’12 &  Fall ’12
    • Working on Summer 2012 courses: 110, 111S, 210, 220, 230, 240, 295B, 301, 302, 420 EA (Melissa), 421, 495
    • IST 260W content added in drupal
      • I need to check it with the WC offering
        • Began the process but looks like there is a reference to an old textbook in the content

    Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

    Some things that I learned this week:

    • I tried to make an edit to an image with Photoshop using a vector image, it didn’t save the file. I need some training with Photoshop to become more effective and efficient. What I ended up doing was using Jing to capture an image and then place a box around the part of the image that I was trying to highlight.

    Back Burner:

    • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

    Days off / Conferences:

    • April 10 – 4 hours vacation
    • April 13 – 8 hours vacation
    • April 16 – 8 hours vacation
    • June 11 & 12 Web 2012 Conference
    • June 22, 25-29 vacation days
    • July 10 AM Sick time for Dental Appt
    • August 8-10 Madison Conference

    Reflection 02/13/12-02/17/12

    Accomplishments:

    • Spring ’12 courses running
      • IST 110
        • Worked on assignment groups with Amy since the UPick quizzes have three options
          • drop the lowest
          • drop the highest
          • never drop
        • What we really need to select the three highest, but since that is not an option, we need to send in a request for this option
        • Spoke with Fred A about group work
          • He’s finding the audience being quite varied many are superior with alot of experience while others are taking as a gen ed
          • Many students who are more motivated are tiring of waiting for teammates to accomplish teamwork only on weekends
          • It seems to me that it is time to put together a prof dev opportunity that includes Larry R and faculty to talk about strategies to facilitate and maintain healthy teams in online courses
      • IST 210
        • Adam suggested a few fixes to Visio hanging up
        • Gary liked the suggestion to create a template for students to access, but this didn’t work
        • One of the other options was to disable the printer settings by the individual student. Here are a few screen shots of what to do
          • Start by bringing up the remote desktop connection application
          • You will get the following dialog box:Visio_fix_1.jpg
          • Select the Options circled above
          • Next, go to the tab called “Local Resources” and unselect the box for Printers shown below:Visio_fix_2.jpg
      • IST 420
        • Met with John H and LA’s
        • Focused on rubrics and how they work, especially increased granularity on the higher end of the scale
        • Spent time at the OIDI team meeting talking about rubrics in theory and in practice. Here is a document that John H created and I gave some feedback to refine: Rubrics-ANGEL Percentage Spread.doc
    • Spring ’12 revisions
      • IST 210 (Heberling)
        • Sent Gary an email
        • He let me know that book came in
        • Also sent me test bank for Ch 1
        • Here are my thoughts about the tests that I sent to Gary:

          I saw that you sent the Chapter 1 Test Bank. I also saw that there are several question formats, true/false, multiple choice, short answer, and essay. My thinking is that since we want these to be around 20 questions and autograded, we should nix using the essay questions in the assessments since the instructor would have to assess those manually. There are plenty of other items in the course that will be assessed that way.

          To me, we should group the types into 3, multiple choice (15), short answer (3), true/false (2). So I will make 3 banks for each chapter assessment that include all of the questions of each type and choose those number of problems at 1 point each for each section. Does this sound like a good plan to you?

      • IST 220 (Bertin)
        • Emailed and got reply that she set up another section with her stuff
        • Couldn’t find the section so emailed back
      • IST 240 (Smith)
        • Finished Lesson 6 next week
        • Received more materials (Lesson 8)
        • Have the materials in place and sent follow up note to Hal
        • Sent a note to Hal about transcripts. I put a ticket into footprints for students to begin transcription
        • Also discussed with Kent that we need to have an overall plan
      • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
      • IST 402 (Saab)
        • Met with David on 2/13 from 11-12
        • Here are the notes that I took:
          • David had ANGEL materials restored from the last time that he taught the course (Spring ’10)
          • He also shared files with me that I can’t read on the PC
          • I plan to bring my mac next mon
          • Talked more about using blogs and possibly mind mapping
      • IST 421 (Hill)
        • Checked in with John Hill via email about setting up a meeting to discuss the 421 Development
        • Here is the agenda with notes:
          • Here are a few initial thoughts of mine based upon what you have sent and what I’ve been thinking about this process:

            �         It’s amazing that you were able to fit so much content (18 topics) into 12 weeks. We could definitely make this work, but I think that it would be worth taking a second look at the current topic count and make adjustments first. As I think about this from a student perspective, I would feel overwhelmed to take a course that includes 18 topics whether it was 12 or 15 weeks. I think that we can fix this by taking the 18 topics and considering how we could morph those 18 topics into 12 topics. We would do this with the eye that when it runs as a 15-week course that weeks that make sense to run over 2 weeks would be able to do that. This is a daunting task, but it will help us to start thinking about which assignments we could integrate or eliminate in order to make this a course that is much more student friendly. How does this resonate with you?

          o   Keep content

          o   Adjust activities

          �         In this course there are a few assignments, like the Background Questionnaire, that should be placed in a survey instead of a dropbox for easier grading and review. I think we can find all of these types of situations much more easily if we go through the course in small pieces.

          o   Convert Background Questionnaire into an assessment

          �         I don’t like how the materials are organized in types instead of weeks. All of the other courses in the program are either in this format or moving into that format. It would be worth our time to move change this to make the course easier for students to find materials.

          o   Organize into Lessons not by material type

          �         I don’t like that there are three categories of grades, especially since the course probably has several different types of grades that are in the same category. As we look at the course, it would be worth determining early on what the categories are.

          o   tbd

          �         I also don’t like that 5/8 of the grade revolves around one category (team). There are several reasons for this. One teamwork is difficult, and students have to depend upon individuals who either have conflicting schedules or may be very busy. It would be best if we could tone this down a bit.

          o   Create a 50/50 split indiv v. team and make natural categories within each larger group

          �         Just like in 420, the grades are based on percentage, but they are auto calculated. Once we have determined the categories, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to distribute percentages to reflect a fair distribution.

          �         Just like in 420, once the percentages are determined, it would make the most sense to update the points to make them more instructor friendly to grade. I made everything 100 points in 420 except the peer evals which were 5 based on the tool. I see the same type of process working here.

          �         Speaking of peer evals, there is only one in this course which for a course that is so heavy on teamwork makes no sense to me. I think that 5, like in 420 is a bit much. Maybe we would have 3 peer evals, one early after the teams start, another at the mid-term, and a final one at the end. The tool will be much more effective implemented this way.

          o   3 peer evals (Func- What am I going 2 do, Tech-How am I going 2 do it, Final-What did I do)- Sys Dev Cycle

      • IST 440W
        • Met with Amy S and Shawn C about possible revision Summer/Fall for run in Spring ’12
        • Proposed course definitely more manageable for students (no app completion necessary) and new faculty (more structured)  
      • Madison proposal
        • Awaiting confirmation about both the lightning session
      • Met with John H and LA’s to discuss rubrics in the am. Here are a few notes:
        • Creation of rubrics by using the Manage tab to get to Rubric Manager
        • Create new rubric or copy one that is already there
        • Possible to edit the rubric once it’s made
        • Make the rubric more granular on the upper end of the scale
        • Attach the rubric by selecting settings and choosing the Assignment tab then drop down to the correct one (don’t forget to check to box for student rubric preview and review)
        • When grading select the correct button and autocalculates the assignment
        • Remarks can be recorded in the box in ANGEL or track changes on the assignment
      • Attended Black History Month Event and lunch. Here is a blog with my thoughts: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/17/sac-black-history-month-event-and-lunch-021712/

      Ongoing Projects:

      • Updating google doc for Summer ’12
        • Checked in with Karen about info since PM was wondering if we sent the data over
      • Working on Summer 2012 courses: 110, 111S, 210, 220, 230, 240, 295B, 301, 302, 420 EA (Melissa), 421, 495
      • Still need IST 260W content added in drupal
        • Rest of course has begun
        • Once this is completed, I’ll check it with the WC offering
        • Sounds like there are some things that need to be adjusted

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      Some things that I learned this week:

      Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee (maybe Kent and I need to keep this going here at the College of IST or maybe we should consider joining the group from ETS)

      Days off / Conferences:

      • February days out of the office 3 (half day vaca in pm), 6 (vaca), & 24 (half day sick-dental/half day vaca)
      • March 22 S.T.A.R.T Conference
      • March 24 TLT Symposium 
      • June 11 & 12 Web 2012 Conference
      • June 22, 25-29 vacation days

    Reflection 02/06/12-02/10/12

    Accomplishments:

    • Spring ’12 courses running
      • IST 110
        • Worked with Larry Newcomer to update items in the course to spell out to students the purpose of activities
        • Updated in the dev space and section 3
      • IST 111S
        • Got a note from Deirdre about setting opening dates for group work video for earlier next week.
        • Set the dates and sent reply
      • IST 210
        • Received note that “old” versions of the lab overview were floating around
        • Checked in with IST Helpdesk & they will send out list after things settle down a bit
        • Still having problems with Vision in vlabs environment even after an intervention by Adam
        • Alot of conversation back and forth on this
        • Hoping to reach a resolution so that we can continue with Visio for the course
      • IST 250
        • Shared dev space with Rich P from Greater Allegheny upon request, suggested to by Brett B
        • He’s more interested with using the space as a reference rather than importing the course in as a boiler plate
        • Adjusted the Course Content to point to drupal so that Tim L could see content
      • IST 301
        • Had an issue with peer eval that we will send a student to the WC Helpdesk to resolve
        • Found out the problem is that one of the merged sections for this course is unable to view the evals by diagnosing myself
        • Sent request to John B to have Adam check and fix the peer eval
      • IST 331
        • Got a request from the instructor with question about ANGEL. Sent a request to WC Helpdesk with the following video:
        • Received the following feedback:

          Good morning! We checked out your video and I was able to duplicate this issue. Upon further investigation, it turns out that this student, Student Name (Student email ID), has her/his overall ANGEL Profile Name Settings only viewable by “Course/Group Mentors”. If the student were to change this setting to “Students/Members”, then s/he and other Team 3 students will be able to view him from the Course Roster.

          Here is how the student can change this setting:

          ANGEL Profile Page–> Preferences (button on left with silhouette image)–> Personal Information link–>  very first section is Name Settings–> change Viewable By to “Students/Members”

          I hope this answers your question as to why this is happening. I believe that if the student changes this, it will fix this issue. If you would like us to contact the student regarding this issue, let us know and we’ll be glad to help.

      • IST 420
        • There was a note about adjusting Minicase #1. I will update the development space. Would you like the rubric added to Lesson 3, 4, or both? Should it be added as a Word Doc or included in the dropbox? You mention that there are no questions, do you have questions that they should answer?
        • Met with John & Justin on Wednesday from 1:30-2. 
          • Decided to place rubrics into ANGEL for Minicase #1 and Enterprise Paper
          • Added rubrics and attached to those two assignments based upon rubric written in Word
          • Looking forward to feedback from the group on how the rubrics work for them
    • Spring ’12 revisions
      • IST 210 (Heberling)
        • Haven’t heard more back from the committee about their feedback
        • Plan to move forward as soon as Gary gets his text
      • IST 220 (Bertin)
        • Health of Lisa’s colleague has forced her to pick up slack
        • No progress for the week
        • IST 240 (Smith)
          • Finished work on Lesson 4 & 5 from last week
          • Plan to finish Lesson 6 next week
        • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
        • IST 402 (Saab)
          • Met with David on 2/7 from 11-12:15
          • Here are the notes that I took:
            • textbooks/online content mix
              • No textbook – videos, online materials
              • Textbook on Computer Ethics is a possibility
              • Supplement the textbook with materials that David has used
              • Course could include text and extend with online materials, included in discussion forums, voicethread, or Elluminate Live
              • May be best to use a blog as a way to integrate the course
              • Maybe gamify the course
            • lesson assessment
            • assess basic knowledge – randomly generated assessments from a bank
            • extend knowledge – discussions forums v. voicethread
              • voice thread for some of the activities by embedding segments and starting discussion
              • Then continue the video and change the scenario to see how it changes
            • team work role
              • team project needs to be chunked out for online delivery
              • proposal would be the delivery, not a website
            • paper
            • exam
            • website
            • vocab – flash cards
            • Work flow
            • ANGEL for materials
            • Format of materials
            • Setting up items in ANGEL
            • Communicating progress
            • Email
            • F2f
            • Virtual
            • Weekly
            • Bi-weekly
            • IST 402 SMO Peer Evals – set up a meeting on 2/20 to work details on handling the peer eval google form
        • IST 421 (Hill)
          • Awaiting response on email sent on Friday
          • Placed a reminder on my calendar to contact him 2nd week of February
      • Madison proposal
        • Awaiting confirmation about both the lightning session
      • Attended the Forum on Th at the Penn Stater done by Michael Mann. Here are my thoughts and reflections: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/09/forum-series-speaker-michael-mann/.
      • Attended the monthly LD Community Meeting. Here are my notes from the meeting: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/10/ld-community-meeting-feb-2012/

      Ongoing Projects:

      • Updating google doc for Summer ’12
        • Sent info to Karen M and updated google doc
      • Working on Summer 2012 courses: 110, 111S, 210, 220, 230, 240, 295B, 301, 302, 420 EA (Melissa), 421, 495
      • Still need IST 260W content added in drupal
        • Rest of course has begun
        • Once this is completed, I’ll check it with the WC offering
        • Sounds like there are some things that need to be adjusted

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      • Here are the items that I have for this week:

        • I’ve had a few issues with students who are taking resident courses but using online materials (IST 230) who are requesting assistance from the WC and IST Helpdesk. This is because we forgot to update some materials in ANGEL, but it is also because our syllabus includes items like MSDNAA and Vlabs which are only available for UP and WC students. Here are some solutions that I think will work:
          • Remove the items referenced above from the syllabus and place in ANGEL so that those items can be removed more easily later
          • Make the syllabus more generic and upload the syllabus as an html file within each ANGEL section so that it can be edited there
          • Create individual drupal sections for each ANGEL section so that instructors can customize if necessary
        • Would it make most sense to have only content on drupal? The other items seems to be better in ANGEL.
        • I’m a bit concerned with the direction being taken with regard to course committees.
          • We will not be able to complete revisions in the time allotted unless there is a process in place in which faculty on the committee are held responsible for completing what they need to do before the revision with a single faculty begins or maybe we need to consider the revision being a part of the committees responsibility. If they had more ownership in the final product, they would be less likely to judge all of the final products as I see many of them doing now.
          • A faculty member or members from the committee needs to be involved in the revision process. This will eliminate the need for the revising faculty to have to check in with the committee about proposed revisions. If the committee is responsible for the content, then they should lay out what should be done. It seems to me that if the faculty committee had a common project on which to work they may be able to work out some of the differences which lead to conflict.

      Some things that I learned this week:

      • See WC Helpdesk resolution for IST 331

      Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee (maybe Kent and I need to keep this going here at the College of IST or maybe we should consider joining the group from ETS)

      Days off / Conferences:

      • February days out of the office 3 (half day vaca in pm), 6 (vaca), & 24 (half day sick-dental/half day vaca)
      • March 24 TLT Symposium attending only since our proposal wasn’t accepted
      • June 22, 25-29 vacation days

      Rubric Tool Demo

      I’ve been spending time thinking about and adjusting the IST courses peer evaluations. Beginning summer ’12, all of the courses will be run out of OIDI. Up to this point, there has a peer evaluation tool used from World Campus Learning Design. At the time of the transition, it was determined that we would not be using the current tool. I started last semester by trying a form in drupal. There are some short comings to this process. One, the interface is not easy for students to complete the form. It was not clear that students needed to complete a form for each team member. The data collected could be exported into excel, but it can be a laborious process to sort the data and do computations. At the end, all of the grades need to be manually added to ANGEL. Google forms is much easier for students to complete, but the data received is much the same as in drupal. Khusro and a programmer from EMS named Scott have been working on a rubric tool that may be a good start for creating a peer eval tool. Khusro did a thorough explanation of the how the tool works while Scott assisted in demoing the tool. My first impressions are that the tool is user friendly and robust. Currently, it is not set up to be a peer evaluation tool. It is set to allow instructors to grade their students. Melissa Hicks made a nice diagram outlining the current tool and how it would have to be modified to fit this use case. Here is the image:
      peer_eval.png

      Hopefully, this conversation is the beginning of a move toward a better tool for students university wide.

      Reflection 01/23/12-01/27/12

      Accomplishments:

      • Amy S has been updating google doc for Summer ’12
      • Spring ’12 courses running
        • IST 110
          • Section 001 – Worked with Fred & Amy about way to use grab information from ANGEL survey. Here is the accompanying video:

          • Section 002 – Canvas going well & updated Lesson 07 link
          • Section 004
            • Helped with correcting confusion by Jan with info on Elive
            • Helped with explaining issues with changing assignments and adjusting gradebook accordingly using the following screenr:
              • Still unresolved after screenr, but talked on phone and reached resolution. Sounds like the LA’s graded and there was a communication problem about how this was done.
        • IST 230 – Advised Larry on how to handle solutions sets for quizzes and problems of the week by including powerpoint. It’s more of a way of flipping the classroom. If the student still doesn’t understand the material, they can schedule a live session.
        • IST 301 – Reminded about how to find teams in ANGEL. Here is a video that I made recently for this
        • IST 331 – Discussed the most efficient way to fix technical problems in a course. Start with WC helpdesk
        • IST 420 – Had a formal meeting with John H and LA. Talked about gradebook and peer eval. Hope to make some adjustments to the development space to make the course more efficient for students and instructor
        • IST 456 – Helped with override settings for assessments in ANGEL. Here is a video that I made:
      • Spring ’12 revisions
        • IST 210 (Heberling)
        • IST 220 (Bertin)
          • Received course proposal that was sent out to faculty on the course committee
            • Sent a reply back to Lisa which provide some feedback and also asking a few questions on 1/23
            • Received a reply and plan to meet via phone on Monday 1/30
            • Here is my proposed agenda:
              • Discuss:

                •  textbooks/online content mix
                • lesson assessment

                o   review questions

                o   discussions forums v. voicethread

                o   randomly generated assessments from a bank

                •  Labs

                o   Questions/concerns

                o   Chance to try – work out bugs

                •  Work flow

                o   ANGEL for materials

                o   Format of materials

                o   Setting up items in ANGEL

                o   Communicating progress

        • IST 240 (Smith)
          • Received note that materials were posted in the development section in ANGEL for Lessons 3 and 4
          • They are in place and note sent to Hal about what to check in the course
        • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
        • IST 402 (Saab)
          • Won’t be starting until the beginning of February
        • IST 421 (Hill)
          • Spoke with John H about this on Monday. He plans on contacting me soon about making adjustments
      • Madison proposal
        • After trying to submit our proposal under three presenter unsuccessfully, we decided to have Amy and Gary submit together
        • Gary and I have submitted lightning session proposals separately, just in case
      • Attended the Forum Series Speaker. Here is a blog of my thoughts: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/01/20/forum-series-speaker-linda-patterson-miller/
      • Attended the Education Gaming Brownbag: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/01/25/educational-gaming-brownbag-amazing-race-to-geographic-literacy/

      Ongoing Projects:

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      • I’ve had a few issues with students who are taking resident courses but using online materials (IST 230) who are requesting assistance from the WC and IST Helpdesk. This is because we forgot to update some materials in ANGEL, but it is also because our syllabus includes items like MSDNAA and Vlabs which are only available for UP and WC students. Here are some solutions that I think will work:
        • Remove the items referenced above from the syllabus and place in ANGEL so that those items can be removed more easily later
        • Create individual drupal sections for each ANGEL section so that instructors can customize if necessary
      • Would it make most sense to have only content on drupal? The other items seems to be better in ANGEL.

      Some things that I learned this week:

      Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee (maybe Kent and I need to keep this going here at the College of IST or maybe we should consider joining the group from ETS)

      Days off / Conferences:

      • January days out of the office 24 & 27 (vaca)
      • February days out of the office 3 (half day vaca in pm), 6 (vaca), & 24 (half day sick-dental/half day vaca)
      • March 24 TLT Symposium – thinking of using this opportunity to practice session for Madison Conference
      • June 22, 25-29 vacation days

      Reflection 12/19/11-12/23/11

      Accomplishments:

      �         IST 110 Spring ’12 Section 002 Canvas Pilot

      o   Attended the training on 12/15/11

      o   Impressed with how tools like google docs and EtherPad integrated into the interface

      o   Assessments ported over much better than any of the other CMS’s tested in a shorter period of time

      o   Looks like many different tools are integrated like live tool instead of having to submit surveys etc.

      �         IST 110 CE

      o   Export/Imported materials in the space for Liz T.

      �         IST 111S

      o   Spoke with Deirdre over the phone. I copied materials over from Development space to real space

      o   She has items in the last three Lessons to revise.

      o   The plan is for her to start by revising the activities in ANGEL

      o   Then we will unpublish the last three topics which will give her time to make adjustments. This also prevents students from getting too far ahead in the course

      �         CMPSC 360 Yk and IST 230 Yk

      o   Exported/Imported materials in space for Larry N.

      �         IST 301 for Spring ’12 will have a deaf student

      o   Identified videos that need to be transcribed to be done through WCLD

      o   Working on finding a tool for Rosalie to do screenrs with

      �  Dragonfly Dictate is what we will use

      �  Wondering if we should have it for her computer or on an external hard drive to be able to plug and play for anyone who needs it

      �         Continued with IST 331 revision

      o   Working back and forth via email to complete revision even though just down the hallway, very inefficient L

      o   Updated the videos to make them more accessible. Used beta captioning tool which takes a text file and matches the video with it.

      o   Completed and uploaded to the Spring ’12 space J

      �         IST 402 revision

      o   Double checked schedule and gradebook to make sure that it works

      o   Made a few adjustments but everything is set to go

      �         IST 440W

      o   Talked to Rob Lipton about his experience with 440W

      o   Need to tie the course and assignments with the text book

      �         Madison proposal

      o   Met with Amy and Gary on Monday

      o   Amy took the Summary and I took the Objectives

      o   We plan to work on the Content Description for 1/4/11

      Ongoing Projects:

      �         Working on Spring 2012 courses: IST 111S, IST 230, IST 295A, IST 331, IST 402, IST 495

      �         Working on Summer 2012 courses: IST 210, IST 220, IST 240, IST 250, IST 260W, IST 295B, IST 301, IST 302, IST 420, IST 421, IST 440W

      �         Check for flash and video that doesn’t show up from the WC version.

      �         Adding peer evals in drupal to courses.

      �         Working on checking courses (content isn’t always there) from WCLD to be placed in Drupal through OIDI task list

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      Some things that I learned this week:

      �         I was having trouble getting javascript to work in IST 260W, so I moved the content.css file to the files level and placed the following code at the top of the html: <script language=”javascript” type=”text/javascript” src=”https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/public/scripts_library/headscripts.js”></script>

      <p>

      <link type=”text/css” rel=”stylesheet” href=”/sites/ist260w/files/content.css” /></p>

      Back Burner:

      �         Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

      Days off / Conferences:     

      �         Vacation Day – 12/22/11

      �         Winter Holiday (12/23/11-1/2/12- The 23rd is a holiday compensation day)

      �         Dental Appt scheduled for 2/24/12 (Plan to take half day in the am)

      �         March 24 TLT Symposium – thinking of using this opportunity to practice session for Madison Conference

      I’m off to break. See you on the flip side.

      Reflection 12/12/11-12/16/11

      Accomplishments:

      �         IST 110 Dev and Spring ’12 spaces

      o   Cleared the IST 110 Dev space and populated with Section 4 materials

      o   Populated sections 1-4 with the materials

      o   Updated the course schedule to include both fall and spring versions to the dev space

      o   Adjusted the course schedules in all 4 spring spaces

      o   Updated the Resources and Communication tabs in all 4 spring spaces

      o   Sent out notes to instructors that spaces were ready

      o   Worked on peer evals from spring. Need to be redone or done differently. Too cumbersome since students had to figure out too much (id’s) and instructors too (names). Considering using Google form to replace and put link within ANGEL

      �         IST 111S – haven’t heard anything this week and looks like the space still in need of work

      �         Posted IST 295A Overview video to youtube. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHCnKiZhEo.

      �         Continued with IST 331 revision

      o   Made adjustments and created IST 331 Overview video on youtube. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD5n3kCqZdk.

      o   Had to redo the course schedule twice L

      o   Almost set. Have a f2f meeting w/ Martin tomorrow to make sure that everything is set

      �         IST 402 revision

      o   Met with David about course. Seems like everything is set. Also talked to Dave about course development for 402 in the future

      o   Need to update the course with MSDNAA & Vlabs info

      Ongoing Projects:

      �         Working on Spring 2012 courses: IST 111S, IST 230, IST 295A, IST 331, IST 402, IST 495

      �         Working on Summer 2012 courses: IST 210, IST 220, IST 240, IST 250, IST 260W, IST 295B, IST 301, IST 302, IST 420, IST 421, IST 440W

      �         Check for flash and video that doesn’t show up from the WC version.

      �         Adding peer evals in drupal to courses.

      �         Working on checking courses (content isn’t always there) from WCLD to be placed in Drupal through OIDI task list

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      Some things that I learned this week:

      �         To edit the banners for drupal, go to subversion and find a banner. Edit in photoshop and rename to the correct course in the correct folder on the course server.

      �         The transcription on youtube is possible, but may need to made changes. I wrote a fresh transcript for 331 and uploaded it.

      �         When clearing a dev space for population, clear the Assessment Bank and Survey Bank 1st to avoid having old questions.

      Back Burner:

      �         Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

      Days off / Conferences:     

      �         Vacation Day – 12/22/11

      �         Winter Holiday (12/23/11-1/2/12- The 23rd is a holiday compensation day)

      �         Dental Appt scheduled for 2/24/12 (Plan to take half day in the am)

      �         March 24 TLT Symposium – thinking of using this opportunity to practice session for Madison Conference

      Running as planned hoping to do the 1st Night Run.

      Reflection 12/05/11-12/09/11

      Accomplishments:

      �         Made adjustments to IST 110 peer eval. Some students confused with PSU ID. Had to clarify that the ID was their email account ID. Also clarified directions in ANGEL.

      �         Continued with IST 111S revision

      o   Contacted Deirdre via email about progress and to see where she is

      �  Got a response. She’s still working and asked for a drop dead date. Much has been completed, so I gave her a date of Dec 19.

      o   Worked more on why interactive pieces are not working. Here’s what we found:

      �  One of the problems that we have with this object is that we don’t have the original fla file that was used to export the swf. Another is that drupal is renaming from the naming convention that we are using in our file structure by replacing with “node,” not sure if this is a drupal issue or how the original flash was programmed. Another is that the flash that is being used in this course is calling out to an xml file which is different than other items that work in drupal. We did some testing and we can get to the object using the url to our server. If we used a screen shot of the original object and link out to the object on our server, it works.

      �  Once the decision was made to link to the server via an jpg, we continued to have issues, only to find that the extension was JPG in caps on the server. Once this was adjusted, everything has worked perfectly.

      �         Heard back from Lisa about plan for 210 revision to help tie the course together a bit more with labs.

      �         Met with Hyunjeong about teaching 220 for Spring ’12. Shared sample introduction announcement.

      �         Continued with IST 331 revision

      o   Worked through my last pass before turning things over to Martin to double check

      o   Good impromptu meeting with Martin for clarification has sped up the process

      o   Working out a few final items before having this complete

      �         Continued with IST 402 revision

      o   Still need to complete 2 items for completion

      Ongoing Projects:

      �         Working on Spring 2012 courses: IST 111S, IST 230, IST 295A, IST 331, IST 402, IST 495

      �         Working on Summer 2012 courses: IST 210, IST 220, IST 240, IST 250, IST 260W, IST 295B, IST 301, IST 302, IST 420, IST 421, IST 440W

      �         Check for flash and video that doesn’t show up from the WC version.

      �         Adding peer evals in drupal to courses.

      �         Working on checking courses (content isn’t always there) from WCLD to be placed in Drupal through OIDI task list

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      Some things that I learned this week:

      �         When flash objects have swf pointing to xml can be problematic in drupal

      �         When placing code into drupal and if items are not showing up, change the case from lower to upper to see if that works.

      Back Burner:

      �         Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

      Days off / Conferences:     

      �         Vacation Day – 12/22/11

      �         Winter Holiday (12/23/11-1/2/12)

      �         Dental Appt scheduled for 2/24/12 (Plan to take half day in the am)

      �         March 24 TLT Symposium – thinking of using this opportunity to practice session for Madison Conference (Possible to count this as time worked?)

      Still running for 1st night 5K. Glad to hear that Kent is planning to join me in the run.