Archive for August 18, 2008
ANGEL pilots for Fall 08
Here at WAOL we have been working on a plan to provide some limited classroom pilots of WAOL ANGEL during Fall 08. We think these pilots will be valuable to all users as we move forward with ANGEL; however, we don’t want to jeopardize any student work nor do we want to distract WAOL staff from the larger jobs of the existing Blackboard operation and the migration to and automation of ANGEL.
So here’s the deal for colleges:
· WAOL will support up to two classrooms per college on WAOL ANGEL during Fall 08. (Volunteers only!)
· All pilots will be managed through existing WAOL processes (WAOL ID number and Intent to Teach form, etc.) This will allow us to keep track of the pilots and enrollments through a WAOL ID number and will have the added benefit of creating shadow Blackboard classrooms and accounts as back up.
· The college elearning director must identify pilot instructors and classrooms through an email to Monique Kovalenko mkovalenko@sbctc.edu by September 5th.
WAOL will need to get the instructor names and classrooms from college elearning directors, not from individual instructors.
Here are the requirements for pilot instructors:
· Instructors should plan for the possibility of technical issues; hybrid courses might be the best choice.
· Instructors should not expect full training in ANGEL from WAOL and should plan to do some self-study on ANGEL (an ANGEL sandbox or other experience).
· Student-level information on ANGEL will not be posted on waol.org or on college sites, so the pilot instructors will be responsible to give their students any information needed to access and use ANGEL. Presidium and the WAOL Instruction Office will be available for technical support; it will help if users identify themselves as WAOL ANGEL users.
· Instructors must post a message in the shadow Blackboard classroom that tells students how to log into their ANGEL classroom.
· Pilot instructors will have access to whatever ANGEL training and documentation WAOL has available, but they must know that it will not be finished before the quarter begins. We are hoping instructors will give us valuable feedback on ANGEL during the quarter.
And before you send me a message asking how the pilots will work during Winter quarter—still under discussion. However, I will tell you that we are steadily moving forward with no serious issues so far. Yippee.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Connie
Summer08 Grades for Shared Courses Due Today
WAOL summer grades for ALL shared courses are due today. Grades not submitted by midnight do not get recorded and sent off to the students enrolling colleges. If there are any grade changes that need to be made after today they will need to be emailed directly to our office. We will then make the change in the WAOL summer 08 database and send them off to the appropriate college.
Please follow these directions for submitting your summer 08 grades:
WAOL Web Grading –
Grades are collected from instructor rosters in their “MyWAOL” accounts, not Blackboard. Please follow these instructions or check out the link below to find information on submitting your grades for summer quarter 2008. (http://www.waol.org/faculty_and_staff/webGrading.aspx)
WAOL Web Grading will be used rather than Instructor Briefcase to assign grades to students enrolled in any shared courses. Grades may be entered up until Monday, August 18th, after which WAOL Web Grading will be turned off.
Assigning Grades Using WAOL Web Grading -
Access the grading roster for current class sections by clicking the “View Your Course Sections” link on your MyWAOL page. Assign student grades using the Web Grading form and then click the “Save Grades” button at the bottom of the page to save the grades. You may partially complete the grade assignment process and return to finish it at a later time. In order to assign a failing grade to a student, you must fill in the “Last Date of Attendance” field. This date must be formatted MM/DD/YYYY and must be a valid date to be accepted.
Any grade changes made after August 18th must be sent to: Monique Kovalenko (mkovalenko@sbctc.edu) and Brook Bane (bbane@sbctc.edu)
