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ITS Coffee Break – 6/5/2007 – Moodle Update, Summer Reading Lists, Google Street View

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Hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley settle into their summer routines with the latest edition of the Coffee Break. In ITS news, they provide an update on the conversion from Blackboard to Moodle. In Tech News, they provide a rundown of their summer reading and projects lists, talk about Google's new 'Street View' addition to its Maps tool, and take a look at the new beta version of CNN's web site. Finally, they announce the first batch Moodle Quickstart workshops for the summer.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

Show Notes

ITS News

  • Moodle Update:
    • We're in the process of getting all of the course data for Fall 2007 out of Banner and into Moodle. We were able to import all of these courses, plus all of the active faculty for the fall, into our test version of Moodle. What we're working on now is connecting the faculty with their courses automatically.
    • It's a complex process, but we're hoping to have the courses setup, and assigned to their respective faculty, sometime in the next week.

Tech News

  • Ken's Summer Reading List
    • The Last Colony by John Scalzi: The concluding book of a trilogy in which Earth's retirees can join the military at age 75, get brand new (if green-tinted) bodies and go off an fight in alien wars.
    • Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge: Vinge returns to the concept of Singularity, that the rapidly approaching instersection of humanity, computers and bioengineering will radiically transform the human race into something so different we can't even imagine it.
    • American Gods by Neil Gaiman: Norse gods do battle against the new gods of the wired world.
  • * Court’s summer list
    • Moodle, e-learning course development
    • Red River  by Lalita Tademy
    • Clyde Edgerton, Floatplane Notebooks: six different first-person narrators, Edgerton recounts the family exploits between 1956 and 1971 and provides significant glimpses of family history as far back as the Civil War.
    • blog several times a week
  • Google's Street View
  • The Google 'ick' factor
  • CNN's New Beta

Help News

  • Upcoming Workshops: Moodle
    • Moodle Quickstart, 9-10:30 a.m., Tues., Jun 19
    • Moodle Quickstart, 2:00-3:30 p.m., Thu., Jun 21
    • Moodle Quickstart, 10-11:30 a.m., Tue., Jun 26
    • Moodle Quickstart, 2-3:30 p.m., Thur., Jun 28
    • Moodle Quickstart, 1-=11:30 p.m., Tues, July 10
    • Moodle Quickstart, 2-3:30 p.m., Wed., July 11

Contacting the Podcast

ITS Coffee Break – 5/16/07 – Moodle, Podcasting & Teaching, Windows Vista

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A discussion of Lafayette's upcoming conversion from Blackboard to Moodle leads off this week's edition of the ITS Coffee Break. In Tech News, hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley review “Confessions of a Podcast Junkie”, an EDUCAUSE article by Carie Windham that the discusses the advantages of combining podcasting with teaching and talk about Case Western Reserve University's virtual campus in Second Life. In Help News, they announce ITS's new “Windows Vista” resource page and offer a preview of upcoming summer workshops.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

ITS News

Tech News

  • Confessions of a Podcast Junkie

    • by Carie Windham
    • http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0732.asp
    • Quoted from the article:
      • "For teaching and learning, the students saw concrete benefits to podcasting projects, especially when compared with standard modes of testing, such as writing a paper or doing a class demonstration:
        • They were able to get "intimate" with course material, either by relistening to course lectures and supplements or by teaching the rest of the class.
        • They could showcase their projects to the rest of the community, expanding the reach of the classroom to their friends or members of the community.
        • They had the opportunity to review course material during pertinent moments in the semester, such as before exams or during course projects.
        • They learned new technical skills, whether they were downloading files or creating new ones."
  • Case Western Reserve U. Builds Virtual Campus to Woo Prospective Students

  • A new DS addiction? SimCity DS

Help News

  • ITS Recommendation Regarding Windows Vista

    • http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~its/news/vista
    • ITS has been testing Microsoft's Vista operating system since its release and has discovered several incompatibility issues with Vista and key network, academic, and administrative applications used on campus. For this reason, ITS continues to recommend Windows XP Professional as the operating system for all campus computers.
  • Upcoming Workshops

    • No workshops are scheduled during the rest of May, but look for Moodle workshops to be offered beginning in June. Workshops on web design will be offered later in the summer.

Contacting the Podcast

ITS Coffee Break – 4/16/07 – Vista, Faculty Computers, Library Geeks, Mashtracker, Upcoming Brown Bags

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This week on the Coffee Break, hosts Ken Newquist and Courtney Bentley discuss ITS's recommendations regarding using Windows Vista at Lafayette, discover how some librarians are learning all about Web 2.0, look at the Mashtracker web site for following cutting edge web technology news, and talk about faculty new computer options. They round out the show with announcements about three new ITS Brown Bags covering the virtual world Second Life, the open source course management software Moodle, and the latest developments on the World Wide Web.

Getting the Podcast

There are several ways to get the podcast:

Show Notes

ITS News

  • ITS Recommendation Regarding Windows Vista
    • ITS has been testing Microsoft's Vista operating system since its release and has discovered several incompatibility issues with Vista and key network, academic, and administrative applications used on campus. For this reason, ITS continues to recommend Windows XP Professional as the operating system for all campus computers.
    • Read the recommendation on the ITS Web site.

Tech News

Help News

  • Faculty Desktop Program FAQ
    • The College’s Faculty Desktop Program provides funding for regular replacements of personal computer systems for all full-time faculty.
    • The FAQ
    • The Specs
  • Upcoming Brownbags
    • Second Life Field Trip, Tuesday, April 17, 2007
    • We Moodle. Will you?, Tuesday, April 24, 2007
    • Web 2.0, Tuesday, May 1, 2007
    • All will be held from noon-1 p.m. in Skillman 004. Lunch will be provided.

Contacting the Podcast