Office of Educational Enhancement

Last week at the Texas Distance Learning Association, we gave a presentation to a room of over fifty educators and faculty developers from Texas and surrounding states.  We had a lot of fun and the presentation was well-received.  The following Scribd document captures what we did, leveraging two free web-based platforms to appeal to students who tend to learn more quickly visually and/or experientially.  Today’s Teaching Well Using Technology workshop reviewed tools referenced below (Cool Iris, Google Street View) and more (SlideShare, Google Docs).  If you missed today’s workshop, we hope to see you in another session soon.  If you have questions about effectively using technology in the classroom, or teaching in general, feel free to send us an e-mail!

Video from the Fall 2008 graduation ceremonies have been added to our website. (Thank you Darrell!) You can view them by going to our Webcast Archive page.

Q: When will the university be changing from WebCT to this new eLearning system I keep hearing about? And how will this affect how I build and deliver my courses?

A: We are not really changing our learning management system (LMS). We are actually just changing the name we use for the LMS. A few years ago, WebCT was purchased by Blackboard, and so instead of changing the name of our trainings to “Blackboard training”, we decided to go with a more general term — eLearning.

So as far as what you see when you log into eLearning (WebCT), the user interface itself will not change. That being said, beginning in Fall ‘09, due to the switch to PeopleSoft, we will be moving to a system in which you will need to request your course be created in WebCT. (Currently, every course in SIS has a corresponding WebCT course automatically created, whether the instructor uses it or not.) We’re encouraging all faculty to attend our eLearning: Getting Started workshop to hear more about this switch.

Please email elearning@utdallas.edu if you have any questions.

The entire OEE team.

We all hope everyone has a great break and look forward to seeing you in the coming semester!

“It is with enthusiasm and excitement that USDLA launches National Distance Learning Week, November 12 – 16. The Association invites you to join us at www.ndlw.org for webinars and information on all aspects of the distance learning industry,” commented Dr. John G. Flores, CEO of the USDLA (www.usdla.org).

UTD is upgrading WebCT support for faculty, staff, and students! The campus community can access new support resources including improved self-help resources and a Knowledge Base via the following link: http://www.utdallas.edu/elearninghelp. The link can be found on various UTD web pages including eLearning, distance educaton, library, Information Resources, and within WebCT. Improved services also include a toll free telephone number for immediate assistance (1-866-588-3192), email request service, and an online chat service. This new WebCT user support service will be open and available 24/7 for the convenience of all users.

All programs must have their assessment reports in AT6 by June 1, 2008. To accomplish this, each program must compile all the course assessment results and enter the results into AT6. The program must also have a faculty meeting to review these results and determine what the program needs to do to improve for the next year. The meeting minutes must be sent to OEE (oee@utdallas.edu) and recorded in AT6 for future access.