The Instructional Development Center (IDC) is a division of Teaching & Learning Technologies (ITaP)
DCC Night Out at the Movies
Be sure not to miss the 6th Annual Digital Cinema Contest Awards Ceremony and screening!
Awards will be given and winning movies screened at the Wabash Landing 9 Theater on Thursday, April 17. Tickets will be available starting at 5:00pm. The doors will open at 6:00pm, and the awards ceremony and screening will begin at 6:30pm.
Always an exciting and fun event - be sure to come early to get your ticket, your seat, and your popcorn.
Upcoming Training
To see a description and to register, click the links below
| Tues., Apr. 15 | Turnitin Plagiarism-Checking Service |
| Thurs., Apr. 17 | Adobe Acrobat Presenter: Publishing Narrated PowerPoint Presentations to the Web |
| Tues., Apr. 22 | Advanced Applications of Macromedia Dreamweaver |
This Month's Links
IDC Distance Ed Incentive Awards Program
Respondus How-to Videos
Adobe Photoshop Express Test Drive
"My Students Can't See their Grades" There are four necessary conditions for students to see their grades in your Vista class. 1. The My Grades tool must be added to the class. To add it, go to Build tab > Manage Course > Tools > check box next to My 2. Has the My Grades tool been added, but it is "hidden"? To check, go to the Build tab > Manage Course > Course Menu > in the same row as the My Grades tool, click the button that says Show Link. After you click on it, it should display Hide Link. (If the button already says Hide Link, then the tool is not hidden.) 3. The student needs to have a grade entered in the grade book for the particular assignment they're looking for. 4. The grades must be "released" the grades. To do that, go to the Teach tab > Grade Book > Grade Book Options > Column Settings > in the "Released to Students" Remember to give your Demo Student in your grade book a grade whenever you enter grades for your real students - that way you can check to see that grades are released and available by checking your Student View tab > My Grades. One potentially confusing situation is when students report that they used to be able to see your class grades, but now they can't anymore. Be aware that newly-posted grades appear to students in the My Grades channel on the My Blackboard page; however, after students have clicked on the link one time to view the grades, the links to view them will disappear from the My Blackboard page, and students will no longer be able to access them this way. Be sure your students know that they can view all grades that you release to them from within your class through the My Grades tool. Vista Downtime Schedule will Change Beginning next semester, Vista will be unavailable from 6:00 - 10:00am (ET) every Sunday. Please notify your students and plan accordingly. Respondus Quick Guide Available Respondus is an easy-to-use program which will allow you to quickly create quizzes, exams and self-tests that can be re-used, printed or easily uploaded to Blackboard Vista. Purdue has a university license to Respondus; download the installation files, license code, and Quick Start Guide from the ITaP Training Learning materials site. You will need to log in with your Career Account username and password. |
Vista Corner 
Drop us a Line!
Do you have questions, comments, or ideas for what we can talk about in future IDC Tips & Techniques? We'd love to hear them!
Send your ideas to
tlt-consulting@purdue.edu.
IDC Distance Education Incentive Awards Program: 2007 Winners
Eight Purdue faculty have been awarded a cash prize for the development of a high-quality distance education class in 2007 by the Instructional Development Center (IDC).
An outgrowth of the IDC Digital Content Development Grant program, and run as a pilot program with OCEC (Office of Continuing Education and Conferences) in 2007, the goal of the IDC Distance Ed Incentive Awards program is to support the development of quality distance education courses at Purdue University - West Lafayette.
Participation in the 2007 pilot was limited to those large enrollment courses OCEC targeted for development in 2007. To be eligible for the award, faculty attended an instructional technology/distance education workshop intensive in May 2007, and after development, submitted their courses for review to IDC staff. Courses were evaluated using criteria based on Blackboard's Exemplary Course Program (ECP) rubric in the areas of Course Design, Assessment of Student Learning and Course Content, Learner Support, and Effective and Innovative use of Technology Tools. Those courses that scored well in the evaluation process received a monetary award.
The 2007 Winners are:
| Instructor | Class |
| David Blakesley (ENGL) | ENGL 420Y - Professional Writing ENGL 421Y - Technical Writing |
| Sugato Chakravarty (CSR) | CSR 342Y - Personal Finance |
| George Hollich (PSY) | PSY 235Y - Child Development |
| David Klenosky (HK) | HK 465Y - Research Methods in Health and Kineseology |
| Roseann Lyle (HK) | HK 215Y - Basic Health Studies |
| Barb Mayfield (F&N) | F&N 303Y - Essentials of Nutrition |
| Devilyna Nichols (MA) | MA 220Y - Introduction to Calculus |
| Jennifer Richardson (EDCI) | EDCI 560Y - Educational Technology for Teaching and Learning |
Instructors who win the award benefit monetarily, but all who submit a class for consideration can profit from the experience. According to IDC Educational Technologist Sasi Benzigar, "Anyone who attends the workshops and then submits a class to the program gets the opportunity to have their class reviewed and evaluated by our staff of educational technologists. They provide detailed comments to the faculty member about what the class does well and give suggestions for improvement." Prof. Barb Mayfield worked closely with OCEC Instructional Designer Tianhong Shi and a supporting team. Says Mayfield, "I would NEVER have wanted to tackle doing this on my own!"
Participants also appreciated the program's rubric and evaluation process. Continues Mayfield, "...it was good to have standards to strive for and to receive feedback." Prof. George Hollich said, "...I liked the program very much, and have only good things to say about it. The instructors did a wonderful job of educating the mostly non-technical audience on how to construct a decent online course."
The 2008 program will kick off Maymester
The 2008 IDC Distance Education Incentives Award program is gearing up, and will kick off with a Maymester faculty intensive workshop, scheduled for Thursday-Friday, May 8-9, 2008. This year, the program is open to all Purdue University - West Lafayette faculty who have developed or are interested in developing a distance education course in a learning management system (LMS).
For more information about how to qualify to participate, the timeline for the 2008 program, and the process to apply, see the IDC Distance Education Incentives Award Program web site.
5 Cool Firefox Add-Ons ... especially for busy instructors |
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| 1. IE View: Lets you load pages in IE with a single right-click, or mark certain sites to always load in IE. Useful for incompatible pages, or cross-browser testing. This extension is very useful for viewing web sites that don't load properly in Firefox, or require IE only. Note, however, that it is not available for the Mac version of Firefox. Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/35 |
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| 2. Del.icio.us Bookmarks: This extension is perfect for the instructor on-the-go, or anyone who uses multiple workstations throughout the day. It augments the bookmark functionality in Firefox and integrates it with the Del.icio.us bookmark service, allowing you to tag and save your bookmarks in the browser, search them in real time, and access them from any computer at any time. It will even import and tag your exhibiting bookmarks and place them on your Del.icio.us account. Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3615 |
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| 3. Zotero: Zotero is a research tool for Firefox that allows you to gather, organize, and analyze sources from the web and easily share them, like del.icio.us. It will automatically capture citation information from the sites you save, keeping them in a "playlist" style organization tree. Zotero comes with the ability to integrate directly with your blog, Microsoft Word, or Open Office. Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3504 |
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4. PDF Download Manager: The perfect PDF handler for an instructor who constantly uses Blackboard Vista. Instead of waiting for Adobe Acrobat to load up inside the browser, PDF Download pops-up and offers you choices such as downloading, opening, or converting it straight to HTML. It is easy to use, and helps reduce the number of times your browser locks up or crashes. |
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| 5. PermaTabs: The ideal solution for those who enjoy using multiple tabs, but have the problem of accidently closing important tabs that are often in use. PermaTabs can't be closed accidentally no matter what you click (even actions like "Close other tabs" will not affect them) and will stick around between sessions. Link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2558 |
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What impact can pen-based technology have on your classroom?
Get Ready for the WIPTE Conference: October 15-16, 2008
"Are Tablet PCs worth the extra cost?" "What software really makes a difference?" |
If you are currently using or investigating pen-based technology, you'll want to attend the third annual WIPTE conference, the premiere education-focused conference on pen technologies. (WIPTE stands for "Workshop on the Impact of Pen-Based Technology on Education"). The 2008 conference will be held at Purdue University on October 15-16, 2008.
Conference Demographics
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WIPTE is soliciting posters, videos, and paper submissions. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to present at WIPTE 2008, and papers will be subsequently published in a collection of proceedings. The due date for all submissions is June 16, 2008.
More information is available, and proposals may be submitted, at the WIPTE website at http://www.purdue.edu/wipte.
Blackboard Vista End-of-the-Semester Housekeeping
Hard as it is to believe, the end of the Spring semester is coming up quickly. There is some "tidying up" you can do as the semester comes to a close to make the end of the semester go as smoothly as possible for your Vista class.
Archive your grade book
Export a copy of your grade book so that you will have a local copy of the grades - in case of grade appeals or questions later. Archiving takes only seconds. The steps to export your grade book in Vista are in the ITaP Knowledge Base; see In Blackboard Vista, how do I export data from the Grade Book to a spreadsheet? (you will be asked to log in with your Purdue Career Account).
Archive other student data, as needed
Do you want to keep your own file with your students' assessments, or download assignment submissions with your comments? Want to keep a copy of the tracking activity for all of your students' activity in the class this semester? You can do all of that. Nearly all student data in a Vista class can be downloaded and archived, though the methods for doing this will be different for each tool. To learn how to do this for your class, check Vista's online help, or submit a request for IDC consultation.
Prepare next semester's class: Maymester and Summer 2008
You may want to begin working on next semester's class, so go ahead and get it ready to go.
- If you like, you can choose to "reset" your class - remove the student data by using the re-set function - and re-use the same class next time around. See IDC Tips & Techniques Vol. 2, Issue 4: '"Semester Changes with Blackboard Vista 4" for details. Note that the Reset button is not available to instructors each semester until after the last day that grades are due. Be sure to download a copy of your grade book first!
- You can request a new class. Note that with Blackboard Vista 4, the first time that you open your new class, you are given the option of copying the content of a currently-existing class into your new class. To use this option, after your open your class the first time, select the option to "Copy content from another course." You'll then be able to choose from a list of courses in which you are enrolled as a Section Designer.
Adobe Photoshop Express - On the Web
Last week Adobe released Photoshop Express - a free online photo editing application, based on their popular graphics-editing software, Adobe Photoshop. It won't do the sophisticated type of editing you find with Photoshop, but it does nearly all you need to do to fix and retouch photos. And since it's on the web, it's made for photo sharing. You can even load in and edit photos from other sites, such as Facebook or Photobucket.
For more information, contact IDC at tlt-consulting@purdue.edu