writing portfolio

We've got a writing portfolio assignment for first year students, so we can assess their ability to write at a college level. I helped find and plan an electronic method for gathering the portfolios. Students were to hand in from 10 to 25 pages of their own writing; one paper from their first two classes (their first year experience), one from any class thereafter and one essay reflecting on their writing. Students have had a little less than one month to hand in a physical and an electronic copy. The electronic copy is for archival and emergency purposes, in addition to being a way to get the students in a system so it'll be easier to get them their grades.
I held two workshops with the writing center director to explain the electronic submission process and combining files; on average, I had a half person at each. Students either didn't hear about the workshops (advertised three or four times in email digest messages) or they found themselves to be exceptional and worthy of individual help. Indeed, I saw several students both before and after the workshop getting help with scanning and uploading their documents.
I also created a video to show students how to electronically hand in their writing portfolio. Some assumed it was just to be emailed; perhaps that would work for next year. One would just reply to the student with their grade and could sort by sender (though students who used non-cc email accounts might be out of order...
Without further ado: the video!

I wanted the text in the video to be legible (this version's a bit blurry, but the original on the internal site was clear!), but I also wanted it to be short. It had to show the students how to upload the video in the fewest steps. Looking back, perhaps the best way to accomplish that would have been to have a pop-up window or frame with links and images for all the steps. I tested the video out and my small test audience was able to successfully upload their files based on the instructions in the video. 

The most confusing part of the video was probably the webpage redirect we employed as a url in the printed materials we printed at the beginning of the school year before the final upload solution was agreed upon. Below is my text on how to upload the video, included above the video: 

1. Combine your documents (visit the CAT Lab for help)
2. Visit www.coloradocollege.edu/writingportfolio
3. Sign in to PROWL
4. Enroll yourself in the Writing Requirement Portfolio course (click yes)
5. Scroll down and click "Writing Requirement Upload"
6. Upload and submit your portfolio
7. Smile and know you're done, unless you haven't turned in the physical copy as well.

The writing center website also had a page of links to documents to help the students with the process.
Lessons learned:

• We may want to change the language of the requirement to students MUST upload the electronic version (we may switch to electronic only).
• There should be two or three student workers accepting applications the day it's due.
• One of my student workers should probably be there with a stapler and staple puller and scanner to help students scan their assignments for electronic submission.
• Each time the portfolio workshop is given it should be explained that the portfolio will also be handed in electronically. 
• We should get all students' permission to put them in the digital repository, regardless of whether we actually put them there.

Student Projects and Initiatives

Occasionally, students approach me with schemes and ideas. They often don't have any kind of support on campus, though people may be interested. Most often, these ideas have some kind of web-based component. There are several people on campus who have responsibility for the website (not to mention the fact that each department is in charge of its own departmental site), so it's often unclear to these students what to do or to whom to turn.

• NSS - probably the director. This group is in charge of the server space and the 'back-end' components that keep our site running. This includes scripts, CMS platforms, etc.
• Communications - probably the web/new media people specifically, as they're responsible for the leading edge of the website that web visitors see. 
• Possibly a VP or Dean - these are the people that can make final decisions about what is really part of what we want to do here at school.
• Interested departments and programs - a project involving film would likely benefit from support from the film program. It seems this is where most projects may be pitched first. 

Alternatives.to NVivo

One thing that occasionally comes up is what software people should use to do certain tasks and what alternatives there are. Sometimes, I have no expertise in the area and can't do much more than do a search for them. One person approached me with a personal project and wanted to know what technology resources the school could provide him. He specifically wanted to transcribe oral interviews for a kind of research project. I him where he could access NVivo and gave him other information on other aspects of his project. He asked if there were alternatives to NVivo; I didn't know any off the top of my head, but thanks to the site alternativeto.net, I found a two or three (thanks to following links on the site) and with some more searching and reading, another two possibilities:

• ATLAS.ti is one commercial alternative
• Transana is another open source alternative that runs on Windows and OS X (Mac); it’s specifically for managing and analyzing audio and video.  
• MAXQDA is another alternative
• Dedoose – “a web-based Mixed-Methods and QDA applications, and it kicks NVivo around the block at a fraction of the price. Sign up is free and non-commital! Being a web-app their is nothing to install, updates are free forever.” A few months ago, they said they’d be bringing audio and video support online in early Q2 2011…
• HyperRESEARCH is another alternative I just read about online. 

As I haven't used either NVivo from QSR International or any of these, I'm not in a position to say how 'true' these alternatives are. I'm sure some of them do certain tasks better than the others, but I believe that choice, especially in markets, is a good thing.

CMS Testing

Testing three different content management systems is a bit tedious. Some of the testers ran into problems.

• Testing as different users is difficult. Sure, we can log in as admin, but not all of us will be admins. It's also more difficult to log in as a 'reporter' or 'web editor' and get the same tasks done. "Where'd that menu go?" "How do I create a new page now?"
• The systems aren't really set up as they will be when we go live. A plain vanilla enterprise setup is what we get, but it won't really be what people will be using.
• It's really difficult to test all the options out there. There may be a perfect CMS for us out there, but as time and resources are limited, we couldn't test every one of them to find it. 
• 
  

PDFs made easy

I've given a couple workshops/ presentations on a few tools people can use to work with PDFs. I've covered free tools, open source tools, and web-based tools, intentionally leaving out discussion of Adobe Acrobat, as I feel it's over-priced and most people don't need it.

I also created a bookmark-shaped handout/ready reference for attendees, so they could recall a little of what I had shown them.

I had about 30 attendees, which for a tech presentation around here is phenomenal. I have several people ask for follow-up help and one department couldn't attend and asked me to give the presentation to them.

Assistive and Adaptive Technologies

Last year, after much back and forth with various people, a man from a local school district contacted me about doing a presentation on technology we use to support disability services. I agreed to give the presentation.

My College's Disability Services Accessibility Technology on Prezi

It actually turns out that he was originally looking for someone who had worked at University of Colorado, not Colorado College at all!

Knowing where to look

Sarah had opened the blank schedule from her email on her PC and proceeded to fill it in during the scheduling meeting. She happily hit save every once in a while, thinking her document was safe. She closed it at the end of the meeting, but unfortunately couldn't find it again. So she came looking for me, but I was elsewhere on campus.
She brought the laptop down to the helpdesk, where the did a search for the file, among other things, for a reported hour and a half. They could not find the file. When I heard about the loss, I went and asked Sarah if she still needed help.
I, too, tried searching for it, but just went to the IE temp files directory and looked through the seven or eight files that were likely to be her schedule. I opened them all up and lo and behold, there it was. She was quite thankful and later that day she called me genius to several other people.

Awesome things you can do online for free

Late last semester (or perhaps during the week after winter break) my team discussed what workshops we should give this semester. I'd already done a PDF workshop (at the end of last year and a variation last semester) and no one was volunteering to do something that first block, so I volunteered to give a workshop along the lines of "Awesome things you can do online for free" about web 2.0 services and other stuff that can make life easier. TO shake things up (and instead of printing a handout) I created a PROWL site to organize the presentation and link to the sites and services. I used it in my presentation and tailored the presentation to the interests of the group in attendance.
It's been interesting to try and go back and find links I've used before and I'm really disappointed that facebook bought drop.io and shut them down to integrate parts. drop.io was a really useful service for many, many things.

Lessons learned:

• If you plan too much content, of course you won't present it all. 
• But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I had more than I could present, but, I was able to present something interesting for everyone there.
•  You can over-prepare. I'm not sure how long I spent practicing, organizing my sources and setting up the equipment ahead of time, but if no one had shown up (as occasionally happens around here), it would have been a shame I had spent all that time preparing. 
• Moodle is not best suited for a descriptive link repository. 

Science student personal web page assignment

From two to five times a year I give a "How to use Contribute to complete your personal web page assignment" workshop. I usually have from one to three students come in late and need help catching up. Often times, one or more students will skip a step and not be able to save heir work.
The assignment is to create a website (or page) with the following requirements:

• A picture of the student
• A list of 10 links the student used for class
• A copy of the student's resumé
• (optional) A copy of the student's final paper

In order to successfully complete the assignment and get credit, the student's image and name must be linked properly on the professor's website (pre-linked to standard-named link), the student must successfully request (and automatically receive) their network web drive, correctly map said network web drive (pre-mapped, but not really. Its linked to the student webroot as opposed to the student's sub-directory), and they must save their site's first page as index or welcome with the appropriate file extension.
Naturally, the student must also be able to create text on a web page, make a link, insert an image and hopefully create subpages and link to documents. Contribute does all these things fairly easily, but it is somewhat restrictive and forces the student to choose a template. If they want to change the template, they need to start all over.
Also, they need to set up the Contribute website connection on every different computer they use to edit their site. This isn't a concern if they do it all in one sitting, but most work on it at least twice.
It seems to me that most web publishing is not done in html and flat files anymore. It's done dynamically through blogs or other content management systems.

Lessons learned:

• Students don't really look at documentation
• One or two students will want to do things more powerfully than the software allows
• Even with a follow-up workshop, one to a few students will request help at the end of the block
• Macromedia Contribute 3 has a very unfortunate error which doesn't seem to be in Adobe Contribute CS3 and Contribute CS5 seems to have changed very little
• Most students really like the "artist's portfolio" template

CMS Testing

So the CMS (content management system) selection process has been less than stellar. The biggest lessons I've learned are:

Art History Thesis work

Every year, the Art History theses are due around this time or later. Every year, I have a few students feverishly working on their thesis and trying to get it printed on the day it is due. Over the past few years, I've held workshops for the students on how to successfully and easily format their thesis. Generally, I've held one workshop for them towards the beginning of the year and one more towards the end of the year at the beginning of the block before the thesis is due.

I did that this year, too. Unfortunately, these thesis students didn't learn anything from the workshops and have asked me for individual help. The students ask for help with the following:

Whenever I interview a student to work in the labs, I show them the flowchart I have taped to my door. I tell them that's what I'm really looking for in a student worker. They generally laugh or pretend to find it amusing to curry my favor.

The other day, one such student asked for a job and I explained that I'm not hiring now, but if she wanted to prepare herself to be better qualified to work for me, she should do several things:

1. Learn a couple new computer programs
2. Create a website on the CC servers
3. Cultivate a proactive attitude
4. Learn how to troubleshoot

The ideal student worker will be helpful and take initiative. When people enter the lab, they'll make eye contact, perhaps even ask "Do you need help with anything?" and when the person says yes, they'll be able to help them, either by knowing how to do what the person needs to do or by looking it up or exploring their options. If something goes wrong in the lab on their shift, they'll look for ways to solve the problem and report the problem, in addition to what they've tried to do to fix the problem.

My problem is coming up with a set of questions or scenarios to test people for these characteristics and developing training to get people to do these things.

Kinetic Software Kx implementation

I've attended several of the remote setup meetings for the Kx implementation, which will make scheduling and billing a bit easier, from what our campus room reservation people say. The early sessions were held in an off office on campus and the implementation manager from Kx used Adobe Connect Now to show us the screens and gather information. We (the five to eight people involved) would gather around a 17" screen and try to see what was going on. It was less successful. 

We switched to a conference room with an extremely large HD TV and conference call phone and that was a much better experience. Then we used a room with a speaker phone and projector; the speaker phone's microphone was out, so we switched to Google Chat Voice, which worked pretty well for the two hours, though neither end used a headset, so we could hear ourselves. 

Connect Now worked, though the lag was a bit much, as our implementation manager was using remote desktop into a system here. Also, there were resolution problems, as the projector's resolution was too low to allow true full screen of the remote desktop session.

We could have used Skype for both, as the integrator has Skype on her machine, but we didn't know that until she had shared her screen.

Lessons learned:

It's best to have a conference phone for a conference call.

It's best to have technology folks on both ends discuss usable technologies and set up early.

Paper 221

My EV 221 Paper