Is Your Course Syllabus Accessible?

CSU, Chico has a goal of making all course syllabi “accessible” this fall, in accordance with the Chancellor’s Office Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI). What does this mean for faculty? If a syllabus is “accessible,” it is in an electronic format such as Word, a Web page, or Acrobat PDF that makes it usable, readable, and even searchable to all students.

TLP offers one-hour workshops called “Make Your Course Syllabus Accessible“. In this workshop, faculty will learn how to create a well-designed syllabus which is more usable and accessible for students with disabilities as well as students of every ability and learning style – and faculty will be able to do the same for all instructional materials they create with the same software.

For more information, see TLP’s Accessibility page which has links to tutorials and even a sample accessible syllabus which faculty may use as a template.

Web 2.0: Learn. Connect. Share.

Presented by: Mandy N. Eppley and Parker Owens, Eastern Kentucky University
Date: Sep 23
Time: 12pm Pacific Time
Place: Online – Register Here
According to the sponsor, Wimba:
“Web 2.0 technologies are quickly becoming a phenomenon in K-20 education. Our presentation will give a fresh insight on how to incorporate Web 2.0 in the classroom while acknowledging the pedagogical shift from teacher instruction to peer sharing and learning. We will compare wikis, portfolio, chat and blogs available in the Blackboard Academic Suite with similar external online applications and discuss challenges and opportunities within the new frameworks.”

CSU’s Teaching and Learning Newsletter for Summer 08

The California State University’s Institute for Teaching & Learning has released the Summer 2008 issue of Connections, the fourth issue of their newsletter. Read the newsletter here: http://www.calstate.edu/itl/newsletter/
In this issue: Sonoma State’s Universal Design for Learning efforts, information about the multi-campus Discipline Research Project, teaching tips based on the Primacy Effect, and more.

The Net-Generation Cheating Challenge

Valerie Milliron and Kent Sandoe focus on a troubling occurrence: the apparent indifference of Net-Generation students toward cheating. Detailing their own experience with a pattern of cheating on online quizzes, Milliron and Sandoe describe the Net Generation’s culture of cheating and describe ways to detect or, even better, deter cheating. Click here to read the article in Innovate’s August/September issue. Valerie was recently seen in the basement of Meriam Library attending the “ATI Course Makever Summer Camp” offered through TLP.

From Good Intentions to Best Practices: Teaching in Second Life

Time: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 1 pm Pacific
Location: Webinar is online via ISTE.org
Event Type: Webinar
ISTE’s Technology in Practice Webinar series presents:
From Good Intentions to Best Practices: Teaching in Second Life

Presented by Peggy Sheehy, a K – 12 technology expert

In brief according to the RezEd Website:
Student participation in the virtual world has proven to be engaging and accommodates many learning styles in a differentiated, rigorous approach to simulation, role-playing, content creation, problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration. Most importantly, students take ownership of their learning and are invested in the outcomes and their real world applications.

The team process of designing and creating a virtual presence for your educational institution, the development of authentic, experiential, standard-based curriculum, and implementing it with students in Teen Second Life addresses all of the NETS for administrators, teachers and students and is an innovative approach to establishing a collaborative and all-inclusive learning community.

Focusing on the process of developing constructivist learning in the virtual world, Sheehy will present the steps her teachers have taken this second year of teaching in Ramapo Islands on Teen Second life to translate their content into the virtual landscape. She will outline the best practices that have evolved as a result and the student responses to this 21st century pedagogical shift.

Visit: ISTE.org to register!

20 Free Books About Social Media

Great find:

20 Free Books About Social Media

by Chris Brogan, Community and Social Media specialist

Chris says on August 7, 2008, “It’s interesting what you can find when you look around a bit on Google. I thought I’d look for a few new ebooks to read. I found 20 different ones that might be interesting to you. It never hurts to get a few different perspectives. In all cases, the first link is to a PDF file, the second link is to the site where it’s hosted.”

If you take a look at the article, which can be viewed in a snap, you may find the comments to be just as valuable.

Dipity – Visual Timeline

Dipity is a FREE online utility that organizes blogs, pictures, videos and other content from around the web into interactive views.

Here is a visual representation of our TLP blog using Dipity. This could be a great way for instructors to provide an alternate means to represent information visually.

http://www.dipity.com/user/alphabunny/timeline/CSU_Chico_TLP_Visual_Blogging/embed_tl?