The Instructional Development Center (IDC) is a division of Teaching & Learning Technologies (ITaP)
Upcoming Training
(click the session name to see a description and register)
This Month's Links
RSS in Plain English (youtube)
More RSS Feed Readers than you can shake a stick at
Google's Dynamic RSS Feed Creator
Syndic8's Large List of Feeds (organized by category)
EDUCAUSE CONNECT - Classroom Response Systems
StudyMate Author Quick Start Guide
Create an RSS feed in your Blackboard Class Anywhere you can put HTML in your Blackboard class, you can embed code to create a dynamically-updated RSS feed. Generate your RSS Feed Code Use Google's or Feed2J's site and follow the online instructions to generate the code you need. Copy it to your PC's clipboard by selecting it all and pressing CTRL-C (or Apple-C for Mac users).Adding an RSS Feed to a Blackboard Header or Footer
If you have text that you want to appear above or below the feed in your header or footer, you can enter it above the RSS feed code at any time. Creating an RSS Feed Page
More with RSS feeds in Blackboard Embedding your RSS feeds on your home page or creating them as standalone pages are perhaps the most common applications, but how you use RSS feeds in your online class is limited only by your instructional objectives - and your imagination. You can embed RSS feeds in many Blackboard tools that use HTML. The list includes:
Contact tlt-consulting@purdue.edu for more information and help. |
Vista Corner
New Tech Series Highlights Faculty Best Practices
CIE/IDC Best Practices with Teaching & Technology Series
Faculty looking for ideas on how to use technology to improve student learning now have a new resource: a new monthly series co-hosted by the Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE) and ITaP's Instructional Development Center (IDC).
Beginning this semester, the series will host a 2-3-member faculty panel to present and discuss how they each use a particular technology to facilitate learning in the classroom. Each session will be one-hour long and will be 
faciliated by an IDC staff member.
"Knowing how a tool works is one level," says Educational Technologist Hans Aagard. "There's another, more important level: knowing how to use it in an instructionally sound way. The goal of this series is to have faculty who are using the tools well share what they're doing and how they do it."
Join us for the first session this week: Thursday, January 29, 10:30-11:30am in KRAN G004. The topic will be "Online Assessments", and the faculty members who will present will be Maria Cooks, Associate Professor in Foreign Languages and Literature, and Jill Lestina, American Sign Language (ASL) instructor from the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. This session will be translated for the hearing-impaired by an ASL interpreter.
Faculty who wish to learn how to use the featured technology will be able to follow up by attending one or more workshops scheduled shortly after each session. Follow-up workshops for the January 29th session will be a February 3 workshop on creating assessments in Blackboard, and a February 5th workshop on Respondus and Studymate. (See also the links under Upcoming Training at the left to register.)
RSS: Delivering News Straight to You
Information overload is an old problem for the Internet generation, one that is closely related to another important issue: how do I get the information out there that I need? Do you really have the time to visit and stay current with the many Web sites that interest you? (Of course not.)
RSS feeds let you go to one place -- on the Web, or in a desktop client software on your computer -- and quickly glance over the headlines of the most up-to-date news available from your favorite Web sites. |
One successful solution to the problem is "RSS", short for Really Simple Syndication. RSS allows Web sites to push frequently updated news or other additions, such as 'blog entries or media, from their web sites to anyone who subscribes to their feeds. A subscriber, then, will get new feeds from the Web pages they subscribe to as soon as updates are published.
How to Read a Feed
To find RSS feeds, look for the RSS icon Purdue University provides news feed by school and news feeds by topic that you can subscribe to, for yourself or for your students via your course web page or online class. |
on any web page; click on the icon to get to the Web page your news reader will link to.To read an RSS feed, subscribers need an RSS feed reader or news aggregator. These can be Web-based (accessed via the Web) or desktop-based. There are many to choose from--many (if not most) free to use. Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer, for example, both incorporate free desktop-based RSS feed readers into their browsers. Google and Yahoo both provide web-based RSS feed readers, and Microsoft Outlook provides a reader that check in with when you are reviewing your email.
There are also a huge number of Web-based RSS feed aggregators, such as Netvibes and iGoogle. These have the ability to pull together a huge number of related RSS feeds, chosen and customizable by the user.
Embedding an RSS Feed on a Web Page or Course Home Page
Handpicking and providing your own page of RSS feeds creates a dynamic, "living" resource to your students: you can, for example, create a feed or series of feeds from news resources to use in a final project, or from influential 'bloggers to provide starting points for class assignments or discussion.
The good news is that you don't have to be a programmer to embed one or more RSS feeds on your Web page or Blackboard course page: there are Web sites that allow you to "build your feeds" by creating code that you can embed in your page to display the constantly updating headlines of your RSS feed. Two easy-to-use sites are Feed2Js RSS Build a Feed and Google's Dynamic RSS Feed Creator. If you don't like either of these, search the web for "build RSS feed" to find more tools and tutorials.
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A Blackboard class with a dynamically updating RSS feed. The code was created in Google's Dynamic RSS Feed Creator and copied into the footer of the page (for more information, see Vista Corner). |
...about Best Practices Using 'Clickers' (Classroom Performance Systems) |
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1. Use clickers each time your class meets. This will get them used to the technology and reinforce to them that clickers need to be brought to each class session. |
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2. Have students use clickers 3 to 5 times during each class to keep class participation and interaction going, particularly in a large enrollment class. |
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3. Wait to use clickers for points-based activities until the second week of class. That will give all students enough time to purchase and register their clicker. |
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4. Do incorporate the use of clickers for low-stakes purposes in class, vs. just taking attendance each day. Students resent paying for a device that is only used to make the instructor's life easier. |
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5. In large-attendance classes, use clickers regularly to assess comprehension. Ask questions that focus on common misconceptions, then make changes to the lecture based on students’ responses. If most students miss the question, review the material again or present it in a different way. |
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TLT Conference 2009
Last call for submission proposals: deadline Weds., January 28
TLT has extended its deadline for proposals to its 2009 conference to Wednesday, January 28. Higher Education faculty, K-12 teachers and IT professionals are invited to submit proposals for presentations, workshops and poster sessions for the two-day conference, to be held on April 21-22, 2009, on the Purdue West Lafayette campus.
Submit your proposal electronically on or before Wednesday, January 28. Proposal acceptance notices will be emailed in February.
For more information about submitting a proposal or the conference in general, see the TLT Conference webpage, or contact TLT at tlt-conference@purdue.edu.
 TLT Toolbox: |
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If you're looking for a way to have students practice what you want them to learn, or want to enrich your class materials with a set of games to liven and deepend your students' learning experience, you should look into the Flash-based activities you can quickly and easily create with StudyMate Author.
Purdue's license covers use of StudyMate by all faculty and staff.
StudyMate Author allows you to work in the familiar Windows interface to create ten Flash-based activities and games with four easy-to-use templates. You can use the same set of questions to create multiple activities with one sequence of steps, and you can create your questions in StudyMate, or import existing content from Respondus, Microsoft Word, rich-text, IMS QTI, or other formats. You can also import graphics, embed audio files, insert mathematical and scientific symbols, add links to web pages, or create (and spellcheck) your activities in a number of different languages.
Once you have created your activities, you can publish and export them as SCORM 1.2 objects, as standard Flash (.swf) objects, or directly to your class in Blackboard.
To download your copy of StudyMate, go to the ITaP training web site, and under Instructional Design and Tools, select Studymate, then Studymate Installation File. You'll be asked to log in with your Purdue Career Account. Save the file to your desktop and unzip it to find the installation (.exe) file and a PDF file containing support information and the license number you'll need during installation.
Blackboard Users' Group Meetings Scheduled
This semester's Blackboard Users' Group (BUG) meetings have been scheduled.
Attend BUG meetings to learn the latest on Blackboard, learn some new and interesting tips on using instructional tools, and talk to other Blackboard users on campus. An agenda will be posted beforehand on the BUG wiki, and light refreshments will be served at the meeting.
Contact tlt-consulting@purdue.edu if you have any comments or questions, or wish to suggest items for the agenda.
Please mark your calendars; we hope you can attend!
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
2:30pm – 3:30pm
KRAN G004
Thursday, March 12, 2009
11:00am – 12:00noon
RAWLS 3058
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
1:30pm – 2:30pm
KRAN G004
For more information, contact IDC at tlt-consulting@purdue.edu