Respondus Exam Creator Software Licence Update

As of July 31st, we can no longer justify the cost of the college wide licence for Respondus and have purchased five single user licences. Respondus increased their price significantly.

After July 31st, faculty can access a single user licence of Respondus at the following locations:

1. La Plata, LR202 W/S S01,
2. Leonardtown, C217 PT Faculty W/S
3. Prince Frederick, 234, PT Faculty W/S, the computer on the left

Ronda Jacobs and Joel Kinison have Respondus installed on their laptops and will continue to provide Respondus training, support and assistance at all campuses.

We plan on purchasing 5 more licences for high use Respondus users.

BbWorld 09

I had the opportunity this week to attend the Bbworld 09 conference hosted at the Gaylord Conference Center and Hotel located at the National Harbor just outside of D.C. This year’s event promised to be devoted to Blackboard’s Release 9 and a number of in depth technical and pedagogical sessions led my people in the educational industry.

The conference started with a bang with the opening keynote by Seth Godin, author of “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us.” His keynote set the tune of the entire conference. The author explained that tribal instinct drives people to learn from peers not leaders and that innovations are driven by “person to person” not from the management down. Basically he instilled to the audience that the number of people who follow you are not as important as the number of people who are passionate about you. In short he suggested find something you are passionate in and “Become a rock star in your organization!” He made the analogy, “Be a unicorn in a balloon factory.”

Blackboard CEO Michael Chassen did his annual Blackboard Corporate Keynote and was joined by Ray Henderson, formally of Angel Learning and the new President of Blackboard Learn. Michael kept Seth Godin’s theme alive by comparing the Bb NG project to “The Influence of Tribes.” He urged the audience to focus on WebCT, Angel and Blackboard clients to come together as one tribe – to provide a better education for students. The keynote also focused on better client support, innovation and transparency as well as a Blackboard product demo. The audience was excited by the announcement that Blackboard would open up their Blackboard Database to developers. Keeping with the keynote tradition at Blackboard of having some fun at their own expense with some spoof ads they showed a couple clever spoofs. Check them out here

I attended a number of classroom technology sessions including Calcasieu’s Top 10 Tools for Success in Blackboard Learn, The Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro with Blackboard Learn, Lights, Camera, Interaction!, Developing and Using Interactive Applications in Your Course, Discover! Design! Deliver!, An Integrated Solution to Online Content Creation with Softchalk, Pushing Past PowerPoint, and Making an Online Readiness Tool with Adobe Captivate 4. I left each one of these sessions with ideas and the tools on how to create rich, interactive and stimulating learner interactions.

I also attended some sessions focused on faculty training and support labs. Bontia Bray, University of Alberta presented “From Mini-Bytes to the Real Meal Deal.” She pulled ideas from their proven Blackboard Training Summer Institute. She talked about how their summer sessions became successful by making it a “Big Deal” to the faculty. Bontia said that she acknowledge the importance of the training, emphasized the benefits and having a set of clear expectations and outcomes of the training. Her 5-day summer institute is a model to follow. During a panel discussion “Coach it or Do it” I discovered that we have the same desires, obstacles and concerns regarding faculty Blackboard training in our organization as other organizations do.

The conference ended with an inspirational keynote by NBC News Anchor Lester Holt. His session focuses on the interconnected world that we live in and how technology has changed not only the global community but education as well. He gave a number of examples how technologies like Twitter and YouTube have digitally connected the global community and will change the way the average person views news events. Lester stated that blogging and news reporting by Internet users is welcomed in the news community, but he cautioned what we might see in a blog is filtered news from opinionated bloggers. He was careful to point out that we need professional journalist to give an accurate and un-opinionated view and report of the news. Lester, I don’t think you need to worry about your job!

Blackboard invited CE clients to stay for a workshop on “Life in Blackboard Learn, Release 9.0 for CE Orientation.” Jennifer Mathews gave us a overview of Bb release 9.0, user experiences of co-production, what’s different between CE8 and Bb 9.0 and course conversion options and considerations. After this workshop, I realized Blackboard has some more work to do before we see the features CE clients are accustomed too. Although the Blackboard 9.0 has many new welcomed features, at the same time we will be losing some valuable CE8 features. Jennifer assured us that the Blackboard developers are working to incorporate these features in future releases of Blackboard. While we are excited to upgrade to Bb 9.0 then NG, we realize, that at least of the immediate future, we are better off staying with Blackboard CE8 until later releases of Bb 9.x.

The Exhibit Hall was impressive with at least 50 booths to browse. I was especially impressed by a demo of Softchalk. With SoftChalk LessonBuilder you can create interactive web pages, engage your students with lessons that include pop-up text annotations, self-assessment quizzes, and interactive learning games and then integrate it with your LMS (Learning Management System). During my walks around the Exhibit Hall I discovered that Blackboard has created a one stop place to get all your Blackboard Extensions at http://www.blackboard.com/Support/Extensions.aspx. Also, I had a great conversation with Intelecom, and what they are doing in collaboration with Softchalk to make their videos easier to access. We have a three year contract with Intelecom.

So the conference was a real inspiration in many ways and Blackboard can sure throw a good party. I commented that in my experience past WebCT conference’s only had an open bar one night, whereas BbWorld 09 had an open bar two nights. I understand Angle’s conferences never had an open bar. Although, Blackboard’s hospitality was unparalleled in the educational community, I’m sure we will eventually pay for it.

Best of BbWorld Resources - On the BbWorld website , you'll find a number of post-show resources including links to presentations, community discussion forums, Twitter feeds and photos from the event.

Automatic forwarding of WebCT Mail to an external e-mail address

BlackBoard CE8 Feature:

Below are the steps for setting automatic forwarding of WebCT Mail to an external e-mail address you defined in your profile.

1. Go into the Manage Course and Settings for the Mail tool and change the setting to "Allow messages to be forwarded to an external e-mail" to True.

2. When set to True, you can access this feature from My Settings in the My WebCT Screen.

3. From My Settings, click on the My Tool Options tab and check "Forward all mail to the e-mail address in my profile."

4. Under My Settings and the My Profile tab, check to ensure you have the proper external address listed