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IT News
Blackboard Learn workshops, features, tools help ease Purdue faculty’s course transition
Better organization and navigation and more student-centered communication and collaboration tools are among the features faculty members piloting a course in the new Blackboard Learn are finding attractive as they prepare for the fall semester.
ITaP will offer another series of workshops on Blackboard Learn the weeks of April 9 and April 30. Consultations with an ITaP educational technologist also are available. All courses need to be in Blackboard Learn by the beginning of spring semester 2013, when Blackboard will no longer support its Vista system.
OLS professor, students in Blackboard Learn pilot give positive mid-semester appraisal
Organizational leadership and supervision Professor Dan Lybrook wanted a system easier to manipulate than Blackboard Vista with fewer steps in developing a course, and his students wanted fewer technical glitches. With help from ITaP educational technologists, the new Blackboard Learn course management system is meeting both needs. ITaP will offer Blackboard Learn workshops during April and over summer break for faculty who have not yet begun rebuilding their courses for fall semester.
New Blackboard Learn tools spark greater interaction among online students in pilot
Undergraduate students in Basic Public Health Studies, an online course in the Blackboard Learn pilot this semester, are benefiting from tools their peers in sections of the course using Blackboard Vista don't have. Students in all online sections have similar required assignments, but those in the pilot communicate more often and with more detail, capitalizing on opportunities available in the new platform. Health and kinesiology Professor Roseann Lyle attributes the difference to Learn’s enhanced collaboration tools.
Mixable aids in online treasure hunt for statistical references
A large part of continuing lecturer Ellen Gundlach’s goal for her Statistics 113 class is to help her students become savvy statistics consumers. Since incorporating Mixable — an easy-to-use collaboration tool that integrates with students’ use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media applications — into her curriculum, Gundlach has been better able to track student activity toward that end and provide feedback outside of regular class time.
New top-ranked research supercomputing cluster ready for use
The new Carter Community Cluster supercomputer is almost ready for Purdue researchers to use and capacity in the cluster is still available for purchase by interested faculty members and campus units. Carter joins four other community clusters built at Purdue since 2008, which have delivered more than a half billion research computing hours to faculty and their students.
Events
PSG will buy i>clicker2s from students and rent them again fall semester
Purdue Student Government officers are asking faculty to help spread the word to students that the i>clicker2 rental program tested this year has been a success. PSG will buy any i>clicker2 from students at the end of spring semester and rent them again in the fall. For the 200 students who rented a device in January, PSG will rebate the full $45 fee if they return the i>clicker2 in good working condition from April 23-May 5.
Tech Tidbits
Data Stewards revise guidelines to help thwart security breaches Read more
Tax season yields higher volume of phishing, malware scams Read more
PAL 3.0 offers faster, denser, safer Wi-Fi coverage Read more
Windows-based cluster supercomputer now available to Purdue researchers Read more