New Tech Support Services at Brandman

Starting on Monday, December 13, 2010, the Brandman IT Service Desk will be available by calling 949-341-9801 or toll-free 855-553-3007 or by emailing BUServiceDesk@brandman.edu.  There will also be a link on MyWindow to LiveTime, the new service desk software where you can enter your own issues, and track them to see what progress has been made.  That link is http://brandman.livetime.com/.  Use your normal Brandman username and password to log in.  There is context-sensitive help and a tutorial to follow to help you with this system.

SCHEDULE:

Brandman IT Service Desk Hours of Operation:  (all times Pacific Time Zone)

Sunday                                11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Monday – Thursday         8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Friday                                  8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Saturday                             10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Student One Stop Hours of Operation

Monday – Thursday         8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Friday                                  8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Blackboard Support Hours of Operation

Monday – Friday               8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

For calls outside of these times, you can call and leave a message with your name, phone number, and the best time to call, and a Service Desk Technician will return your call as soon as possible or at your convenience. 

You can also email your request and a service request will be automatically generated and a Service Desk Technician will contact you as soon as possible.

Who to Call

The following matrix is designed to help direct you to the correct resource for assistance.  But don’t worry, if you don’t know who to call, just call the Brandman IT Service Desk and we will direct you to the right person.

Problem	- - - - - - - - - - Tier 0 and Tier 1 by Customer Type - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
	Student	Faculty	Staff
Log-in problem/Password	OneStop or BU Service Desk	OneStop or BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Account Management	OneStop or BU Service Desk	OneStop or BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
BiTech	N/A	N/A	BU Service Desk
Cyborg	N/A	N/A	BU Service Desk
Blackboard Login/Access	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	N/A
Blackboard Navigation/Content	BU Blackboard Support	BU Blackboard Support	N/A
eCollege	BU Blackboard Support	BU Blackboard Support	eCollege
Wimba	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
WebAdvisor	OneStop	One Stop or BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
DataTel	N/A	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Informer	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
ImageNow	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Email Problems	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
MyWindow	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Computer Equipment	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Desktop software issue	N/A	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Network Connectivity	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Website	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Copiers	Local Campus Admin	Local Campus Admin	BU Service Desk
Telephone issue	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Portable Electronics*	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk	BU Service Desk
Facility Issue	Local Campus Admin	Local Campus Admin	Local Campus Admin
Security/Safety Issue	Local Campus Admin	Local Campus Admin	Local Campus Admin
Fire/Emergency Medical	911	911	911
Student Registration	OneStop	OneStop	N/A
Student Academic	OneStop	OneStop	N/A
BU Service Desk	from 949 area code	949-341-9801
BUServicedesk@brandman.edu	from Irvine campus	x4001
	from outside 949 area code	855-553-3007 (toll free)
Student One Stop		877-770-8111 (toll free)
OneStop@brandman.edu
BU Blackboard Support	Students	866-696-2999 (toll free)
Bbsupport@brandman.edu	Faculty:
	Education/Wimba	949-341-9877
	Arts & Sciences	949-341-9869
	Bus & Prof Studies	949-341-9846
	Nursing/Health Prof	949-341-9847
* Portable Electronics	While we cannot provide direct support for smart phones, smart pads, etc., we can provide connection information for receiving Brandman email on your portable device.

Hone Your Online Design &Teaching Skills

Through December 17, Blackboard is recruiting volunteer evaluators for its annual Exemplary Course Program awards. Participation is a great way to:

Learn course design best practices to improve the engagement, collaboration, 

    assessment and learner support within your own courses

Develop a fresh perspective by seeing how other instructors and designers from

    your discipline or area of interest are developing their courses

Apply lessons learned from the Exemplary Course Rubric to your own courses

    or those you are helping to develop

Receive detailed feedback on your own course development on the best

    practices you are employing or areas in which it can be improved

Gain professional development experience and recognition for your

    accomplishments and participation in the program

For additional information see: http://www.blackboard.com/Communities/Exemplary-Courses.aspx

New- Instructions for making student groups in BB

Have you thought about putting your students into groups for projects and other activities? Step-by-step instructions now available in the BB tab.

New- Student instructions for accessing Wimba now available

Thinking about using Wimba for an office hour or suynchronous meeting of some sort and dread having to figure out how to instruct your studnets on how to access it? Fear no more. Check out the Wimba tab in the iRC site for a new document (Accessing Wimba Classroom) that provides step-by-step instructions with screen shots.

Cengage text user? Check out this opportunity

Wadsworth Cengage Learning is eager to hear your feedback on a new online reader, CourseReader. We’d like to invite you to participate in a short $25 honorarium-based demo to review this project if you are currently using any Cengage text.

CourseReader provides you with the flexibility to choose secondary sources from a database of over 300 sources, both printed and audio/video – many coming from Gale’s extensive databases.  Each document source includes essay questions to help your students think critically about the readings.

Plus, as a special thank you, we’re extending a Spring Term 2011 free trial of CourseReader to our customers who’d like to provide their students with additional tools, flexibility, and cost savings in their learning materials.

To set up your review, please confirm the following information:

• Are you currently using a Cengage text?  
• Course Number/Name
• Are you still teaching or planning to teach this course again in Spring 2011?
• Preferred Date and Time of Review beginning the week of 11-15-10
• Phone Number

If you are interested, contact Barb Bower (barbara@contemporarysolutions.com)

at Wadsworth Cengage Learning

Important Wimba Tip: Don't Connect through VPN!

Many of you autumatically log into the Chapman VPN when you sit down at your computer to do Brandman work. That works great for accessing Brandman email, MyWindows, etc., but creates barriers when connecting with Wimba. The same thing applies with any VPN you may customarily use.

So make a note to yourself to log out of any VPN you might be connected to before sitting down to a Wimba session. You will see a world of difference in the performance!

Faculty Tip: Save yourself time!

From Lynn Larsen, School of Education at Moreno Valley:

Instructors can avoid some mountains of email by having an “ask the professor” discussion board where students can post questions about assignments, etc.  That way you’re answering the question once instead of 10 times.  I have found it to be effective – both online and blended.

If your course doesn't already have a discussion board created for this, feel free to add one. If you want assistance or need to learn how to do this, contact your affiliated School's Blackboard support team member (See "Contact Blackboard Support" under the Blackboard tab in the iRC page).

Students discovering benefits of Wimba Pronto!

Do you even know what Wimba Pronto is? Most of our Brandman faculty probably don't because we have not yet added that to the already full bag of new tools and strategies to learn. But it is a tool that you and your studnets have available within your Blackboard course site and as you'll read below, students are finding and sharing its usefulness.

Thanks Kourtney Chase (PADU 605) for sharing your discovery and for the helpful access instructions you provided!

To All of My Classmates-
As you all know we all do not have access to email at all times and it sometimes hard to arrange one single day and time out of the week where we all can meet outside of class to work on group projects/assignments, etc.

Anyway- I found a valuable tool this is available through Blackboard and I actually downloaded the program this evening. Check it out. The Program is called WIMBA PRONTO. This program allows you to interact with your classmates and even professors. The program is an IM message system which allows you to interact with each other. The program is easy to download (takes about 15 minutes):

Go to Communication UNDER Tools Section in Blackboard
Scroll All the Way down to A LINK TITILED WIMBA PRONTO and click
It will ask you of you want to create an account
The Registration form will automatically register you under your Chapman and/or Brandman email account
You then create a passwordIt seems easy enough and it's FREE- NO CHARGE.

Again, I think this tool/IM option may be useful in coordinating times, etc. to talk with other group members to complete projects in a timely and efficient manner.

Hope this tool helps everyone.

Brandman Faculty on Blended Transformation at ACHE

A cross-institutional team of Brandman faculty (Ellen Derwin, Communication; Kimberley Greene, Education; William Sokoloff, Social Sciences, Legal Studies, and Liberal Studies; and Jeremy Korr, Associate Dean Arts & Sciences) presented a roundtable discussion on Transforming a University through Blended Learning at the Association for Continuing Higher Education (ACHE) conference last month (October) in Albuquerque. The roundtable addressed the challenges, successes, and lessons we learned from implementing blended learning in our unique setting of 25 campuses serving nontraditional learners from a range of diverse populations.

Ellen Derwin introduced Brandman's blended initiative, explained the 2008 decision to convert to blended delivery, and summarized the iDEAL instructional model that replaced traditional face-to-face class meetings. She also outlined the training program implemented to educate faculty in blended theory, blended course delivery, and technical skills. (If you haven't seen it, an overview of the iDEAL blended delivery model can be found in this short video: http://www.brandman.edu/blended/Blended_Movie.mov)

Kimberly Greene then addressed the "why" behind blended learning. She introduced blended learning theory and its alignment with both andragogy and the national agenda. Along with identifying key characteristics of adult learners and explaining how blended learning meets these needs, she suggested how and why blended learning exemplifies the "new technologies, curricula, and technologies to improve learning" endorsed by the 2006 Spellings Report and how it answers the 2009 National Report's call for developing skills needed in the modern workplace. (Further details on the rationale for blended learning and the iDEAL model appear in Brandman University’s White Paper available at http://www.brandman.edu/iDeal/whitepaper.pdf or in the "Why & How" tab above.)

Jeremy Korr described the course development and pilot teaching processes in the year preceding the implementation of the iDEAL model. He explained how dozens of pilot courses illuminated potential pitfalls in blended classes that the institution was able to avoid after the pilot process ended. In addition, he noted key shortcomings in the pilot process that became apparent only in retrospect. Issues that arose during the pilot process were incorporated into an FAQ document, available at http://www.brandman.edu/ideal/faqs.asp

Finally, Dr. Sokoloff reviewed how the iDEAL model worked in practice, after its university-wide rollout. He focused on the interactive relationship between blended course developers and the instructors tasked with delivering those courses, and on the reactions to the model from both newer and longtime faculty and students. For orientation purposes, incoming students and faculty unfamiliar with blended learning were given access to a sample course, available for browsing at http://www.brandman.edu/demo

After these initial presentations, the roundtable opened for discussion, particularly on how attendees might adapt and apply ideas to their own institutions.

Faculty showcase: Creative content-based online ice breaker

Our inaugural "Faculty Showcase" activity comes from Ginger Silverman as implemented in her OLCU 301 "Supervision and Leadership" course. Her approach weaves several objectives:

1) It provides a "hook" for students to introduce themselves to one another

2) It provides the instructor with a baseline means to assess where the students sit in terms of their understanding of the subject matter at the opening of the course

3) It provides students with a means of reflecting on their own thought growth relative to the subject matter at the end of the course.

4) And it kick-starts the course in a creative fashion!

Thanks Ginger for sharing your success with this activity!

Title: Supervisory Skills Photo Sort
Assignment Description: Search the internet, publications, etc. for two photos that depict: 1) What effective supervisory skills mean to you and 2) What it mean sto have ineffective supervisory skills. Discuss why the photos represent this to you. Also, discuss the role of the supervisor vis-à-vis the corporation, team and individual mentoring. The photos need not be a realistic representation of a supervisor in action – you can choose something that is more metaphorical. For example, a tornado could depict ineffective supervisory skills, while a teacher in front of a classroom of third graders could represent effective skills. Be as creative as possible! You will upload this assignment, with the photos embedded, as a word document. We anticipate your discussion being between 2 and 3 pages long, double-spaced.
Instructor comments & observations: The students’ commitment to this assignment was thrilling. They were creative, insightful, and inspiring. Everyone enjoyed the assignment – even students who confessed to "not being creative" enjoyed it. Next time I would like to have the students post them to a communal place on BB so they can see each other’s submissions.

On Blackboard versus eCollege

Blackboard or eCollege? This article discusses the historical whys behind the lead BB has in the not-for-profit arena versus eCollege's lead among for-profit schools and the ultimate stand-off in terms of "which is best" between the two.

A useful read especially for those of you who had had students comment that one platform is infinitely better than the other!

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/01/lms

The New Social Learning & Effective Online Learning?

Excerpts from Elliott Masie's Learning TRENDS

Sept 13, 2010

#636 (http://trends.masie.com/)

2. A New Book on Social Learning: Two colleagues of mine, Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner have written a new and very practical book about Social Learning. They explore how employees (and even organizations) are using social learning tools and round the clock collaboration to extend skills, knowledge and performance. Tony and Marcia each have decades of experience as Learning Leaders and have created a great resource in this book.  My colleague Dan Pink wrote the introduction. Get a copy for your team: "The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media" at http://www.thenewsociallearning.com/

3. Is Online Education Effective? Today, I received a request from the Chronicle for Higher Education for a short comment on the effectiveness of online education. I thought I would share my answer with TRENDS readers:

"Online education in higher education has grown in deployment and acceptance – primarily on the value proposition that it can provide scale and flexibility.   In fact, in the early stages of online education, we are seeing too much modeling after the physical classroom.  We have tried to replicate the key elements of a traditional classroom – lecture, discussion, office hours and assignments.  This is predictable – as most new technologies build on the existing and familiar (early TV was Radio with Pictures).

But, the next stage of innovation and development will come as faulty and designers ask online education to accomplish things which could never happen in the classroom:

• Hyper-scaling:  Imagine if 100,000 students were using the same curriculum in classes around the world.  How might we ask them to massively collaborate, conduct hyper surveys and leverage the impact of 100,000 learners working on the same goals.

• e-Collaboration:  Imagine models of collaborative learning that leverage the ability of learners to work with live and asynchronous peers and experts in whole new ways – including inserting disruptive and challenging avatars into the discussion at key points.

• Class of One: Imagine using more detailed assessment and learning style technology to provide each learner with a “Class of One”, where every week they get a unique set of activities – targeted to their performance gaps and accomplishments.  Their roadmap would push contact, collaboration and assessment objects based on their individual and collective needs.

• Simulation Intensity:  Imagine how we might build large scale simulation environments so that learners would have the ability to “Fail Forward” with greater frequency.  If I am taking Economics 102, the simulator would give me and my peers intense practice moments – loaded with many failures – to deepen our comprehension and knowledge accomplishment.

We have an opportunity to now really design what online learning might be to serve the needs of our learners.  Let’s be brave!"

Yours in learning,

Elliott Masie

email: emasie@masie.com