August 3, 2007

Upcoming events: DUSON TechFair, CIT Back-to-school workshops
Service or program spotlight: Updates to Blackboard
Teaching resource of the month:  Top 100 e-learning tools
New and cool:   Duke LibX plug-in
Project profile: Science of Networks Faculty Learning Community accepting applications

Upcoming events

Educational TechFair hosted by Duke School of Nursing
8/7/2007, 1-4 pm
Duke School of Nursing Cafe area
Twenty-seven vendors will show new educational as well as new clinical technologies at this free public event.  Although geared towards nursing faculty, the educational technologies that will be showcased are cutting edge and can be used in any educational discipline, medical or non-medical. For more information, contact Mary Paden, mary.paden@duke.edu.

CIT fall back-to-school workshops for faculty
http://cit.duke.edu/events/eventsreg.do
8/22 - 8/24/2007, various times
Faculty and other instructors can get a head start on the new academic year with this series of workshops where you can explore ways to get students more engaged in class activities and presentations, create better assessments, and learn about new tools and resources for your courses. If you're interested but can't attend, let us know (cit@duke.edu) and we can arrange a custom, in-department workshop for you and your colleagues.

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 Service or program spotlight

Updates to Blackboard

Blackboard blog and wiki upgraded
http://blackboard.duke.edu/about/announce.do?id=142
The blog function in Blackboard (formerly "Journal") and the wiki tool ("Teams Site") have been upgraded, and now have an improved look and feel plus significant new features. The blog tool also has an optional public RSS feed.

Export official grades from Blackboard to STORM
http://blackboard.duke.edu/pdf/bb-export-gradebook.pdf
The "Export Official Grades" Control Panel option allows you to export any column of letter grades in Blackboard to a .csv file that can be directly uploaded into STORM.

Wimba Voice Tools plug-in
http://www.wimba.com/products/voicetools/
With support from the Duke Digital Initiative, CIT will be piloting the Wimba Voice Tools plug-in to Blackboard during the 2007-2008 academic year. The Voice Tools allow Blackboard instructors to embed an easy-to use voice recorder into any area of Blackboard, including announcements, tests, wikis, blogs and content items. The Voice Tools also include threaded voice discussion boards, live voice chat, voice e-mail and voice presentations. We are currently finalizing arrangements for implementing this tool and will let instructors know when it is available for use.


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 Teaching resource of the month

Top 100 e-learning tools
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/top100.html
This page lists the top 100 tools (recommended by 73 e-learning professionals, including faculty, developers and consultants) for their own personal use, for teaching or for developing course materials. Many of the tools are familiar but not education-specific, but useful as basic tools to support educators. In addition, the page has links to the top 10 lists of each of the 73 professionals, and a "Learning Toolbox" at which tools for various tasks are recommended.


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New and cool

Duke's LibX
http://library.duke.edu/research/tools/libx.html
Duke LibX plug-in for Firefox web browser allows you to install a toolbar in your browser with a search box that connects directly to Duke’s library catalog, e-journals, databases, or library web pages, as well as Google Scholar. You can highlight citations and drag-and-drop them to the toolbar, or right-click to have the same search options. LibX also puts a Duke Gothic window (called a 'cue') in web sites like Amazon - click it and automatically search the catalog to see if Duke owns the book.

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Project profile