Don't read this by e-mail! Instead, read the hypertext version of this newsletter: <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/news/current.html>. Contents:
|
Do you have UO colleagues who would find this newsletter useful? Call their attention to the html version, or they can subscribe by sending email to jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu. |
Local and online events of particular interest to FCN members (see also On Campus below):
![[new!]](newyahoo1.gif){kind=small}
![[new!]](newyahoo.gif){kind=small}
YAMADA CHANGES. Jeff Magoto <mailto:jmagoto@oregon> reports that the Yamada Language Center has upgraded their ed tech support in Pac 113 and 114. Of particular note are a substantially upgraded multilingual Mac "CALL" lab and 2 multimedia development stations. If you use the computing facilities of the YLC, contact Jeff for details.
IT CURRICULUM. Encourage your students to attend an introductory class on electronic library resources or web publishing, or schedule a special library-taught workshop just for your class. Or attend a more advanced class yourself. See a schedule at <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>.
IMPORTANT WORD SECURITY FIX. If you use Microsoft Word '97 on a PC, you should immediately install the latest security fix from Microsoft. Some people are calling this the most significant security problem ever to affect Microsoft Office. For discussion of the problem, see for instance Woody's Office Watch, <http://www.wopr.com/wow/wowv4n3.html>. For the Microsoft security bulletin and patch, see <http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms99-002.asp>.
HARVARD SITE EXPLORES TEACHING WITH TECHNOLOGY. The Education with New Technologies (ENT) Web site is a networked community designed to help educators develop powerful learning experiences for students through the effective integration of new technologies. Check out <http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ent/>
PRESENTATION TECHNOLOGY FOR EDUCATION. This month's Syllabus Magazine (free subscriptions at <http://www.syllabus.com/>) focuses on video and presentation technology.
CMC AND HIGHER ED. The December Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, <http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue2/>, is a special issue on CMC and Higher Education. It features a range of interesting articles, including:
HISTORY AND THE WEB. An overwhelming majority of American history professors are now using computer technology in their teaching and research, according to survey results released Saturday at the American Historical Association's annual meeting. (Academe Today, 1/11/99). Also, the American Historical Association is creating an annual awards program in which monographs will be selected and published on the World-Wide Web, rather than in printed form.(Academe Today, 1/15/99) <http://chronicle.com/iinfotech/>
CAMPUSSAFETY.ORG. A new site on the Web that provides extensive campus security information for everyone from prospective students to professional campus law enforcement administrators. Prospective students can check up on what type of crime happens at schools they are considering attending. Campus crime statistics are provided for more than 500 schools. They can also get important tips on how to avoid and prevent campus crime.< http://campussafety.org>.
SURVEY TALLIES IT COSTS. A survey of information technology expenditures at 102 colleges and universities shows that outsourcing can have a dramatic effect on reducing costs -- for instance, by hiring outside companies to handle some computer repairs, schools can save up to 40% on per-computer support costs. In addition, the survey documents what most schools already know -- the larger the institution, the lower per-computer and per-user support costs. "It is what you'd expect -- bigger institutions can handle more computers for less money," says Karen Leach, CIO for Colgate University who co-authored the survey with David Smallen, director of information technology services at Hamilton College. Summaries of the results can be found at http://www.its.colgate.edu/kleach/costs/costs.htm . (Chronicle of Higher Education 22 Jan 99; from Edupage, 19 Jan 99).
AOL GETS BIGGER AND BIGGER. By adding one million new members in seven weeks (and more new members on Christmas day than on any day in its history), America Online now has more than 15 million members. (New York Times 1 Jan 99) Meanwhile, AOL says its members spent $1.2 billion shopping online this past holiday season -- a average of $80 per subscriber. Analysts are estimating that online sales will total around $13 billion for all of 1998. (Wall Street Journal 5 Jan 99; from Eudpage, 5 Jan 99).
If you have considered adding self-assessments to your course web site, but decided it was too hard to do, check out a new freeware software package from U Victoria called "Hot Potatoes." It's a set of tools that run on your Mac or PC and allow you to easily generate web pages containing quizes for your students.
Each tool generates a web page containing a set of questions and JavaScript code to process them. Question formats can include multiple choice, true/false, short answer, fill-in-the-blanks, crossword puzzles, matching, and jumbled sentences. Although it does not provide any security or feedback to the instructor on student performance (it's not a testing package), it is well suited for simple self-assessment exercises and drills, particularly in introductory foreign language instruction.
Just use their tool to compile your exercise, choose "export to web" to generate HTML files, then use an FTP program such as WS_FTP or Fetch to transfer the files to your web server.
Michael Sweet (of TEP) reports that it is "incredibly easy to use." I tried it out and built a 20 item quiz in a few hours (see <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/getready/handson/quiz/>), so I guess I'd call it "easy" but not "incredibly easy." Still, it's one of the easiest online quz generation packages we've seen. And it's free (though it requires an online registration).
You can download either a Mac or PC version of Hot Potatoes from the University of Victoria Language Center, <http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/halfbaked/>.
Thanks to Catherine Wiebe (Romance Languages) for pointing out this software!
The conference list now has its own web page, at <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/conferences.html>. We'll continue to use this space to highlight new conferences of particular interest to UO faculty interested in educational technology.
"A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep."
The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published (approximately)
twice a month. If you have materials for inclusion in the newsletter you can
send them to <mailto:jqj@darkwing>.
This newsletter (as well as other FCN-related material) is available on line
in <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/news/>.