|
Do you have UO colleagues who would find this newsletter useful? Call their attention to the html version, or they can subscribe by sending e-mail to jqj@darkwing.uoregon.edu. |
Local and free web-based events of particular interest to FCN members (see also On Campus below):
![[New!]](newyahoo.gif){kind=small}
![[New!]](newyahoo1.gif){kind=small}
FITT CENTER OPEN WINTER BREAK. If you've been just too busy all term to learn any new techniques for improving your courses, winter break is your golden opportunity. The FITT Center will be open regular hours throughout exam week and winter break (12/4-1/5) with the exception of Dec 25, Dec 26, and Jan 1. Stop in and learn how to use PowerPoint for your lectures, or Final Cut Pro for digital video production. Better yet, encourage your colleagues to visit. <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/fittc/>
GTF TEACHING AWARD. The Dan Kimble First Year Teaching Award honors GTFs who have done an excellent job in their first teaching experience. Eligible GTFs wil be those who participated in UO TEP teacher training this year (Beginnings: Insights, Toos and Strategies for New Teachers, or other UO departmental teacher training), and who will have their first classroom teaching experience during the 2000-2001 academic year. Application forms are available at TEP and the Graduate School. Applications will be received until the end of Spring term 2001.
OFFICE UPDATE. If you're currently running Office 2000 on a PC, it's time to patch up residual original-release holes with the first official service release update, Microsoft Office 2000 Service Release 1 (SR-1). Find it at <http://officeupdate.microsoft.com>. Mac users should note that Office 2001 for Macintosh has been released; UO departments can license the new version through OETC for about $55 (including CD). <http://www.oetc.org>
UONET STATISTICS. From Dale Smith, Network Services, some approximate statistics on the size of UOnet: Dale notes that his monitoring software reports about 12,000 unique Ethernet addresses, suggesting that there are at least that many computers hooked up to the network on campus. He estimates that the actual total may be as high as 17,000 including the dorms.
INTERNET CONNECTION SPEED TEST. If you're interested in seeing how fast your internet connection really is (regardless of whether it's UOnet, dial-up, cable, DSL, etc.), there are some internet sites that will do this quickly, for free, such as <http://computingcentral.msn.com/topics/bandwidth/speedtest.asp>. I tried this site at home (with a cable modem) and learned that early on a Sunday morning my connection was running at 3675.7 Kbps (about 60 times faster than a dialup modem, and about twice as fast as my on-campus 100baseT connection during the day). Note that this particular test only measures download speed; others such as <http://www.dslreports.com/stest> or <http://www.browsertune.com/bt2kfast/> also measure upload speeds. An important thing to remember about any speed test is that connection speeds vary wildly throughout the day depending on how busy various pieces of the Internet are.
SECURITY AND ANTIVIRUS DEFENSES. Bad news: if you use Windows and have enabled file sharing, there's a huge security problem you need to know about and fix. Visit <http://www.nsfocus.com/english/homepage/sa_05.htm>. Good news: Symantec has released new versions for both Mac and PC of their popular and UO site licensed Norton Antivirus suite. NAV 2001 can be downloaded from <http://micro.uoregon.edu/av>.
DISTANCE EDUCATION AT A GLANCE. This website from U Idaho is designed to "help teachers, administrators, facilitators, and students understand distance education." The site offers fourteen separate guides to different topics in distance education, including an overview of distance education, teaching strategies, instructional development, evaluation, instructional television and audio, computers in distance education, research, video conferencing, copyright issues, a glossary of terms, and more. <http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/distglan.html>.
ASSESS YOUR INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS ONLINE. A professor from the University of Iowa has launched an online self-assessment survey that assists instructors in developing effective syllabi and curricula. Professors are asked to rate a list of 52 goals in reference to a particular course. <http://www.uiowa.edu/~centeach/tgi/index.html>.
MEASURING THE INFORMATION EXPLOSION. Two professors at UC Berkeley have finally gotten a handle on the total amount of new data produced worldwide -- on the Internet, in scholarly journals, and even in junk mail -- and are reporting a "revolution" in information production and accessibility. Among other conclusions: much more audio and image information than text; much more unpublished than published material. <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/index.html>
THE DEEP WEB. Two recent reports find a huge portion of the web that is not included in the public, searchable, static web that the large search engines index: from the OCLC Office of Research Web Characterization <http://www.oclc.org/oclc/press/20001016a.htm>, and from BrightPlanet <http://www.completeplanet.com/Tutorials/DeepWeb/index.asp>.
FLASH ON THE WEB. Considering the use of Macromedia Flash in a course site? Before you do, read Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for October 29. <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html>. Neilsen argues that 99% of the current use of Flash on the web is bad, and gives cogent reasons why. It's hard to find successful examples of educational uses of Flash on the web, but there are a few. One is an online journal, Expert Reviews in Molecular Medicine, <http://www-ermm.cbcu.cam.ac.uk/>. Check out their animations of chemical reactions.
MAPS ON THE WEB. Two sites of interest:
THE 'FLIGHT SIMULATOR' APPROACH TO TRAINING TAKES OFF. Most distance education consists of presentation of information. But many trainers argue that “If you want people to learn, you need them to interact—with real situations in real time.” The challenge is that providing learners with a lifelike simulated work environment is extremely costly and inefficient. As technology advances, however, the costs of simulation are decreasing -- and the ways it's being used are on the rise. <http://www.trainingsupersite.com/publications/magazines/training/010Techtrends.htm>
Do you use Windows, and find that you spend lots of time navigating the Start button to find and run a program? You might find it easier to set up a keyboard shortcut. Then to run MS Word, all you'd need to do is press CTRL/ALT/w, etc.
On my PCs I set CTRL/ALT/m to run my mail reader, /w to run MS Word, /d to run Dreamweaver, etc. The trick also works to assign keyboard shortcuts for shortcuts to files, folders, and web pages. For example, visit blackboard.uoregon.edu in Internet Explorer, drag the little icon from the Address bar to your desktop or Start menu, then use the above technique to make CTRL/ALT/b a keyboard shortcut for Blackboard.
If you have a Mac, you can get keyboard shortcuts (plus a lot more) by installing a commercial macro program like QuicKeys <http://www.cesoft.com>.
This space highlights new listings of conferences of possible interest to UO faculty interested in educational technology. For more meetings see <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/conferences.html>. Conferences:
An Oxford don was interviewed on reaching his hundredth birthday. After a number of inane questions, he began to tire of the idiot and began to look for a way out. Finally the questioner asked, "And what do you think is the main benefit of reaching 100?"
After much consideration the don replied, "There is considerably less peer group pressure."
The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published (approximately)
once 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/>.