Author: terrib (Page 7 of 8)

We started running the studios this week. It was a lot of fun. Even though most of the week felt like I was a few steps behind. I’ve been preparing hand outs all week and trying to get a few screen casts ready. I think the screen casts will be useful and they take a lot less time than handouts do. 

Monday was the inaugural Blackboard Learn Novice Studio on content. I really enjoyed the format and had a very friendly group of participants. I have created a Blackboard Learn course for Blackboard studios and one for Kaltura studios.  For this Blackboard studio I created folders in the Content Collection and Folders in the Content stream – one with each participant’s name on it. They went to their folders in each place and started to create some structure for content. This went really well as simply showing people how gets a lot of nods, “yes, I get it” but having them actually do it, and see why it’s a good idea, is pretty great. It was nice to have Margaret co-host and also play along as a participant. 

I feel pretty solid with Blackboard Learn but my Kaltura knowledge still felt a bit less-so going in to the sessions. Practicing with screen casts for the Blackboard sessions helped a lot with my confidence. I was able to share mistakes and successes and of course Albert was there to fill in any blanks. Most participants were able to create a short video or screen cast and upload it to their folder in the Kaltura studio course. The novice session was full apart from one person who had another commitment and it went really well. The intermediate session was a little strange with only two people and one who dropped out part way through. It worked out though. I find it disconcerting when there is dead air in a session. For Blackboard they are off doing but we can still have conversations and are able to help out.  When they are recording something it’s different. Talking in Bluejeans is distracting rather than helpful. I think I will send people away next time and have them come back when they are done or if they need help. 

I attended the WordPress studios that Margaret and Mike did. I got a few tips that will help me clean up this site. I like seeing and hearing what others are doing, and planning to do, with WordPress. 

We facilitated two more Blackboard sessions that were well attended and covered tests, assignments, and communication tools. I used the same folder set up and participants created tests, discussions, and assignments and then they posted to each other’s forums, took each other’s tests and submitted assignments. They got to experience the student and instructor perspective.  I first tried changing everyone’s role from instructor to student and then back again. What we found was that when everyone was an instructor, the student list disappeared from the grade center. I worked around it by changing a couple back to student and it was fine. For the second round, I got everyone to save the student preview user account and that worked to keep student data in the grade center. 

There were some good conversations around using the tools and the discussion forum in particular. Margaret’s perspective with her Global Learning  hat on was very helpful.  I really enjoyed the studio format.  The numbers we had were manageable and participants seemed to enjoy being able to make things. 

I still have a lot to prepare for next week but having gone through one set of studios the next ones shouldn’t take as much ‘pre-work’ time.  I hope to focus on screen casting next week. It will be great when we have a repository of them to point people to. 

There was so much great work and creativity from our colleagues this week. I am impressed by their dedication to making great learning experiences for their students and the way they are diving in and playing with the tools. By Thursday the frantic pace of preparation was over and there was time to reflect on all the wisdom, hence the little owl for this post’s picture.  

Happy Friday. 

Monday was a nice catching up and helping kind of day. I met with or called a few instructors and helped with whatever Blackboard design and grading questions they had. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were planning, helping, and meeting days.  Funny that it doesn’t feel that there is much to write about. I guess everyone is settling in. Spring classes are well under way and September might feel like a long way off (it isn’t). There were a couple of frantic requests as instructors who haven’t been to training sessions get their heads around grading in the LMS. I almost lost my patience at one point (not to anyone’s face, just in my head) but reminded myself that trauma is affecting a lot of people, and, they’re trying to teach. 

I’m excited about the planning for the next phase of sessions. I have a lot of responsibility coming up and have most of next week to plan and build and then I have to execute. I’m scouring beginner Kaltura training guides to figure out where to start with studios. 

I attended one of Mike and Albert’s Kaltura sessions and had a few instructor calls and help desk tickets to finish the week. 

A lot more thinking and planning than performing this week. The pace is quite different. This feels like we’re in the trough part of a wave.  Next week will be preparing to ride the next crest. 

Got a little relief from sessions this week as enrollments have slowed down for now. We don’t all need to be there for small groups. Mike and I did our first Blackboard Basics and it was good. We had instructors from trades, business, health care, and student employment services. We covered what the LMS is and what they can do with it.

I met with the trades consultants while we worked out development shells and where to store ‘master’ content. I spent some time cleaning up helpdesk tickets in the afternoon and met with Ashley from trades to  talk about what course shells we needed for forestry. Mike was a life-saver in course creation. If that’s too hyperbolic, he was definitely a time-saver. 

Tuesday Mike and I did our Blackboard Content and Assessment sessions. I’ve been helping a couple of instructors who are co-teaching and had a quick look at their course. We’re going to meet to talk a little about organization because I think I can help them. I set up some time with the trades consultant to do a walk through of the sample course. I finally got to work on that a little and decided to do a screen cast in Kaltura to add to it. That took a few tries just getting used to the settings but I’ll keep practicing. 

Got to learn a lot more about Kaltura on Wednesday. I discovered that my screen cast from Tuesday ended up with no audio so will have to go in and figure out what happened there. I sat in for part of the Bluejeans moderator session with Margaret because it looked like there were quite a few people.  I met with the  instructor mentioned above and we worked through some ways to organize content. 

I found out why there was no audio in my screencast. It does work but for some reason you have to click the speaker button first to make it play. I’ll try some more and see if there is a setting I hit by accident.  I had a little frustration creating and saving the screen casts. I did some editing and tagging and then lost them, couldn’t click some buttons because the window they were in wouldn’t fit my screen, and a couple of things like that. It will get easier with use. 

Lots more Bluejeans/Blackboard sessions on Thursday and a couple of short meetings and help desk tickets in between. 

Friday was a little bit lighter and I was able to help a couple of people to clear up some tickets but couldn’t get into helpdesk again to close them.  Next week is shaping up to be BlueJeans intensive. I’m lookging forward to changing up the workshops to be a little more hands on. People will feel more comfortable, and confident, with the tools once they are able to create something.  Like my Kaltura experience, hands on practice, try, sometimes fail, try again… 

A little post-script. I went into the course where I’d been helping with organization and the instructor has done a fantastic job and I felt so proud of him…. seems a bit silly to me but it really does look good. 

Another Monday where I only had one appointment scheduled. Ask me how that went… I thought I would be able to carve a couple of hours out to work on my sample course(s) and then maybe spend some time on planning a few video tutorials. Then the  whole  day was just eaten up with correspondence, and helping people. I got a document together for adding users to Blackboard Learn so instructors can add other instructors themselves rather than putting in a ticket. I also got my outlook issue sorted out. Ben helped me run a repair on Office and that fixed the errors I was getting.  My BlueJeans app also disengaged itself again so I re-installed and its seems to be okay again.

Leisel and Cheryl came up with the same ideas I had over the weekend for the Trades sample course – I wanted to add the trades consultant and I thought I would copy the course and make a generic template out of it as well – great minds etc.  Still some work to do but I like the way it’s shaping up. I have a few ideas to make it better.

Tuesday was a rough one. Three sessions in a row in the morning. I was feeling a little screen bleary.  I wanted to attend the Kaltura one to see what I could pick up. I’m not sure how much I did…  I also like to be there to ask ‘faculty perspective’ kind of questions. For the afternoon MIke and I did another Blackboard assessments session. These are still well attended and we have them down pretty well but while it was happening the email deluge didn’t stop and I was starting to feel overwhelmed. I had a meeting with an instructor who needed some help with a live course. We had to untangle some grade center issues that came with copying the course over and not having a lot of time to clean things up. I was really tired of BlueJeans by then but we were able to trouble shoot and make things work. I got through a few help desk tickets as well. By the end of the day I wanted to give some attention and thought to what’s happening with the trades  courses and support but I just didn’t have it in me. I had to step away from the screen and close the office door and make some physical space between work and home. Of course that doesn’t really ever happen around here. Our work and lives are pretty intertwined.  It’s been like that for a long time so it’s okay.

I set up a Google doc for Margaret and I to identify where we need to create more handouts and some screencast/video tutorials.

The overwhelmed part comes from feeling woefully under prepared for the things coming up and not having enough time for the things already on my plate. Taking a break from it actually results in better productivity. Not taking a break leads to wheel spinning and frustration.

Wednesday was much calmer for turning things off Tuesday night. It was no less busy but I felt more in control and able to pace myself.  My head was clearer and I could focus. I worked with a few instructors from Fine Arts on what they can do in Blackboard (and outside) and which tools will do what they need to do. That was followed by a session with some nursing instructors helping them get content organized and create master courses that instructors can copy.

Margaret and I had another BlueJeans moderator session in the afternoon and after that I had some time to untangle the list of courses for the trades and figure out what was ready and what wasn’t.  I scheduled a meeting with Cheryl for Thursday to work through it.

I did a little more faculty support and figured out how to add a ‘tools’ link to menu in Blackboard for an instructor who is going to use journals.

Thursday was another heavy day of web conferencing back to back to back. Also some untangling of the trades courses.  What needs a shell, what doesn’t. I don’t remember much else but I was online a lot. Oh, one thing, Margaret and I failed spectacularly with an ice-breaker – only one person followed instructions! It was funny.

Friday I attended Albert and Mike’s Kaltura 2 session and took a little more in. Then Albert and I did a Kaltura session for fine arts. I enjoyed it as I’m still learning and they are already coming up with applications for it. I crammed the EdCo agenda in over a lunch break and stayed in EdCo long enough to get through everything that needed quorum before heading to our staff meeting. The rest of the afternoon spent trying to clean up helpdesk tickets. Or at lest, that was the plan. Helpdesk was down. Fortunately the big important thing I had to do from there was to create a big pile of development shells for trades and I had downloaded the spreadsheet so I could still do the work.

This post is a bit more process than reflection. I am really enjoying getting to know more of our faculty members and really impressed with what they’re learning and sharing. It looks like I’ll be able to step away from a couple of sessions next week. That should leave a bit of time to create and to practice. Time to close the office door again and think of other things, like the garden.

On to a new month. This is the Celebrity Eclipse. The ship I was supposed to be boarding in a couple of days. Not sad. Still feeling very fortunate that I still have work and that I can be useful. I am a little disappointed that I won’t get to help lead the Fluevog Field Trip that has become part of the etug/Festival of Learning events. 

Mood for this week – if I’m  not busy, I’m exhausted. 

I only had one thing scheduled for Monday – that was different. Mike and I did a session on content in Blackboard Learn. We had some people who were very new to Blackboard so I’m really glad we have these introductory sessions planned. I spent the rest of the morning looking for resources. I found quite a few. I’m specifically looking for resources for the trades as we’ll be doing targeted sessions for them as well as for Fine Arts.  

I went in to the college in the afternoon to see if my laptop could be docked into the station in my office. It could. I was trying to get a couple of pieces of software installed. Managed to get Dreamweaver in and will try another day for Fireworks. While I was there Gerald (Health and Safety) who has an office across from mine, shared the new door sign protocol at the college. It’s a bit like the housekeeping sign at a hotel. It’s a red/green door hanger sign. Facilities was going around cleaning offices that hadn’t been used so this saves them a lot of time. If you’re sharing a space, you put up the red ‘please clean’ sign, and if you’re not, it’s a green ‘this room has been cleaned’ message.
Also while I was there Mel dropped by to give me a wacom tablet. Good timing. I’ll be able to practice and share tips with instructors. For some it will be very useful to be able to demonstrate by drawing. 

Tuesday morning I tried to get a little content into some bullet points for our trades sessions starting tomorrow. Didn’t get very far but think I know where I’m going. Some of the resources I pulled Monday will be helpful. Margaret and I did two BlueJeans sessions again – participant and moderator. It’s always the same content but the different participants change the dynamic. Both went well.

We also met with Student tech support to talk about the ‘learn anywhere; document that we’re putting together for students. I’ve thrown as much content at it as I could by end of day. (as I’m writing this)  Margaret and Geoff also added some things so hopefully there’s enough information, and links to information for students to get started with. 

This was our big Blackboard Learn upgrade day. 

Wednesday (really? It’s only Wednesday?) we ran our first session on using Blackboard Learn targeted for trades.  I enjoyed it and will follow up with a ‘demo’ course that we will enroll everyone in for some ideas on organization and important elements to include (and why to include them).  I started that right after the session. We have a part B with them on Friday that will expand on assessments and introduce Kaltura. 

Mike and I did another assessment session for Blackboard in the afternoon – very well attended. I like that we get good questions and that sometimes instructors share how they do they things.  We had a quick ‘touch base’ meeting about the upgrade. There were a couple of things broken but overall it seemed to go well. I drafted up a couple of sessions for the Fine Arts group in the first 2 weeks of May. Finding blocks of time is getting tricky but now we can take turns with some of the BlueJeans sessions so it doesn’t have to be ‘all hands on deck’ and I can make time for other things. 

Thursday I met with an instructor first thing and followed that up with a BlueJeans moderator session with Margaret. Worked a bit with Mike on planning out our Trades part B session for Friday.  Lots of email and some helpdesk things.  Couldn’t get in to helpdesk all afternoon. Spent afternoon time working on my sample course for trades. It’s coming together well and I will use some variation of it for other things. I left Margaret alone for the afternoon BlueJeans session as she didn’t need me. Tried to sit in on a union meeting (informal) but was I was working in the back ground  and  not paying attention so I checked out. 

Friday – another grade center session with Mike followed by our Trades Part B – actually 2 Trades Part B sessions.  I really enjoyed our sessions with the Trades instructors. We got into some really good discussion. I keep trying to come up with the perfect analogy but I’m not there yet. I remember this from years ago working with instructors who knew and understood their linear syllabus but struggled to get their head around why I was pulling it apart to make it work in a different format  All the pieces were still there, they were just in a different order that would make sense for a different kind of delivery. 

I am more or less finished my ‘sample course for trades’. It was fun to build and I will probably go in and tweak a few things because there is always something to tweak. That mood at the top was the first few days of the week. It gets kind of energizing after a while. I’m going to try and just relax and get outside this weekend. 

I started the week with back to back to back sessions. I attended part of day one of the course re-design sprint and then headed into a session on content in Blackboards Learn followed by a session on blueJeans participation. In the afternoon we did a BlueJeans moderator session and I was able to catch up on a few emails I’d been wanting to respond to as well as create my first account for someone in BlueJeans through a help desk ticket.

We got the news that we can use time sheets if we go over our allotted hours in a week. That, in itself is a relief.  It takes some pressure off of which thing you have to prioritize when everything is important. Even if I don’t have to use it, I know it’s there and that feels like just getting a bit of white space to work with. Some breathing room.

I attended the sprint again on Tuesday morning and had a little time to work on our Blackboard 0 session, AKA Blackboard Basics. We have an agenda roughed out on the topics we will cover. I know we have instructors who have been using Blackboard at their particular comfort level but are still not sure about how some of the tools work and some who have never used it at all.

I was also able to get a handout together for creating breakout rooms via scheduling rather than using the function in the app. Large groups appear to be causing problems for the BlueJeans breakout rooms.

Margaret and I got two more BlueJeans sessions in on Wednesdays. The moderator session was well attended. The participant session was small but we enjoyed it. It was a bit personalized but also covered all the material. Mike and I did another Blackboard session on assessments. Good crowd and there were people there who realized they need to learn more about Blackboard than they can get out of one session.

As always while these things are going on, there are instructors who need support by email or through helpdesk.

Thursday I was able to attend the whole sprint about engaging learners. The attendees explored some different tools for engagement and reported back. I got kicked out of the session and lost my BlueJeans desktop app. This has happened before; even after re-installing it wouldn’t synch with my BCNeT  page. Managed to get it worked out. Got together with the team for some updates on BlueJeans and all the other myriad things going on right now.

Margaret and I are going to chip in on some documentation for supporting students in the upcoming terms and I’ve started writing some of that content. I now have a conceptual framework for where this content will go and what it will look like and that helps.  We’ll work with the student tech support team to pull everything together.

I attended part of the last sprint day today but had to leave early for another session with Mike on using Gradebook. We had at least 14 people and I think it went well. I am so happy to see so many people participating in these sessions. It’s obvious that everyone is trying and when I hear things like “my teaching is going to be so much better after this” it validates all the effort that goes in to making it happen.

There was more of one on one support with faculty through email, bluejeans and helpdesk, as above.  I received a lot of ‘thank you’ emails this week and that was nice. Not just to me, of course but to everyone who is leading and supporting sessions.  I may have said this before but it’s worth saying again. Seeing the college community come together like this is fantastic. I can’t remember a time when welding instructors and English teachers and scientists were in a shared space learning together like this.

Next week just got a little busier with some new sessions added specifically for our trades faculty, many of whom have been showing up for regular sessions.  Many hands on instructors are brand new to what’s available to them online. I’m looking forward to it.

I probably left some things out but this is getting long. I didn’t end up working full time this week but without the time sheet option, let’s just say my work would have been slap-dash, and I would have been snacking on antacids. That white space I mentioned is important – everything feels so much less rushed.

I really enjoy the online training sessions and the colleagues I get to do them with. Feeling fortunate not just to be working but to be working with awesome people.

p.s. If I did a word cloud of this post the word SESSION would probably be the biggest one.

via GIPHY

Not really this panicked but seriously, I have lost complete track of how time is passing. How is April half over? I’ve begun to feel a strange sense of ennui combined with adrenaline.  Bring on the weekend.

Tuesday Margaret and I held our inaugural BlueJeans training sessions. One for participants and one for moderators.  They went well and we can definitely polish them up.  I’m finding the BlueJeans environment makes me re-think some of my previous best practices. For example, the welcome slide. I used to always use one just so there was something there when people entered the room. I find in BlueJeans, everyone enters with their camera on and so far, they are chatting with each other and I kind of don’t wan’t to disturb them. Maybe in the future for less wild learning times, I will disable cameras on entry and have a slide up before things get started.

Wednesday Mike and I did two of our Blackboard Learn sessions – one on organizing and uploading content and one on assessment tools.  We had almost no time to prep together but were able to divide the content up. Fortunately we’ve done similar sessions in the past and can work off each other quite well. Again both sessions went well but I know where I’m going to make a couple of changes – first in explaining more about the content area in Blackboard (student view) before talking about the Content collection (instructor view). Brent gave me a helpful analogy to try out.

It’s so great to have partners in these sessions. There were some really good questions in all four sessions and a lot of repeat customers showing up for everything. Their questions are really useful and sometimes they can answer questions for us from their experience with the tools.

Thursday and Friday more training sessions. Margaret and I did a couple of  more BlueJeans sessions and Mike and I did a session on the grade center for Blackboard Learn. It’s a complicated thing and I think we got a good balance of the technical – what’s going on behind the scenes – and the practical – how it works – things. We emphasized that even though you can do a lot of calculations it’s not always in your interest. Keep it simple. Also, don’t worry if none of this sticks because you probably won’t be using it right away.  It’s a lot to remember and we’re just a helpdesk ticket away. Mike and I have both noticed that some faculty aren’t aware that they can email helpdesk so we’re reminding people at every opportunity.

I have used up all my hours (and if i’m honest, probably a bit more) for the week. One more meeting, post this draft, and then I’m done. Next week should be interesting trying to parcel out the time over 5 days instead of 4.  All of the sessions have gone quite well – at least from the feedback and comments we’ve received so far – despite the lack of time to prepare. I think people are just so appreciative that there are opportunities on offer.

I forgot that it was Easter this weekend and tried to schedule things for Monday.  All the days are starting to blur a little bit.

I got very mixed up around scheduling sessions this week. I’m doing BlueJeans training with Margaret and Blackboard training with Mike this month. In my head, all the BlueJeans sessions were on Tuesdays and Thursdays so when it came to scheduling Blackboard we went with Mondays and Wednesdays. I had forgotten that we chose to stagger the BlueJeans to try and hit the most availability. Now that everything is in my calendar and I’m working on support documents I’m feeling like I might be getting a grip on it.  Part of the problem was that I missed a couple of emails and was only looking ahead. If I’d looked back, I might have noticed the conflicts. I think it’s time to dust off the whiteboard calendar from my contracting days. I need a visual that isn’t outlook.

There’s a lot of information coming at us these days (at NIC) and some new, exciting developments and tools to learn. We have a major BB upgrade coming at the end of the month.  It shouldn’t have too much impact on faculty who are going through enough right now.  The interface doesn’t look a lot different but there will be a couple of new features, like the option to record audio for feedback on assignments.

There was more faculty support this week via emails and phone calls. Our web help desk access has been set up and I’m gently directly faculty there first. It  feels like you’re turning people away but in the long run it will be much more efficient and will help us track the kind of requests we’re getting to target training. It’s quite interesting to see instructors embrace new tools and I like to see the ways they are using them. There are some really good questions coming in and I’m learning more all the time through helping.

I was able to work a couple of more hours in a day this week with the stat holiday on Friday. It’s weird to not have Margaret around this week to check in with.  Hopefully this was a well timed vacation break for her because the next couple of weeks are going to be heavy with sessions for faculty.

We did a little WordPress/OpenETC run through Thursday and started planning for May.  The April sessions are filling up. Got a little peek at what Kaltura is going to look like in Blackboard.  Prepped a hand out and some notes for next week’s sessions. Looking forward to getting back into training people online. I used to really enjoy it.

Happy Easter