I haven’t been doing as good a job this semester with discussion board involvement, and I think I found a solution for that this week with the help of some online teachers and Pronto.
We found that in the discussion board ‘modify’ button beside each forum, there is an option to subscribe. When you select this option and then hit the subscribe button at the top of the screen, you get an email every time students post to the discussion board! The email contains their post and a link to their post… with the reply button right there!
I know that Gary Langner is great with discussion boards. He keeps a screen open just for the discussion board throughout the day and checks it every few minutes. I have multiple monitors with one already designated for the Wimba Classroom, but I just don’t think I could do it the same way as Gary -although I gotta commend him for his excellent connections with students!
I found that I’d log in every couple of days to participate, but when I logged in, I’d see tons of discussion board contributions from students. Replying to all of them just seemed intimidating and redundant, and I worried that nobody would read what I wrote. I’m GREAT at replying to email though; I usually respond in just a few minutes, because it comes right to my cell phone.
Using the subscribe feature in the blackboard discussion board helps me treat the discussion board like I treat my email, keeping up with it reactively on the instant rather than letting it back up and handle it as a weekly proactive duty. I can even hit the link on the email and reply to a discussion board post directly from my phone!
I like to handle my proactive responsibilities (like daily grading) in the morning and then get away from my home office for the rest of the day. I go on long walks and contact students, logging the contact from my phone. I answer email from my phone and follow up via synchronous contact. And now, I can reply to students’ discussion board posts via my phone! I love being mobile! I hope that subscribing to the discussion board helps others, because it’s going to help me a ton this summer!
Here is a quick tutorial from www.screentoaster.com on how to use one wimba classroom for multiple courses. In the next post, Be Available Whenever Part II, I cover how to let your students know when you’re in the Wimba Classroom.
Hi there! When I have office hours, I try to use the Wimba Classroom. Schools block downloading and installing Pronto sometimes. To the best of my knowledge, the Wimba Classroom, however, should work on any computer in any school. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about that in the comments below.)
In order to make it simple to access the Wimba Classroom for students, I put a button on the left hand side of my course that takes students directly there. I got the idea from the elluminate button in my IQ Academy courses (great folks out there at IQ Academy in Washington!).
The thing is, I work from home and am often sitting in front of my computer grading or clicking on things “to clean up my classroom.” I wanted to be available for students for synchronous contact then too, not only when I’m supposed to be holding office hours!
My first step was to create a scrolling Marquee across the top of the Announcements. Here is the HTML (and brief instructions) to create the same Announcement in your classroom.
1. open your course in firefox and go to the announcements through the control panel.
2. add a new announcement, and call it Please
3. hit the <> key, which tells Blackboard to read the html
4. insert without the semi-colons:
;<font size=”14″><font color=”#ffff00″><marquee bgcolor=”#0000ff”>Please read the Announcements daily. Thanks</marquee></font></font>
Notice you can change the text in the scrolling marquee just by changing the text in the html code. You can also change the color by changing the FFFFOO to other colors.
Still struggling with my rudimentary knowledge, I managed to write a script using AutoHotkey that would, with the click of a button, open my courses, go to announcements, change the announcement to a different color, and change the text to “Shu is now available LIVE! Hit “live teacher access” on the left!”
I named the button “live teacher access” rather than Wimba Classroom to keep it simple for students. Now, I can quickly ‘log into’ the classroom when I’m in front of the computer, and I can ‘log out’ the same way. I have a multi-monitor set up, so I just leave the Wimba classroom open on one monitor.
This is a really efficient way to be available. I haven’t gotten many students to log in and participate, but I have heard that they appreciate knowing I’m there just in case.
I think if I had to teach math, I’d shoot myself in the face with a bazooka. Maybe twice. I’ve always been awful at math. If I had to teach math online, though, I’d have to have something like this pen mouse.
A science teacher and I were working last week on how to create a canned lesson on a math concept. With English, it’s easy. I can use the keyboard and Microsoft Word to explain concepts in language and communication. For math, though, not so easy…
I have no idea how to write complicated math equations quickly in word. After a while, we tried using good ol’ Microsoft Paint as our white board and recording the screencast with www.screentoaster.com. Here’s an article on how to use screentoaster.
It worked great, but my ‘handwriting’ using my mouse was terrible! I suggest checking into some sort of wireless pen mouse if you don’t know how to teach math or science without a white board.
Because I don’t teach these, I’m curious to see how others have met this challenge. What do you do as a math or science teacher when you’re illustrating synchronous direct instruction for students?
Today we’re going to talk about a powerful tool for computer users -Autohotkey. First, a brief list of its attributes: it’s free… that one was easy.
Second, it’s complicated. It’s really complicated. I had to bribe my geeky brother to show me how to use it, and I had google at my fingertips. This is not a tutorial -it’s that complicated. So if you’re a tech newbie, you’ve been warned. If, however, you’re somewhere between a developing nerd and a super-geek-ninja, Autohotkey is something you should seriously consider taking a day or three to learn.
Last, here’s a brief description of what it is with a video for your viewing pleasure: with Autohotkey, you hit a key combination that you define and then any automated action magically happens on your computer… anything you tell it to do, it will do… anything.
I work from my home office, and when I come downstairs in the morning, I blearily turn on my computer and hit “#b”. That opens blackboard to all of my courses. It opens my email and goes to my unread mail. It also opens my course roster so I have my contact information handy. Last, it goes to my grade book in all of my courses. It does this while I’m making a fruit smoothie with my Magic Bullet. By the time I sit down, I’m ready to roll.
Here is another example and a bigger time saver: When I started a new course this semester, my boss-lady (love her!) told me I had to go through ‘grade details’ in the grade book to enter points and a no-credit message. I couldn’t just hit 50-enter-50-enter-50-enter in the grade book’s spreadsheet view. I made it half way through doing this for 5 classes, and rather than commit seppuku with my letter opener, I created an Autohotkey script that would repeat this process for me. Now, on Monday mornings, I tell it how many times to run through this action in a column, and voila! My netbook inputs F’s for missing assignments with a quick note, while I munch on toast and grade work that was actually turned in! This saves me approximately 4,000 hours every Monday. HUGE.
Now for a warning: If your script has errors, you are in danger. Your computer has no judgment and no brain. If you accidentally tell it to do something that will erase your hard drive, it will! Learn this new skill in small steps -you are warned.
Here is a quick video about Autohotkey. Keep in mind that this is not a tutorial. It’s just about the program. If you have any tips or tricks, please add them in the comments section -I’m rather new with the program myself!
