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WordPress Workshops

Categories: Midd Blogosphere

I’ve coordinated with the Education and Training Team to offer some workshops on WordPress next week, here are details:

  • 2 – 3:30 pm, Monday, January 17, Library 105
  • 1 – 2:30 pm, Weds, January 19, Library 105

These workshops will give an overview of latest version of Translucence, the theme framework that powers many Midd blog themes and will showcase a variety of sites that have recently been created to highlight the many different ways that WordPress can be used.

For other upcoming workshops, see: How to Learn More » On-campus Workshops.

LMS Evaluation Updates

Categories: Midd Blogosphere

The Curricular Technology Team in collaboration with Shel Sax and academic liaisons has organized a number of learning management system (LMS) training workshops, see:
Segue from Segue > LMS Pilot Training Sessions

CTLR LMS Roundtable discussion

The first workshop in the 6th annual CTLR Pedagogy Series was a discussion of LMS platforms lead by Mary Ellen Bertolini, Jason Mittell and Louisa Burnham.  Online discussion, assignments and grading were all hot topics.

Sakai Overview and Training

Yesterday, Scott Siddall from Longsight, an open source service provider, lead a day long training session in Sakai.  A number of faculty have agreed to pilot Sakai this spring and attended the afternoon session to get an overview of the platform and hands-on training.  There will be more training sessions next week.  Here are dates:

  • 10 – 11:30 am, Tuesday, Jan 18th, Library 105 – Shel Sax
  • 2 – 3:30 pm, Thursday, Jan 20th, Library 105 – Shel Sax

Moodle Overview and Training

Tomorrow and Friday, I’ll lead a workshop on Moodle, providing an overview of this LMS platform and then hands-on training for faculty who have agreed to pilot it.  Here is schedule:

  • 2 – 3:30 pm, Thursday, January 13, Library 105 – Alex Chapin
  • 2 – 3:30 pm, Friday, January 14, Library 105 – Alex Chapin

While all of these training sessions are primarily for pilot participants, other faculty and staff are encouraged to attend at least the first part of these sessions where we’ll give an overview of the platforms and their distinguishing characteristics.

Learning Management System Pilot Information Sessions

Categories: Midd Blogosphere
The Curricular Technology team is currently evaluating learning management systems (LMS) for use at Middlebury.  To this end the team will work with the Web Application Group to make a number of these platforms available for faculty to pilot over the winter and spring semesters.  For more information about these LMS pilots and how to participant, we encourage faculty and staff to come to one of our LMS pilot information sessions:

  • 3 – 4 pm, Monday, Dec 6th, Library 105
  • 3 – 4 pm, Monday, Dec 7th, Library 105

For more information, see:
Segue from Segue > Learning Management Systems Evaluations

Segue from Segue Updates

Categories: Midd Blogosphere

The Curricular Technology Team is pleased to announce that its primary recommendations for how to segue from Segue has been approved by the Library and Information Services (LIS) Area Directors Team. In essence, the team recommended the development of a “course hub” architecture that would enable faculty to create collections of resources for a given course using a variety of platforms that would be aggregated in a single location referred to as a “hub.” For more information, see:
Segue from Segue > Course Hub

The team is now researching which platforms to include within the course hub. WordPress and MediaWiki are obvious choices since many faculty are already using these for course sites. The team also recognizes that some sort of learning management system (LMS) should also be an integral part of hub sites and is reviewing a number of LMS to present to the community as possible  candidates.

go/dmt

Categories: Midd Blogosphere

The Digital Media Tutors, students who support the Wilson Media Lab in the Davis Family Library, have just launched their new web site. On this site, you will find the answers to the most commonly asked questions (FAQs), as well as links to resources and tutorials for the most common activities in the lab. Included is a video on how to connect a Mac to BigCat -

Please visit the site at go/dmt ( http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/web/support/dmt ) and share your thoughts here or via email at DigitalMediaTutors@middlebury.edu

BLOGS DOT MIDDLEBURY Update

Categories: Midd Blogosphere

We updated WordPress (the platform that powers this blog) late in August to version 3.0.1.  Below is a 3 1/2 minute screencast describing some of the new features introduced in this new version.

To learn more about these new features, see: WordPress @ Middlebury > WordPress Updates.

New Course Schedule Planner

Categories: Midd Blogosphere

We have just introduced a new course schedule planning tool to help students discover courses and arrange selections of them that avoid timing conflicts.

When browsing the online catalog at go/catalog you can now log in and save courses that you find interesting. Look for “Save” links to the top-right of course descriptions. Courses can be saved either from the search view or from the detail views linked-to from department course listings.

 

This screen-cast gives an overview of the Schedule-Planner and how to use it:

Notable features:

  • Save courses at any time as you come across interesting ones.
  • Create one or more schedules for a term to see how different course selections might fit together.
  • Ensures that discussion and lab sections are considered.
  • Time-conflicts are highlighted.
  • Schedules can be emailed to an adviser or anyone else.
  • Schedules can be printed to aid in finding classrooms.

Please note that this tool is designed as a planning and advising aid — it does not register you for classes. Also, it does not have access to individual student records and hence does not check that prerequisites have been met.

The Schedule Planner is still in Beta for the next few weeks, please try it out and provide feedback so that we can address any problems before new students arrive on campus.