TLP Blog

Welcome to TLP’s electronic newsletter for Spring 2009! We’re publishing this newsletter both on our blog and in an HTML-format email to serve you better and to save paper. Comment on this post with your feedback and suggestions for next semester!

Inside this issue:

TLP Focus:
What Faculty Should Know About the Accessibility Technology Initiative

Events and Dates:
TLP Workshops for Spring 2009
TLP Seeks New Topics for Training
TILT Spring Lineup Announced, Symposia Will Be Broadcast Online
CELT Spring 2009 Workshops Announced

Technology Updates:
Clickers Creatively Engage Students

Spotlight on Faculty:
Exemplary Online Instruction Recognized in Fall 2008 – Call for 2009 Nominations Coming
Graham Thurgood: Synchronous Transcription Online: Getting it “Write”
Vista Community for Criminal Justice Students & Faculty

Community Watch:
Groups Communicate, Collaborate in Over 100 Vista Communities

Inside TLP:
New Video Cameras, Laptops and Audio Equipment Available for Free Checkout to Faculty
TLP Offices and Training Lab Remodel Finally Complete
Consultants and Student Staff Are Available To Help You

TLP has also posted a survey on our home page where you can give us more detailed feedback about our services and workshops. Please take it!

See our new web page answering your frequently asked questions: http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/accessibility/faq.shtml

Provost Flake announced in December that the short-term goal for our campus is to have all course syllabi accessible to all students. TLP regularly offers a one-hour workshop on how to do this called “Make Your Syllabus Accessible with Microsoft Word”. This past summer, TLP hosted a two-day institute for 60 faculty who learned how to create an accessible syllabus, Universal Design for Learning, and how to use Vista to enhance accessibility for all users. This fall semester, another 14 faculty members took the one-hour syllabus workshop, and during the winter intersession another 26 attended. It’s best to learn in a group! Group workshops for your departments are available, by appointment. Faculty Symposiums for TILT and CELT were offered in the fall, with faculty demonstrating how they are applying these new strategies to their courses.

Confused about how to begin working with ATI? Start by making your syllabus accessible: training, tutorials and a checklist are online at http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/accessibility/syllabus.

For more information about how TLP is supporting the Accessible Technology Initiative for Chico State faculty, see our Accessibility Page: http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/accessibility.

The upcoming Spring TILT Symposium schedule features some new technologies being practiced by our faculty, and we’re excited to announce that these sessions will also now be broadcast live online and archived for easy viewing later with Wimba Classroom technology. So even if you can’t make it to the room in person, you can still watch from your home or office and interact live, or watch the replay later.

All sessions will be held in the basement of the Meriam Library in room 031. RSVP FOR IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE – Call TLP Manager, Laura Sederberg at x4326.

You can watch these sessions live online too! Links will be posted before each event. An archive will also be available later on the TILT web page, http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/tilt.

Thursday, February 12
12:30 -1:30pm
Using Ning.com to Engage Students in the Classroom
Maria Sudduth, Presenter

Thursday, February 19
12:30 – 1:30pm
Vista Communities: How are we using them?
Esther Larocco, Debbie Summers, Jody Prusia, Clint Woeltjen

Thursday, February 26
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Accessible Syllabus: What Are the Benefits to Students?
Laurel Hill-Ward, Kathryn Schifferle, and Julie Schneider

Thursday, March 5
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Exemplary Online Instruction: Experiences to Improve Teaching (Learn How to Apply the Rubric for Online Instruction to Nominate A Course!)
Denny Gier, Colleen Hatfield, Ann Martin, Laura Sederberg

Wednesday, March 11
2:00 – 3:30 pm
Teaching Unprepared Students:
Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education – Part 1 is Motivating Students to Read
Kathleen Gabriel, co-sponsored by CELT and the CSU

Thursday, March 26
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Engaging Students Online: Tips from the Top Hitters in Blackboard Vista & How They Do It
Tony Waters, Lee Altier, Brian Brazeal, and Sean Morgan presenting

Thursday, April 2
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Effective Technology Time-Savers for Teachers
TLP Staff, presenting

Thursday, April 9
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Using Clickers to Teach Mathematics
Jan Costenbader and Math Dept. presenting

Thursday, April 23
12:30 – 1:30 pm
Second Life – How and Why Faculty at CSU Chico are Using It.
Paula Selvester & Rick Ford presenting

Friday, April 24
12:30-2:00 pm
Teaching Unprepared Students:
Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education – Part 2 is Interweaving Assessment and Teaching
Kathleen Gabriel, co-sponsored by CELT and the CSU

We’ve added some great new items this year to lend out to faculty. Three new video cameras offer unprecedented ease of use and superior video quality, including two Canon miniDV handicams and one high definition Sony hard drive recorder – no tapes needed! Our two new Dell D630 laptops are fast, light and have long battery lives. The Edirol R-09 digital audio recorder is perfect for interviews, lectures, field recording and even music – and it can record better than CD quality or direct to MP3 files which you can drag and drop onto your computer.Finally, we’ve added a USB headset for recording podcasts with Camtasia or using voice-over-internet applications like Wimba. These items add to our great collection of both Mac and PC laptops, data projectors, large screens, still and video cameras, and many other instructional media devices.

Faculty can reserve these items online, at http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/services/equipment/.

To date, there are over one hundred communities in Vista used by student groups, staff teams, academic departments and organizations that cross all segments of campus. Some highlights:

Provost Flake

• Provost Flake has created a community for the newly established working group of faculty, staff and administrators participating in Framing Meaningful Change at Chico State. This community will function as a hub for group members as they discuss, share and continue their conversations.
• Lori Beth Way is using a community for the Criminal Justice Program students for advising. Read more about this community on the TLP blog: http://blogs.csuchico.edu/tlp/?p=435.
• Esther Larocco of The Center for Bilingual Studies developed a community for use by faculty, Masters students, and Credential students. Esther has used TLP’s lab for training her department’s faculty members and teaching assistants on the wise use of integrating new technologies into their curriculum. ITC Ann Steckel has assisted them by using their community to provide demonstrations and new technology training.

There will be a TILT Session on Vista Communities offered on Thursday, February 19th at 12:30 PM in MLIB 031. For more information, see the TILT page: http://www.csuchico.edu/tlp/tilt.

To get a new community, contact TLP manager, Laura Sederberg, x4326. We hope to get a user group forming soon.

Instructional Technology Consultants (ITCs) and student staff are here to serve you! Please come visit us in the basement of Meriam Library room 003, or call x6167, or email us, tlp@csuchico.edu during business hours, Monday-Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

With the addition of matching carpeting in every room, the transformation of TLP’s labs and offices has finally reached the end of a four-year process that included demolition of antiquated darkrooms and workbenches. Our clients have remarked that the acoustics in the training lab make our workshops more enjoyable, while others have noticed feeling warmer while working in the faculty lab. Why not come visit, see the renovations and experience our inviting atmosphere!

(Click a poster to see it large!)

Last fall the Provost and CELT recognized seven instructors for their exemplary online instruction. Each had one course nominated to be evaluated by a committee of their peers using the Rubric for Online Instruction (which now has had 92 other institutions of higher education request to use). They are: Ann Bykerk-Kauffmann for GEOS 342; Denny Gier for CIVL 698; Colleen Hatfield for NSCI 102; Donna Jensen for SWRK 632; Steve Koch for SPED 673; Ann P. Martin for GEOG 106; and Terry Miller-Herringer for PSYC 355. See posters from each of the winners at http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/roi/eoi_vista.shtml. This site will soon have narrated demonstration videos of how each course exemplified the rubric categories.

Nominations for the next round of Exemplary Online Instruction will be open soon. Many examples and more information is available online, http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/roi/.

Clickers are wireless keypads used to gather immediate student responses to questions. To date we have 27 faculty and 3,109 students using TurningPoint clickers on campus. Some of the ways faculty are currently integrating clickers into their teaching:

• Polling opinions to prompt discussion and support reasoning.
• Collecting immediate feedback about students’ understanding of lecture topics to quickly address confusion.
• Allowing students to share, discuss, and change opinions before answering a question.
• Encouraging peer feedback and collaborative learning.
• Recording attendance in large lecture courses.

Interested in learning more about Clickers? Join the listserv, come to a TILT session, or attend a training in TLP:

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CELT Workshops are organized by CELT Director, Lee Altier. He has a spring line-up of workshops for all faculty. See his listing online from the CELT Web site, http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/workshops/index(2008-2009).shtml.