You don’t have to sign up for a conference to rub elbows with us. We are here for you. In addition to being thoughtful, we are leaders who are doing. I’ll make my case by listing recent activities and upcoming events that are available (or were) for free. Some events, like iTeach, are by application only, but if you’re accepted we don’t charge you an entry fee. In addition to these events we, the designers, routinely meet with faculty to assist in a variety of ways. Need to spruce up a few assignments? Want to deliver part of your materials remotely? Is it time to flip your classroom? You just might get your own designer for three hours.

5/1, Wednesday – Owen Guthrie
Akasofu 417 Noon – 1:00pm

Gamification”Humanity plays three billion hours of tech games every week. How can elements of these games improve student engagement and learning outcomes? Gamification is an exciting and emergent topic in education, but it contains many misconceptions. We’ll discuss types of games, motivational systems (badging) and misconceptions while developing an accurate view of the potential for gamification in education. Provide your students opportunities to be awesome! ”

This presentation will be available at: http://mediasite.alaska.edu/Mediasite/Play/ade79ac351534c67887e3a419ca05eea1d This is the fourth in a series for this spring semester. You can see the earlier Teaching Tip Live sessions at:

3/20 Podcasting http://mediasite.alaska.edu/Mediasite/Play/f5ea1f106cd748e19ce3bfaa27031c851d
4/3 Interactive Video http://mediasite.alaska.edu/Mediasite/Play/098dbef475a8467993b7a7f5c2a3040b1d
4/17 Virtual Tutoring http://mediasite.alaska.edu/Mediasite/Play/78f3311922204df9a6bd2312329c7e6c1d

Look for more sessions in the fall.

The next iTeach: May 20-24; http://iteach.uaf.edu/ to sign up

We have smaller iTeach type presentations going on during May and June for specific departments, or groups of departments. These are set up in two and three day layouts. While I’m not inviting you to a different department’s presentation, I am suggesting that there are opportunities where you could have a designer, or even a few designers, come to you. Elbow rubbing is optional.

1. A person should not have to choose “number of courses. … How many classes? I plan on taking _one semester-based course_ … two, three, four.
2. A person should not have to  “If you change your mind, use the back button and select more or fewer courses before you fill everything out.”
3. The results of the form should not be encrypted. (Allan’s request)
4. The form should allow a person to choose from multiple semesters where registration overlaps.
5. The form should discourage use to those who can register using UAOnline. The form should collect information on why are person could not register on UAOnline.

How should this change occur?

• Using AJAX and Javascript (and jQuery)
• Not by using multiple pages

What would be good to change?

• The fact that ‘distance’ as a fee does not update properly when you have multiple select statements.

The value, again, was not so much in the article or the research, but in what it makes you consider. That does not mean the article or research does not have value; I simply like to see direct correlations or comparisons built upon data, like students’ scores or completion rates, versus how the student feels. Oh, I may be digging a hole here–student’s perceptions have value. I just want to be able to measure improvement.

This article inspired thoughts on whether or not we compare a class that is run simultaneously in two different learning management systems. How would that work? Could we have the same content, the same instructor? Would it matter that there would be different students?

This sparked discussion as to ‘how could the content be the same?’ Blackboard differs greatly from WordPress. The experience would be greatly different regardless of whether or not the content was the same. Plus it is hard to come up with ‘the same’ when the platforms are so different.

In addition to that point of interest was the learners idea of their own web efficiency. The student’s reflection on whether or not they believed they were web savvy enough or tech-ready enough to succeed in an online course. Since this was a subjective measure I was skeptical. I want hard measures. However, did the student who believed he or she was ready do better than the student who didn’t? Hey – isn’t that just self-fulfilling prophecy?

Personally, I like the idea of making one change and seeing how grades or participation or a simple item like ‘turning work in on time’ improves. Perhaps that is where my focus should be.

Alshare, K. A., Freeze, R. D., Lane, P. L., & Wen, H. (2011). The impacts of system and human factors on online learning systems use and learner satisfaction. Decision Sciences Journal Of Innovative Education, 9(3), 437-461.

PS the article I really wanted to share was:

Morris, L. V., & Finnegan, C. L. (2008). Best practices in predicting and encouraging student persistence and achievement online. Journal Of College Student Retention: Research, Theory And Practice, 10(1), 55-64

SettingUpAUserinWikiSpaces (swf)

I first tried to have them work with Prezi, but bumped into a keyboard access issue.

So here is the assignment:
1. Go to www.jotform.com create a free account.
2. Click “Form Templates” (top menu) and search on ‘course.’
3. Choose the course survey or course evaluation form and save it.
4. Change the theme or remove questions that do not apply.
5. Save your work. Choose Preview and copy the URL to share with your group via email or paste into the class blog as a new post.

* Note to instructors: I built this post using the Kindle Fire and tested each of these steps on the Kindle Fire. I recommend you also add screenshots, a due date, a rubric for how you will score the student’s work, and the point value of the assignment. Alternately you could ask the students to search for a form for uploading files (also a template) or sharing a recipe.

See the resulting form (based off of a survey template with questions removed.)

I am cross-referencing this post a ‘how to’ because I have a few tips on what you should do. See the bottom of this post.

While looking for this plug in I came across a few blog posts that recommended specific WordPress themes or plugins to assist the designer looking to make their site mobile-friendly.

•  A list of 10 attractive mobile themes (May 7, 2012)

I personally like 1stGiantLeap ($25.00 from theme forest), dotMobi (also $25.00 from themeforest), iWorld ($30 from themeforest — see the live demo), Mobius (free for download), My Mobile Page ($25 from themeforest), Simple Mobile ($25 from themeforest).

No wonder I had a hard time finding them when I was using the keyword search through the WP dashboard for my site. They are not there!  I will not be purchasing any of these. I’m a try before you buy gal. I have downloaded the free Mobius, but have yet to try it.

Here are free options located on the WordPress site:

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack/

This is the seat of your pants path to success:

• Go review freely available themes. Make a list of the ones you like. Grab them.
• First back up your site. Yes, you heard me right.
• Now review your widgets. Export them! Don’t know how? Follow the link to Sarah Gooding’s post at WPMU.org
  Perhaps YOU’RE NOT ABOUT to lose your settings. Cool. But what if you do? This is like car insurance – do you have that?
• Now try on the theme. Yes, apply it. Review what it looks like on different mobile devices. I recommend making notes.
• Try on another theme. Go ahead, you saved your widget settings, didn’t you?
• Go through the free themes and plugins. If they just don’t do it for you, take a look at the for-cost options.
• When you settle on a combination of new theme and/or plugin that supports mobile devices, please ask a slightly less techie friend or colleague to go to your site on their mobile device.
  Watch them interact with your site.

Carl Strange teaches Latin 101 and 102. He writes the best announcements to encourage his students, tell them what’s coming up, and keep them interested in learning more.

I’m excerpting part of last week’s announcement, with his permission, because we gel on this topic. English is tricky!

Recent work in our course has highlighted some anomalies, one daren’t say deficiencies, in the ability of language to make itself clear. I speak, of course, not of Latin (which has its own deficiencies, particularly in regard to words describing color) but to English.
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“The two most troublesome points we’ve covered recently are intensive and reflexive pronouns and the perfect tenses. In English, we rely on word order to make meaning, and it usually works. In the case of intensive and reflexive pronouns, though, sometimes it is maddening. Consider the sentence, “Paul Konerko scored himself.” This is ambiguous because we cannot tell without context what it means. Perhaps the slugger batted in a run, and we didn’t expect that for some reason. Alternatively, it might mean that he did a self-appraisal following a recent loss to Boston. But it might also be that he brushed against a projecting nail-head in the WhiteSox dugout. Love that English!
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Then we come to the perfect tenses, where the bad news is, there is no “past tense” in Latin. There are three past tenses, each connoting its own thing. Imperfect we use to describe continuous, chronic, ongoing, or incomplete action in the past: “He used to love reindeer sausage.” Perfect describes action that is just flat done and over with: “He ate/has eaten/did eat the reindeer sausage.” And pluperfect posits action prior to some other time, also in the past: “He had never eaten such great reindeer sausage.” This is fairly simple compared to future perfect: “By the time we get home, I’ll bet he will have eaten the rest of the reindeer sausage.”
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If all this is not miserable enough, there is the simple future tense, which in Latin is, well, future. In English we are accustomed to expressing it as though it were present: “I am going to Montreal next month.” Well, it isn’t next month, of course, so in what sense am I going there now? I’m not. What I mean but do not say is, “I shall go to Montreal next month.” But this sounds pretentious, doesn’t it? Love that English!”

He says it well. Both future perfect and pluperfect sound so strange. In speaking with non-native English speakers on this topic, I often hear that their language is clearer. Their language is easier to understand. As a person who has learned (and lost) one language and attempted to learn two others, I agree. At least when starting out on a new language, as I compare it to English I think, “brilliant!” Or, “easy and clear.” It is, of course, only later that I realize I either don’t have enough time to devote to this right now, or I am not going to Italy this year… best just put off learning Italian for now.

Ciao!