Archive for March, 2010
ANGEL back up!
ANGEL is back up. Early information is that this is related to a power outage. We will post more information here as we get it from ANGEL.
ANGEL Down!
ANGEL went down around 2:30 this afternoon. The outage appears to be affecting not only WAOL ANGEL, but other colleges as well. We have put in a ticket to ANGEL, and they have responded that they are working on the problem. We have no other information at this time.
Cascadia Offering ANGEL Training
Audience: Faculty
What: A new session of ANGEL training beginning April 14. The course is entirely online. There are two sections.
The Full Section is:
- for people who are new to teaching using course management systems.
- 6 weeks long (April 14 – May 25)
- Based on designing a course from scratch
- Covers basic online pedagogical theory
The Express Section is
- for people who are experienced using Blackboard or other course management systems
- 4 weeks long (April 14 – May 11)
- Based on converting an existing course
- Explores more advanced online pedagogy
Both Sections
- Have weekly graded work (the work is graded pass/fail)
- Take 4 – 6 hours a week to complete
- Have flexible time schedules – if you fall behind, it’s ok. You can continue on whenever it works for you
- Will have you ready to use ANGEL for Summer or Fall Quarter
- Are free and open to anyone in the community college system
To register, visit the WAOL instructor training page at http://www.waol.org/info/training/instTrainingRegistration.aspx . Please note that this is the only session that I will run online Spring quarter.
If you started the training previously and would like to begin again, please email me at sdelaney@cascadia.edu and we’ll get you going so you can start where you left off.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Stephanie Delaney
FYI: Free Live Webinar
Audience: Instructors and Administrators
What: Online Learning in a Hybrid World
When: Thursday, April 8, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time
Also available “on demand” anytime 24 hours after the event
Free registration is now open.
As online learning gains traction within brick-and-mortar schools, a hybrid model of face-to-face and Internet-based coursework is emerging as the most popular form of e-instruction. But it takes more than computer access to create a successful hybrid-learning program. Join our expert guests for a discussion of how administrators can incorporate online courses into their students’ school days, and how in-person instructors can help make the online-learning experience work better for students.
Guests:
Susan Patrick, president and CEO, International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL)
Prakash B. Patel, computer science teacher, Quakertown Community Senior High School, Quakertown, Pa.
This webinar will be moderated by Michelle Davis, senior writer, Education Week Digital Directions.
Click here to register for this free, live event.
All Education Week webinars are archived and accessible “on demand” for up to six months after the original live-streaming date.
Additional Information on Copying Courses in ANGEL for Spring
A couple of comments on the need to ask instructors to back up their courses.
- The Service Level Agreement (SLA) discusses instructor backups specifically in Section 2.2 (below) Yes, ANGEL backs up everything daily for catastrophic failures. And, yes, we can restore content that has been accidentally deleted. However, restoring from the ANGEL backup is slow, difficult and costs $500 per instance. If the fault is with SBCTC/WAOL, we will pay the cost. However, if the fault is with the college staff, the college will pay the $500. For these reasons, training instructors to do the backups is specifically mentioned as part of the college responsibility in the SLA. In addition, it’s just good practice for all users of technology to learn to back up any important content. ANGEL makes it pretty easy to do.
- The college can and should set in place a policy on how they will backup their classrooms. I’m attaching the DRAFT document that we have been discussing at the WAOL Advisory Group meeting. You can also find out more on how a college can backup their content in the Administrator Manual, starting on page 192.
- All instructors should have and be trained to use Master classrooms. Using a Master classroom solves multiple problems—whether the course is completely online or web-enhanced. We’re working on a new tutorial on Master classrooms and LORs, and that will be a feature of the face-to-face Advanced ANGEL training this May.
Instructor backups and Master classrooms can avert disasters and save time. We really need to push this information to faculty.
View the SLA and examples of ways to manage ANGEL backups:
Spring 2010 Canceled Courses
Audience: Registrars, eLearning Coordinators
All shared spring 2010 classrooms are now open, and instruction begins next Thursday, April 1st. Here is a list of courses that have been canceled due to no/low enrollments for spring quarter so please check this list and if you have students enrolled in any of these course you will need to be sure and notify those students ASAP and drop them from those classes.
Canceled WAOL System-Owned Shared Spring Courses:
#2002 – WAOL Understanding Diversity
#5301 – WAOL Issues and Trends
#5303 – WAOL Methods in Curriculum Development
Canceled College-owned Shared Spring Courses:
#7285 – Child Abuse & Neglect (OC)
#7459 – Human Resource Management (SFCC)
#7794 – Intro to Business (GHC)
You can go here to view the winter instructor class report: http://www.waol.org/info/currentQuarter/allCoursesReport_n.asp
Important Information on Copying Courses in ANGEL
- Back up your classrooms frequently. Restoring data that has been accidentally deleted is pretty easy if you backup your classroom. Otherwise, it is difficult and costly– or maybe impossible. You can find instructions on how to backup your content here: http://tinyurl.com/back1tup
- Copy from your Master Classroom so you do not include existing students and their work in your new classroom. When copying content into a new classroom, copy from your Master classroom. This will link you to the instructions: http://d2.parature.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=8161&task=knowledge&questionID=1432
Note! If instead of copying from another course or master course you are importing a backup file, it will contain student records, grades, e-mail, submissions, discussion forum postings, and more. Uncheck the User Data column so that they will not be imported into the new course. All assignments remain, but do not contain any student submissions. You might also want to uncheck Calendar Items and Announcements if you do not want them in the new course.
These two steps can save you a lot of stress!
Winter WAOL Grades: You can now run SM6244J
Audience: Registrars, SMS Coordinators, Distance Learning Council, HP3000 Administrators
From: Juanita Morgan, Student System Product Manager
You can now run SM6244J to post Winter quarter WAOL grades to the appropriate student records. You can run it immediate or in production. Any grades that were not submitted by instructors by the WAOL cutoff, will be emailed from WAOL to your college. Don’t forget:There are no parameters for this job.
- Check the exception report for any grades that may have been rejected.
- Running SM6244J posts the WAOL grades to student enrollment records, not to the transcript. You still have to run the job to post grades to the transcript, just as you do with your college grades.
Please contact SBCTC-IT Customer Support at 425-803-9721 or support@sbctc.edu if you have questions.
ANGEL Course Teams – SMS-ANGEL Integration
Audience: WAOL ANGEL administrators and instructors who are using merged sections in SMS
Quarter: Spring ’10 and following quarters
The SMS-ANGEL Integration system now supports Teams within ANGEL courses. Students are automatically placed into a team based on the original SMS item number of their enrollments. The team assignment is done when the student is enrolled in an ANGEL course. Dropping and re-adding will update a student’s team membership.
The main benefit is for merged sections, where a course will have two or more teams, based on the item numbers that were merged.
Team membership may be edited by instructors or administrators at any time, within an ANGEL course.
WAOL Advisory Group Meeting: March 22nd Recording
Main agenda items: Elluminate will attend our April 19th meeting, Lecture Capture Update and ANGEL updates.
Meeting Take-Aways:
- Creating Dev server to mirror production server
- Can turn off standard logon once we hear from all colleges that the secure logon is okay
- Will delete all instructor waol_ accounts this Wednesday
- Working on streaming media server to help with classroom capacity for instructors; still working on solutions for large student files
- Advanced ANGEL training May 11 and 12; one person per college
- Working on Administrator Training
- Elluminate will visit this meeting April 19
- Lecture Capture testing right now
- Elearning directors and faculty professional development together at North Bend
Click here for access to a list of all Advisory Group meeting recordings and slideshows.
