Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem, MFA » LITE Workshops@Addlestone

LITE Session: What’s New in PowerPoint 2010

seayj — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:32:56 +0000

What’s New in PowerPoint 2010: Being an introduction as to how to use the new PowerPoint and by so doing start down the road to presentation awesomeness.

Thursday, February 3 at 3pm
Addlestone Room 120

PowerPoint, SchmowerPoint. So, what’s the big deal with the new PowerPoint 2010 anyway? Come find out how the new Office 2010 product has become much more than a helpful rearranging of buttons and the addition of a festive ribbon. In this first Addlestone LITE session of the semester we will give an overview (and hands-on) of the new capabilities of PowerPoint 2010 and how you can use them to more easily create presentations and enrich them with video, graphics, and animations. Also, learn how to more easily distribute your presentations with file compression and video creation (easily, really).

What’s new in PowerPoint 2010 Registration Form

LITE Workshops@Addlestone Presents SLIS220: Multimodal Tools for Teachers

jpva — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:28:59 +0000

LITE Workshops@Addlestone Special Instruction Session

April 5, 2010

Presenters:
Jolanda-Pieta (Joey) van Arnhem | vanarnhemj@cofc.edu
Jared Seay | seayj@cofc.edu

Download the Session Handout: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B29rc1l_5uzpMDcxNGE5N2UtMjQ5Zi00ZGIyLTgwNmItODY3MGI1MmI4Zjhi&hl=en

URLs

Diigo Group URL: http://groups.diigo.com/group/slis220
Diigo Easy Blog: http://message.diigo.com/user/Jpvanarnhem
DimDim Virtual Meeting Session URL: http://my.dimdim.com/all/jpvanarnhem/default/?action=start&scheduleId=fc6ae284-d99c-4e23-a6b7-02402a02dc8e

Please Fill out the Session Evaluation: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dFRPQlhlTFVGdk5XUGNLZThZUGNhRkE6MA

References
Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+Digital+Taxonomy

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html

RU Ready to FACEBOOK? Come to the LITE session today!

jpva — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:55:32 +0000

Special LITE Guest Star Megan Holt

AmeriCorps VISTA for the College of Charleston Center for Civic Engagement

Presents: RU Ready to Facebook!

Do YOU want to be one of College of Charleston’s Officially Recognized Social Media Sites?

Creating a Facebook Page for your class or department can be the next step to help you better connect. Join us for a hands-on workshop where you can create or enhance your current Facebook page. Have an account? Bring it with you!

Thursday, March 25
Addlestone Library, Rm. 120
3 – 4:30pm

REGISTER TODAY
for Thursday’s session at 3pm!
Want to know what’s next? Visit our Spring 2010 Schedule!

LITE Session Today: Harnessing the Real-Time Web or New Frontiers in historical and humanities Research

jpva — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:43:18 +0000

Special LITE Guest Star Jared Smith
ReadWriteWeb Extraordinaire: Web Developer and Social Media Experimenter!

Presents:

Harnessing the Real-Time Web – or -
New Frontiers in historical and humanities Research

Beginning in Summer 2008, CHNM will undertake a major two-year study of the potential of text-mining tools for historical and humanities scholarship. The project, entitled “Scholarship in the Age of Abundance: Enhancing Historical Research With Text-Mining and Analysis Tools,” is generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The project will first conduct a survey of historians to examine their use of digital resources and prospect for particularly helpful uses of digital technology. It will then explore three main areas where text mining might facilitate the research process: locating documents of interest in the ocean of online materials; extracting and synthesizing information from these texts; and analyzing large-scale patterns across these texts. A focus group of historians will assess the efficacy of different methods of text mining and analysis in real-world research situations in order to offer recommendations. The most promising approaches will inform two case studies, one based on Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, in collaboration with the ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago, and the other on the correspondence of Victorian mathematicians.

Center for History and New Media: http://chnm.gmu.edu/text-mining/

Download the Session Flyer!

LITE Discussions@Addlestone Workshop Thursday@3

jpva — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:19:46 +0000

Give Twitter a Try!

Still haven’t given Twitter a try? Now is the time! This hands-on workshop will make you a Twitter pro in less than an hour. This free, easy-to-use social networking service is a great tool to help energize and engage students.

This weeks special guest start lecturer is Megan Holt, who upon completion of her Masters in Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina committed one year of her life to volunteer service through the AmeriCorps VISTA program at the College of Charleston.

We hope to see you there!

Download the session flyer as a PDF to handout at class or send to friends:)

Share What You Got!

jpva — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:20:16 +0000

Three new student films on information sharing have been voted the best by a panel of new media experts, students, and librarians in the third annual Sparky Awards. Organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and adopted by campuses everywhere, the Sparky Awards contest calls on entrants to creatively illustrate in a short video the value of openly sharing
ideas.

The winning videos offer another glimpse of the compelling student perspective on how open sharing fosters creativity, innovation, and solves problems. This year’s winners are:

GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Share what you’ve got

(http://www.vimeo.com/8006296).

Share What You’ve Got from Kazuyuki Ishii on Vimeo (Produced by Kazuyuki Ishii; sound and music by Jesse Cook – Savannah College of Art and Design).

RUNNER UP: Ideas come together

(http://www.vimeo.com/7921707)

ideas come together from Dani Johnson on Vimeo ( Produced by Danielle Johnson – Savannah College of Art and Design).

HONORABLE MENTION: Grow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp3JM5JyUkY

Produced by Lyle Hawthorne; music, “Colors all around me” (2009) by Hillary Chase. (Goucher College).

Our personal favorite? The RUNNER UP: Ideas come together
(http://www.vimeo.com/7921707) exemplifies the goals behind the LITE sessions, including the light bulb logo!

VOTE NOW for the Sparky People’s Choice Award–Deadline is March 7, 2010!

LITE Discussions@Addlestone Workshop Tomorrow@3

jpva — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:25:50 +0000

We hope to see you there! Download the Session Flyer as a PDF to handout at class or send to friends:)

Free and Open Educational Resources

jpva — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:23:55 +0000

Lately I have been researching how other institutions deliver online or hybrid courses. In my search I ran across an interesting and informative article on makeuseof.com by Justin Pot titled “6 Really Good Sites with FREE Video Lectures from Top US Colleges. In his conclusion he states,

The Internet’s changed the world, and the availability of free university courses on the Internet is one of the greatest examples of this I can think of. Not so long ago the knowledge imparted on students during university lectures was accessible only to those who could afford to pay tuition. Today information is increasingly free, and I for one think society is better for it.

I have to say I agree. In his article Pot reviewed the following sites that offer free video lectures from Top US colleges that I have looked at and found very useful:

I thought I would add to the list and mention a few other resources I have reviewed recently.

University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution. It is a partnership between The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School and UoPeople. Students learn through peer-to-peer teaching with the support of instructors. Currently, the school is NOT accredited.The Information Society Project at Yale Law School is an intellectual center addressing the implications of the Internet and new information technologies for law and society, guided by the values of democracy, human development, and social justice.
Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative
These courses includes self-guiding materials and activities, and are ideal for independent learners. One of my favorite courses is Visual Communication Design, a short course that teaches students how to design successful documents by establishing effective visual hierarchy and groups of information by using visual variables such as type size, type weight, and spacing.
Utah State OpenCourseWare
Similar to MITopencourseware, a valuable resource.
Notre Dame OpenCourseWare
Free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners.

Along with the resources mentioned above, I also want to note a few other great resources I often use when looking for educational materials.

Wikiversity
A Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
Wikibooks
A Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit.
The Internet Archive’s library of Open Educational Resources
A library of free courses, video lectures, and supplemental materials from universities in the United States and China, many of which are available for download.

As I find more resources for online educational resources, I will continue adding them. If you have one that is not on the list, let me know!

Grade Student Papers Using Google Forms

jpva — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:51:36 +0000

I ran across this great post by Andrew Cullison today on Wide Scope . In his post, he details how to use Google Forms to grade student papers. I used it the other day and it works great! Another great tip to pass along.

If you can break down what you’re looking for in a good paper into a set of categories and assign a numerical value to each category, then you should definitely consider using Google Forms ^[1] to help you grade. I just developed a quick and easy way to do this. Here’s what I do. My students submit their papers electronically, and I download their papers (all at once) into a single folder.

I create a Google form to use as my grading tool. The first question on the form is a text entry for the student’s name. Every question after that is scale question. I set my scale 1-5, and I create a question for each of the main items I’m looking for.

With all of the above complete, I’m ready to start grading. I open the first student paper and resize it so that it takes up three-quarters of the screen. I open up my form in a Firefox window and fill the otherquarter of the screen.

Here’s a screenshot. Click on it to see a large version.

^[2]

What To Do

Enter Their Last Name/First Name in the Form on the Right

Grade the Paper
I read through the paper and type detailed comments in the margins, bold & underline awkward words, phrases etc. As I read, I can grade the student using the form on the right.

Click Submit
Once you’re done grading the paper and you’ve checked all of your boxes, submit the form.

Grab Grades from Spreadsheet
Something I didn’t mention about the setup is that you should open the spreadsheet the form dumps data into in another tab. Keep that open throughout the grading process. When you submit a form for a student, click over to the spreadsheet. Grab student’s numerical grade and type it into a comment box at the end of the student’s paper.
(NOTE: The first time you click over, you’ll have to insert a column and program that column to calculate the student’s full grade. I set mine up to the left of the student name column.)

Rinse and Repeat
Open the next student paper. It should be sized just right. Click back to the tab in Firefox with the form. Refresh to start a new form. You’ll notice that I have a bookmark button for the form in the top left. It makes quick work of opening a new form.

Odds and Ends

Transfering to Gradebook
When you’re finished. You have all of the student paper grades listed alphabetically the way they would appear in your gradebook. Copy the two columns with the student names and grades and paste it into your main grade book. I like to use OpenOffice for my main grade book because I’m more familiar with their functions commands. But since my school doesn’t have a Google Apps contract, this also helps keep me FERPA compliant. It keeps your main official gradebook off of Google’s site. And it gives you more direct control over the information.

The Form is Reusable
Once you’re done grading a set of papers and have copied them over into your main gradebook, delete all of the rows that were submitted by the form. You’re ready to go with the next batch of papers. Once you set this nifty tool up once, you’re done. You can go back to it again and again.

Emailing to Students
Someone once asked me something like “So…do you…like…email each student their paper?” But this person’s tone implied that they thought this was a real pain (and a good reason not to grade papers this way). It’s actually not a pain at all. With a good email client like Thunderbird and an alphabetized email list (which the students can generate for you ^[3]) – emailing papers back to students is one of the quickest and easiest administrative tasks I deal with in a semester. Just make sure students are required to begin their file name with their last name. If they don’t do this it is a pain. It’s way faster than passing them back in class. If the student saved the paper in the right format, this is a quick and easy affair. I might post how I do this soon.

Why Do This?
This is the quickest and easiest deployment of the grading rubric method I’ve encountered. All of the other methods of grading on a rubric with 10+ categories that I’ve used were either tedious (or left something desirable out of the picture).

More Details On My Paper Assignment
In case you’re interested, here is a brief summary of the sort of papers I have my students write. They are required to present, explain, and evaluate an argument ^[4]. They must extract an argument from some text and put it in numbered-premise form. The argument must be valid. They must define technical terms. They must discuss initial motivations for each premise. They must have a clear position on soundness. Whether they argue for soundness or unsoundness, they must critically discuss an objection to a premise. And they must consider a counter-response to their reasoning. Notice, all of those things are things that students can objectively fail to do. That’s why I can use this Google Form method, and it keeps me objective. Here’s a list ^[5] that I give my students that outlines what I’m looking for in one of these short papers. This list corresponds to the categories in my form.

Article printed from Wide Scope: http://www.andrewcullison.comURL to article: http://www.andrewcullison.com/2009/10/grade-student-papers-using-google-forms/

URLs in this post:

[1] Google Forms: http://docs.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=15166

[2] Image: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/120887/Tutorials/Screenshot-gradingwithgoogle.png

[3] which the students can generate for you: http://www.andrewcullison.com/2009/08/have-students-create-your-gradebook-spreadsheet-with-google-forms/

[4] present, explain, and evaluate an argument: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/120887/Philosophy%20Handouts/Argument%20and%20Writing/PEE%20Handout.pdf

[5] Here’s a list: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/120887/Philosophy%20Handouts/Argument%20and%20Writing/What%20I%27m%20Looking%20For-ShortPEE.pdf

Click here to print.

Print Less Using the Aardvark Firefox Add-On!

jpva — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:12:38 +0000

Chris Vinson, our Systems Librarian at Addlestone, has written a detailed tutorial on how to install and use Aardvark, an add-on for Firefox that lets you remove pieces of web pages before you print them out so you have a cleaner, earth-friendlier print job.

Feel free to pass it along!