UVM Blogs

On December 19th, UVM’s Blackboard system will be upgraded to version 9.1.9.
What will I have to do?
Aside from the normal end-of-term backups and course management tasks, you won’t have to do anything at all to […]

I’m not sure yet what’s going to go in this space, but the Lifestream plugin looks pretty slick. We’ll see. Otherwise, importing from MT is pretty seamless, minus the thousands of comments that came over. Eww. I’d have thought that Akismet would’ve processed them on import. Oh well. I’m curious to see how this platform [...]

We’ve come to expect innovative ideas from CHNM and this week has been no exception. Funded by a grant from the NEH, the One Week/One Tool project’s intent was to bring together twelve practitioners in the digital humanities to decide on, and develop, a useful tool. The project was announced in June 2010 and the event was held [...]

The CCP and CTL are pleased to bring Dr. Mary Meares, Assistant Professor, University of Alabama to UVM on April 1, 2010 for two workshops. Dr. Meares taught intercultural and organizational communication in the U.S. and Japan and has consulted for educational, corporate, and public service organizations in the areas of intercultural transitions,…[Read more]

Congratulations to the 2009 – 2010 Faculty Fellows! We are pleased to have such an interdisciplinary faculty cohort: Rocki-Lee DeWitt, Professor, School of Business Administration Tyler Doggett, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Nancy Hayden, Associate Professor, School of Engineering Thomas Hudspeth,Professor, Environmental Program, RSENR …[Read more]

The UVM Sustainability Fellows Program announces its first Call for Applications. This program seeks to engage faculty from a variety of disciplines to incorporate principles of environmental sustainability into UVM’s Curriculum. We seek to develop a learning community – a multidisciplinary cohort engaged in a yearlong exploration of…[Read more]

News flash: The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that PowerPoint is over-used and boring. This is not exactly leading edge news, but an article by Jeffrey Young (“When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom” ) July 24, 2009. http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/ takes another look at the use, or non-use, of…[Read more]

Viruses. Malware. Network interruptions. Program bugs. Version incompatibilities. Now, add to this list of things that can go wrong add a vendor who sells “corrupt files” that can be submitted in lieu of homework, hopefully buying a day or two more to work an an almost done homework. That’s the latest twist we get from the [...]

What happens if you ask Google to compare the GDP of France and Germany, or ask it how many cows were in Vermont each of the last ten years? You may find a web page where someone has posted that information, or you may have to search for several sites and gather the information for yourself, [...]

What happens if you ask Google to compare the GDP of France and Germany, or ask it how many cows were in Vermont each of the last ten years? You may find a web page where someone has posted that information, or you may have to search for several sites and gather the information for yourself, [...]

This morning’s Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, May 5th) fills out some of the details of a rumored “large screen” ebook reader, a device expected to provide a paperless platform for newspapers, magazines, and … academic textbooks. Geoffrey Fowler and Ben Worthen report: Beginning this fall, some students at Case Western Reserve University in…[Read more]

Trent Batson, professor of English, director of academic computing, entrepreneur and bon vivant, has an article in Campus Technology exploring the role of Web2.0 in education, particularly higher education. He observes: For decades, a minority among educators has advocated alternate forms of teaching and learning. The umbrella term for these…[Read more]

First it was Flickr, now its YouTube. Hoorah for the Library of Congress as they begin to place portions of their vast video holdings on this popular site. First collections include the 2008 National Book Festival author presentations , the Books and Beyond author series, “Westinghouse” industrial films from 1904, scholar discussions from the…[Read more]

Responding to Diversity Issues in the Classroom: A Developmental and Social Justice Approach Friday, April 10, 2009 9:00a.m. to 12 Noon in Allen House, room 204. This half day workshop engages participants in building an understanding of how to have meaningful conversations about diversity issues and how to confront difficult situations more…[Read more]

The Office of the Assoicate Provost for Multicultural Affairs and Academic Initiatives presents Blackboard Jungle 2 Symposium March 27 and 28. For more information and to register visit the website The Center for Teaching and Learning is pleased to present two events associated with professional development opportunities offered this week: …[Read more]

Is there an added added academic value in incorporating multimedia scholarship into student projects? This is the question addressed by Mark E. Cann of USC in a recent article titled Multimedia in the Classroom at USC: A Ten Year Perspective . This past fall he recast a previous essay assignment into a group multimedia project in order [...]

Blackboard’s wiki option has made it easier for us to experiment with this collaborative writing application, but designing good wiki assignments remains challenging. There are a number of web sites that assert that wikis can be powerful learning tools, a number of sites that discuss how to create wikis, and the usual line up of sites [...]

The Center for Cultural Pluralism will celebrate its 10 year anniversary on January 29, 2009. The Center has announced their spring programming, which includes guest speakers Dr. Lee Kneflekamp speaking on “MicroAgressions in the Classroom” (Jan. 30) and Dr. Scott Page, “The Science of Complex Systems and Systems Scholarship” (Feb 2009). For a…[Read more]

The Office of the President and the Office of the Associate Provost for Multicultural Affairs and Academic Initiatives are hosting a multi-day celebration honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most notably, human rights advocate and community activist Martin Luther King III will speak on Thursday, Jan. 22 at 4 p.m. [...]

This fellowship program is designed as a seminar to help faculty develop a strong background in service-learning pedagogy. By developing a service-learning course, participants will strengthen service-learning knowledge and skills. Fellows will meet every other week during the Spring 2009 semester for 2 hours and commit to offering a…[Read more]

With a nod to The 5,6,7,8′s
* Travel Invoices
* Course management research
* Inbox maintenance (zeeee-ro)
* Meeting followups from on-site visit
* Cajoled Inés into setting up a wufoo account. Woo Hoo! Wufoo!
* Cal development – still chasing down ActiveLdap funkery

* Posted backlog of status reports (why didn’t MT take the datestamps that mars)
* Followups from on-site visit
* Calendar development
* contacted lutz about videos
* Expression Engine – set up most of search tool (more difficult than it needs to be), glossary, and tightened up css

* Update WebCT site w/ Bb info
* Cal development
* Time update
* Processed ICCIE

* Time tracking
* more scheduling for this week’s on-site

* Time tracking – reports management
* Support
* Meeting planning for this weeks on-site visit

* Time tracking
* more scheduling for this week’s on-site
* course conversion script final touches

* Ecoecon
* Calendar dev

* (more) Workshop course creation
* (more) Workshop Account creation
* (more) Faculty support correspondence

April 15, 12:15 – 1:45 pm, Livak Room, Davis Center The tragic events at Virginia Tech, and more recently at Northern Illinois, have had a profound impact on the way colleges and universities are viewing and responding to campus health and safety issues. This panel presentation, including student, staff and faculty representatives from…[Read more]

* Course content conversion
* Bb admin – course creation for workshops

* Workshop support
* Course creation and account management
* Faculty/client support
* Content conversion via wget and xslt

* Workshop course creation
* Workshop Account creation
* Faculty support correspondence

* Calendar Development
* Expense Reports
* checked on workshop accounts
* Bb Cafe course creation
* More Calendar Development
* Blackboard enrollment management
* Processed ICCIE

* Expense Reports
* Check-in
* Calendar set up (BusySync2 rocks!)
* Calendar Development (wrapped up facilitator management)
* Course conversion
* Plugged ECHO script issues
* Synched ICCIE

* Calendar Development
* Faculty Support
* Course conversion/xslt research
* Expense Reports

* Calendar Development * Support requests * Looked at Assignment tool in Bb * Resolved ECHO e-card CGI issue (path to PHP had changed) * Processed IBM * Investigated phone/voicemail options * Worked with the friendly folks at UVM telecom to get mailbox notifications sent to a GrandCentral account (had to be local, so I set [...]

* Changed copy on course request form
* Processed IBM registrations
* prepped for On-Site visit
* Documented course conversion processes
* Calendar Development
* Processed ICCIE

* Various faculty support requests
* Booked lodging for On-Site visit

* Eco Econ correspondence
* Eco Econ tweaks
* ICCIE conversions
* Addressed a few small Soc101 changes that came in over the weekend
* Cal Development
* Check-in
* processed IBM

* Eco Econ Followups
* Calendar Development

* Course conversion (done?)
* Eco Econ prep for initial hand-off
* Calendar Development
* Remove survey link from /webct
* Eco econ check-in w/ project lead
* added wendy to IBM
* added wendy to toby’s course

* Calendar Development
* Course Conversion
* Eco Econ
* PD check-in
* OASys support
* Processed ICCIE

Track of the Day? She and Him, Why do you let me stay here?
* Course conversion, a lå soc101
* Cal development
* Eco econ tweaks, check-in w/ lead
* PD tweaks

But then I guess any day is. Track of the Day? Tom Waits, Big in Japan
* Eco Econ (clarify language for the reusable “sub modules” blocks component)
* Soc course conversion (one section down)
* Calendar Development
* PD changes
Also,
* Handled emergency ICCIE id fixes

Here are the big tickets for this week. Got some progress made on most all of them today: * Eco Econ (including installing Solspace’s tag module . need to clarify language for the reusable “sub modules” component) * Soc course conversion * Calendar Development * PD changes Also tackled a few smaller tasks today: * Course conversion research [...]

Racing the storm.
* Content conversion tests
* Prep for rebuild team meeting
* Recorded a rebuild file migration run-through, sans audio
* Processed ICCIE
* OASys support request
* Non-credit reg discussion