Teach [+] Tech [=] Nexus

Laura Leek (ESL) contacted us asking for a listserv for a special project with colleagues. Listservs work well for classes, student clubs or when your team includes members of the community (non-Los Rios participants). We often overlook some bedrock technologies of the Internet - tools that were used before the World Wide Web became so easy to use. Majordomo (circa 1992) is a tool to collect and manage email addresses and to forward messages sent to the list to all enrolled participants.

At SCC, Listserv requests are made through email to District Office. Here is the web page URL and the details mentioned on that page. You just need to use your campus email to send the request.

http://www.losrios.edu/services/technology/listserv.htm

To request a listserv (mailing list) email the help desk with the following information:

* List name (please include a first and second choice, in case your first choice is already in use)
* List maintainer's e-mail address
* Maintenance password
* Description
* Introductory message
* Forwarded mail footer (text that is automatically added to the end of the body of every message sent via the list)
* Moderated list? Yes or No
* Moderator's address: Same as maintainer or different e-mail address

Labels: email, listserv

Paul McIntyre, SCC student, is on several shared governance committees on campus. Just today he introduced me to a podcast site targeted at blind users - http://blindcooltech.com and I've subscribed to it in iTunes.

The website also allows episodes to be played in your web browser. Here are some teaching related highlights:

TV And Courses Accessibility
8/23/2008 Michelle Dyer educates with the hope of drumming up some positive action, on the subject of accessibility to TV for blind consumers and accessibility to online college courses as it relates to blind students. 4.9 MB


Accessible Math
3/27/2006 John Gardner of ViewPlus Technologies is joined by Neal Soiffer of Design Science and Masakazu Suzuki of Kyushu University in this panel discussion entitled Emerging Computer Technologies for Accessible Math. This panel presents technologies and software that make mathematical documents accessible to people with print disabilities and explores The state-of-the-are for reading, writing, and manipulating math on a computer. 42.2 MB

Free Book Share Accounts For US Students
7/31/2008 Jose Tamayo received a free bookshare.org account as a blind U. S. student through a grant from the Department of Education, and he explains how to qualify, apply, and use this service that contains over 30,000 books in its collection. 23.0 MB

Dspeech
4/22/2008 Michael Michaelson discusses this fast, high quality text-to-speech engine and associated programs. http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ 40.8 MB

Adobe 7
5/17/2007 Marrisa Manzino demonstrates the auto read feature in this version of the popular software to read PDF documents. 43.4 MB

Global Culture Awareness
11/13/2006 Mary Emerson (retired IBM employee) emphasizes the importance of accommodating individual cultural differences among people both in our business and personal lives. 8.3 MB

Podcast Publishing
Part 2 6/7/2006 Larry Skutchan describes the steps you need to publish your own podcast. He begins with the content and the media and finishes up the discussion with a description of many of the popular methods for getting that content syndicated. This is the 2nd part of a presentation for Talking Communities on June 19, 2006 at 8:00 PM EDT. 35.3 MB

Finding And Listening To Podcasts
Part 1 6/7/2006 Larry Skutchan discusses what makes a podcast a podcast, different types of podcasts, where to find them, and how to try them out before installing any software. He then takes you through the process of installing a podcatching program and describes the process of finding feeds, subscribing to feeds, deleting feeds, and setting the schedule. This is part of a presentation for www.talkingcommunities.com on June 19, 2006 at 8:00 PM EDT. 31.4 MB

File Organization
5/31/2006 Monica Willyard presents a system she uses that allows her to access almost every file she needs in a matter of seconds, even if she doesn't remember the exact file name.

Podcasting Interpretation
5/19/2006 Sarah Alawami reflects about the fact that podcasting-'s audio nature is more appealing to blind people than web blogs are. 7.0 MB

Pat Hogarty (Real Estate & CIS) stopped by to demo his latest web video project. But then he talked about running applications designed for USB thumb drives. Go to http://portableapps.com/apps and check out the list for yourself. Under the Education list you will find Stellarium Portable - portable planetarium, under Music and Video Audacity Portable - A simple audio editor and recorder ... oh so much more.

Today is the first day of the rest of my textbook life. Ok, I went to City Cafe to get an iced latte (it is 101 degrees today) and while in line the gal in front of me told other students about ... renting her textbooks this semester.

"Excuse me, what are you saying about 'renting textbooks?'" Her response included a comment about renting a book & planting a tree. The URL did not make sense to me but a Google search for "rent a textbook" came throught with the http://www.chegg.com/ site. I like that this organization is "thinking green."

Stuart Graybill (History) introduced Google Earth in a Fall 2006 flex presentation. He uses it to add "the Wow factor" to his lectures. Yes, it is that and more!

Are you interested in being an astronaut or maybe Tinkerbell? You can "fly" anywhere on the planet. This application is a free download from http://earth.google.com/.

If you have extra time, checkout Google Mars and Google Moon.

Do you find yourself encouraging students to study with innovative techniques? Do you teach Chemistry, Math, Nursing, Reading or other subjects? (OK, that covers everyone!) This site comes from Lucy Tribble MacDonald (retired from Chemeketa Community College in Salem,Oregon) with many resources and links. I met Lucy when she was the keynote speaker for a Northern California Community College Computer Consortium conference years ago. She is an innovator and I think her work will inspire your students as well.

The How to Study web site has a blog you will want to explore: http://www.howtostudy.org/blog/ - the Chemistry videos are a gas (pun intended) and there is so much more to explore.

Labels: study video

Technology changes daily and it is hard to keep up with the next wave. But there is help out there - "EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology."

"The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's 7 Things You Should Know About... series provides concise information on emerging learning technologies and related practices. Each brief focuses on a single technology or practice and describes:

* What it is
* How it works
* Where it is going
* Why it matters to teaching and learning"

Checkout the issue on Google Earth. Some of you may remember the Fall 2006 flex activity when Stuart Graybill (History) introduced us to how he uses GE to motivate his students. Wow!