Month: February 2010

More ooVoo Testing

Just did connection tests on the wireless out here and everything looks good. We were getting 8.07 Mbps Down and 2.33 Mbps Up on the Guest network and 6.15 Mbps Down and 6.13 Mbps Up on the Penn State network…

Just did connection tests on the wireless out here and everything looks good. We were getting 8.07 Mbps Down and 2.33 Mbps Up on the Guest network and 6.15 Mbps Down and 6.13 Mbps Up on the Penn State network via VPN.

Our AV signal paused a few times on the PSU connection when we were moving around. It was probably due to moving from one wireless connection to another. The Guest network dropped once during testing on the first floor in the PSPB side of the building.

We believe it’s the instructor’s computer since he was experiencing problems with Skype as well.

CM2 MAX Portable Interactive Whiteboard System

El just id’d the product I was looking for! Thank you El!I had seen an article about this interesting USB portable projector. It sees an IR wand and uses that signal to allow users to interact with a projected computer…

El just id’d the product I was looking for! Thank you El!

I had seen an article about this interesting USB portable projector. It sees an IR wand and uses that signal to allow users to interact with a projected computer image similar to a SMART board. The big advantage is, you don’t need a special board and you aren’t limited to using a pen to write/interact with your computer content. This technology could be very useful in classrooms in ways the SMART board just couldn’t be.

I’m going to request one from next year’s budget so we can try it out for CE courses. It could be very useful for Dual Enrollment, math, science, and other f2f or blended learning courses.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what the pricing is and there’s only one distributor in the US. I’m waiting to hear back from Jim Cassin about pricing and availability.

Cooperative Extension ID Request

Mark Douglass (mbd10@psu) 814-849-7316Natural Gas Exploration Issues – technical contact for webinar seriesOn-farm Comparison of Fertility Treatments on Sweet Corn – research synopsisPreparing Your Business for Success: Small Business Planning for Marcellus Shale – presentation speakerExtension Director’s Spirit Awards recipient…

Mark Douglass (mbd10@psu) 814-849-7316

is seeking ID support. Call originated from WC Helpdesk (Dave). Spoke with Becky Beatty about the situation and she mentioned a call from Suzanne Bienert, e-Learning Coordinator (863-2684) looking for a contact in CE to develop online courses through an RFP originating from President Spanier via the Dean of the College of Agriculture.

  1. Call Mark
    1. identify
    2. background
    3. define initial scope of work
      1. overview
      2. due dates
      3. players
      4. expectations/requirements
    4. support structure on his end
    5. __ Calvin?
  2. Contact Rick for further guidance
    1. relationship between Extension, College of Ag, & Outreach
    2. next steps (potentially between Wayne, Jeff, __ Calvin, Craig?)
  3. Update Dave at the WC Helpdesk

ANGEL 7.4 Assessments losing images

When converting a 7.3 quiz to a 7.4 assessment, you will lose any images that were added to any of your questions – except if you save those resources to your own, personal ANGEL space (limited to 10 MB).7.4 assessments…

When converting a 7.3 quiz to a 7.4 assessment, you will lose any images that were added to any of your questions – except if you save those resources to your own, personal ANGEL space (limited to 10 MB).

7.4 assessments create virtual directories serialize specifically for each question for associated resources, like images. You cannot access those virtual directories by any traditional means from within ANGEL as a course editor.

In order to move a picture from a 7.3 quiz to a 7.4 assessment you must:

  1. download all of your images from your quiz
  2. save all of the metadata (image properties, alt tags, links, etc.)
  3. browse to the specific assessment question and re-upload each image and restore it’s properties one-by-one

Kate and I think this might be because of how 7.4 assessments handle the question bank. Questions are now “free to move” between assessments and therefore need individual, serialized, virtual directories to maintain question integrity no matter where the question might appear.

ANGEL Content: Links

Link content items are commonly used in ANGEL courses. Links are easy to share and can be use to display external content in or from ANGEL.I have been trying to create a “clean” link from ANGEL into a new window,…

Link content items are commonly used in ANGEL courses. Links are easy to share and can be use to display external content in or from ANGEL.

I have been trying to create a “clean” link from ANGEL into a new window, but I’ve noticed that even without a banner, the new content is still displayed internally in ANGEL looking at the URL. So, how can I create a link from the Lesson’s tab that opens a page that is “free” from the ANGEL CMS?

What are the best practices for displaying the content externally to ANGEL or keeping an integrated look by displaying that content in ANGEL?

ANGEL Assessment Tool

Does it do everything the Quiz tool does? I would say so.Drop-down list has been dropped but I won’t miss it. It’s basically a differently-formatted multiple choice question.There’s an algorithmic option that might be the same as the Calculated Question…

  1. Does it do everything the Quiz tool does? I would say so.
    1. Drop-down list has been dropped but I won’t miss it. It’s basically a differently-formatted multiple choice question.
    2. There’s an algorithmic option that might be the same as the Calculated Question type under Wizards and Templates.
    3. How can I import questions into an assessment? The option is now called Copy and Paste Questions.
  2. What does it do better than the Quiz tool? What does the Quiz tool do better?
  3. What do we need to know about it? One good resource is the ANGEL Shorts edition dedicated to this topic.
    5 Things About Assessment Tool.pdf
  4. Where can we go with questions?
  5. What do faculty members need to know about the tool?
  6. How does the migration tool work?
  7. Have there been any problems with the tool?
    1. Issue discovered with changing answers in the assessment tool (Tue 9 Feb)

      Information Technology Services (ITS) has identified a problem with the assessment tool in ANGEL.  If a student changes an answer to a question before submitting it, the new answer may not be properly recorded. This problem occurs in two situations:

      1.  When IP address filtering is enabled. This will happen with either Firefox or Internet Explorer, regardless of any other assessment settings.

      2.  Loss of Internet connectivity or application timing out.

      As a result of these situations,  any student who changes his or her mind about the answer to a particular question will find that only the original selection was saved, not the new selection, in the submitted version of the quiz.

      ITS is working is working with ANGEL/Blackboard on a solution to this problem.

      If you have any questions, please contact us at ANGELSupport@psu.edu.

  8. Will the tool be implemented? I just spoke with Ravi, Natalie, and Kate and they gave strong indications that there a some serious issues with the Assessments tool. Ravi said that the tool shouldn’t be implemented because 7.4 does not support quizzes and we would lose them as reference when checking the newly migrated assessments. We all agreed that the new tool is nice (after the major bugs, see 7, have been fixed) when starting from scratch, but it the migration aspect that’s killing the process.

Blue Team: ID-IPS Update

Last UpdateTalk to Mary about Penn State Leader professional development – haven’t done itKent will be contacting Rick about the Equella list for CE@UP – haven’t done itNursing Online CE Manually Created Courses – scheduling time with Jim & Kate…

  1. Last Update
    1. Talk to Mary about Penn State Leader professional development – haven’t done it
    2. Kent will be contacting Rick about the Equella list for CE@UP – haven’t done it
    3. Nursing Online CE Manually Created Courses – scheduling time with Jim & Kate to discuss the process and procedures to transition from ANGEL Groups
    4. Suggest strategies to Rick on integrating Blue Team & Learning Design with CE-wide instructional design needs – still at the beginning stages, but I’ve been documenting my outline of ideas
  2. Outreach
    1. RESET 2020 – finished presentations – the Health and Education sectors presented on Fri 5 Feb; there is a meeting with Craig on Wed 10 Feb to discuss next steps for the Education sector; UPDATE Wed 10 Feb – we met with Craig, he asked us to work with David Norloff on any initiatives or programs we can push through the PDP, the team will get back to Sandy about our future involvement, she would like to see the team stay together to continue to support the Education sector
  3. World Campus
    1. ABA Virtual Practicum – made a screencast of using Handbrake to encode video for Linas that is being used in their class; last updated was Thu 4 Feb to figure out Protected PASS
    2. Just2It Overview of Web 2.0 Technologies – kick off meeting was Tue 19 Jan, RSS & iGoogle unit co-facilitated with Cece, finished Mon 1 Feb; Adobe Connect Pro coming up Tue 23 Feb with two live sessions scheduled
  4. CE@UP
    1. RHS 301 Lorenz – assisting with blogs and wiki via instructions posted in ANGEL, individual emails, and phone-based help sessions with students
    2. PHO 100 Howard – vetting a slidesharing service and possible assistance with the course blog
    3. ART 020 & 050 Syllabus Development Mangan– original meeting canceled due to sick-leave, new meeting pending
    4. Faculty Portal – Shawn Vashaw
  5. CAPE
    1. NURS 6008 final edits
    2. NURS 6009 Living with a Life Threatening Illness – Mediasite live implemenation, recording set for early March; possible next course in Nursing Online CE program; no ANGEL group created yet
  6. Other
    1. ScreenFlow screencasts – entries tagged with “screencast“
    2. Blue Team Integration – see above
    3. ePortfolio – over 31 entries since last ID-Pair meeting
    4. mLearnCon – I’ve started the registration process with Mary
    5. MYRTLE – going more smoothly now that more of my codes have been entered/translated
  7. Kate’s Help
    1. NURS 6009 – un-known, possible Mediasite recording integration into ANGEL
    2. Nursing CE Manually Created Courses – planning and transitioning process
    3. Nursing CE converting quizzes over to assessments – we’re going to have to get going on this given the implications of the upgrade
    4. ? RHS 301 – possible assistance with “building this plane”
    5. ? PHO 100 – may need assistance depending upon faculty member
    6. ? ART 020 and 050 – may need Kate’s help with converting John’s syllabuses into HTML formats

What to consider when selecting a Photo-sharing service for your class?

An instructor recently contacted me about the option of using a photo-sharing service for her photography class with CE@UP. I don’t have a lot of details about the course and her expectations, but there are a few things to think…

An instructor recently contacted me about the option of using a photo-sharing service for her photography class with CE@UP. I don’t have a lot of details about the course and her expectations, but there are a few things to think about that would apply to a number of different situations (roughly in order of importance):

  • uploading options
  • organization of the content
  • storage limits
  • bandwidth limits
  • view options: full-screen slideshows
  • sharing options
  • log-in requirements
  • visitor requirements
  • privacy and permissions
  • metadata options
  • service reliability
  • read the fine-print
  • Web 2.0 framework
  • service popularity
  • licensing options
  • statistics
  • printing options

On our own with Protected PASS

Linas and I have been trying to figure out how to access protected content in PASS. We know how to manage content in the www_Protected directory using the PASS Explorer and SMB server access. We know how to manage the…

Linas and I have been trying to figure out how to access protected content in PASS. We know how to manage content in the www_Protected directory using the PASS Explorer and SMB server access. We know how to manage the permissions using the web-based Access Control Manager Wizard. All we needed to know is what URL to use to access protected content.

Unfortunately the Learning Design IT staff either didn’t know how to do it themselves or they didn’t make the time to give us a quick hand. That was frustrating because I knew it was an easy answer that was just out of our reach. So, what is the answer?
The base URL for my protected space is: https://protected.personal.psu.edu/kkm11/
And that information can be found at: http://kb.its.psu.edu/article/1103
I hope that helps someone else in the future.