CTLT Blog Educational Technology Updates from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

How to Record Audio from Your Desktop Tutorial Posted

The Center's team of Web documentation and audio production specialists have been hard at work developing a new tutorial which shows you, in simple and clear steps, how to record audio from your desktop. If you're a student who needs to record audio for a class assignment, or a faculty member who needs to record a lecture in your office or at home for posting in to CoursePlus, this tutorial is for you.

The tutorial covers the whole process, from downloading the right software, to making sure your microphone settings are correct, to editing mistakes out of your audio, and generating an MP3 file for posting in to an online course or CourePlus Web site. There's even a handy microphone tester with troubleshooting information along side, which can be used not only for recording audio from your desktop, but also for testing out a microphone for LiveTalk.

The tutorial is composed of text, images, and video demonstrations. There's also a handy PDF reference guide available for those who want to print the complete set of step-by-step instructions for all phases of the recording process.

If you have any feedback about the tutorial, we'd love to hear it!

0 comments - Posted by Brian Klaas at 6:06 PM - Categories: Online Courses | CoursePlus

CoursePlus 101: Add a File to the Online Library

In this entry in the CoursePlus 101 series, we look at adding a file to the Online Library in your CoursePlus site. Students in your class can then download this file as needed.

These entries are presented in reverse chronological order, the default behavior for blog posts. If you would like to start at the beginning, please scroll to the end of the page.

0 comments - Posted by Brian Klaas at 3:32 PM - Categories: CoursePlus 101

CoursePlus 101: Add an Editor to Your CoursePlus Site

In this entry in the CoursePlus 101 series, we look at adding an editor (TA, administrative assistant, guest faculty) to your CoursePlus site.

These entries are presented in reverse chronological order, the default behavior for blog posts. If you would like to start at the beginning, please scroll to the end of the page.

0 comments - Posted by Brian Klaas at 11:16 AM - Categories: CoursePlus 101

Reminder About Data Storage Policies for JHSPH eLearning Sites

At the start of each academic year, there are usually questions about the length of time which files in the Online Library or student submissions to the Drop Box and other eLearning tools are kept. The CTLT's data storage policy is as follows:

• Files in the Online Library are kept for three academic years. Therefore, a file in an Online Library for a course which was offered in March, 2006, is deleted from CoursePlus on June 1, 2009, at the start of the new academic year. A file in an Online Library for a course which was offered in September, 2008, will not be deleted from CoursePlus until June 1, 2011.
• Files submitted to a Drop Box are kept for two academic years. Therefore, student submissions to a Drop Box for a course which was offered in March, 2006, will be deleted from CoursePlus on June 1, 2008, at the start of the new academic year. Student submissions to a Drop Box for a course which was offered in September, 2008, will not be deleted from CoursePlus until June 1, 2010.
• LiveTalk archives are kept until the next offering of the course.
• Data collected and stored in a database, which covers all non-file-based data in CoursePlus and online courses, is kept for five years, after which time it may be permanently archived.

0 comments - Posted by Brian Klaas at 10:10 PM - Categories: Online Courses | Course Tools | CoursePlus

CoursePlus 101: Setting Up Your CoursePlus Site

In this entry in the CoursePlus 101 series, we look at how to log in to CoursePlus as a faculty member and do the initial setup for your course's site.

0 comments - Posted by Brian Klaas at 9:43 AM - Categories: CoursePlus 101

CoursePlus 101: Simple, How-To Videos for Faculty

Starting this month, this blog will become host to CoursePlus 101 — a series of simple, how-to videos for faculty who want to learn more about the various features in CoursePlus. These demonstrations will each be under 5 minutes and each show how to accomplish one task within CoursePlus.

A lot of faculty are using CoursePlus to supplement their on-site courses from the School. Many, though, either delegate working on their CoursePlus sites to their TAs or administrative assistants or use CoursePlus for a single purpose, such as posting files in the Online Library. CoursePlus has a lot more to offer, and our hope is that through this series of short, video introductions, you'll learn more about those features and will begin to take advantage of them.

If you would like to be notified of when new CoursePlus 101 videos are posted, click on the "RSS Feed" link at the top of this page to be updated via your news reader, or enter your email address in the box to the right to be notified via email.

As always, your feedback is invaluable, so please feel free to leave comments about any of the videos that are posted. If you need technical support for CoursePlus, though, please be sure to contact the CoursePlus Help Support Center!

0 comments - Posted by Brian Klaas at 9:28 AM - Categories: CoursePlus 101 | CoursePlus

OpenEd2009 Conference in Vancouver

After two days of attending the OpenEd2009 Conference in Vancouver, I am incredibly impressed with the vast array of new projects that are emerging in the open education field. The energy level is high, and the connections being made here at the meeting promise to produce an even higher energy level throughout the field in the months and years to come.

At least two of the sessions I attended are direct outcomes of connections and conversations that began just one year ago at OpenEd2008: Peer2Peer Univesity (P2PU) and the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in OpenCourseWare.

P2PU describes itself as "an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses." The P2PU helps enrolled students navigate the wealth of available open education materials, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and the leaders are exploring the extra step of building pathways to formal credit. You can view the session here via Ustream, and enrollment is now open for its first offering of courses.

The Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in OpenCourseWare is a soon-to-be-released document with the goal of helping OCW producers to interpret and apply fair use under US copyright law. As one of the Code's co-authors along with a group of practitioners from other institutions (Notre Dame, University of Mighican, Tufts University, MIT, and Yale), I am eager to see how its release will affect the practice of OCW production in the future. When the project began as an ad hoc session at OpenEd2008, I was very skeptical of its value and was worried that encouraging fair use in OCW would discourage the creation of new open learning object. Now, however, I'm convinced that this is an important step toward attaining OCW's full potential. You can view the session led by Lindsay Weeramuni of MIT OpenCourseWare and Lila Bailey of ccLearn here via Ustream. 

0 comments - Posted by Ira Gooding at 7:50 PM - Categories: Teaching Strategies | OpenCourseWare