NIMS Training

I got up early today and went to Pico Rivera for NIMS training. I chose to do it in person for the following reasons. 1)I don't have a life and this is an exciting Friday activity for me. 2)I wanted to see Pico Rivera, I am truly interested in seeing the neighborhoods where our students come from. 3)I got bored half way through the online version of this course.
The firefighter training us was alright. Between the first and second session he got into selling his emergency gears. I am not joking. This guy had the entrepreneurial spirit. He had brought a series of products to sell. Almost everyone, including me, bought something. The only person who did not buy anything was our Academic Senate President. She was mad. I mean really mad.
I did not get mad because during his infomercial I was listening to my i-pod. As I was listening to my i-pod I realized the following: Not only does fear gets votes, it also brings in the money. It worked on me too. I parted with $34.

I took some pictures of the shoppers and the lunch they served us. The Vegeterian sandwich was the best of the bunch.

Be a Youtube Star!

Last night I saw a great video camera on the news. It is by Kodak and it is easy to use. I have a similar camera which I bought from Walmart but the Kodak model is supposed to be High Definition.
Colin and I will be conducting a workshop for Flex called "Be a Youtube Star!" At this workshop we will show you the following:

1) How to upload videos onto youtube

2) How to get those videos on your blackboard site

3) How to make the ADA (Americans with Disability Act) compliant

You do not need a camera to attend as I will bring my little walmart camera to the class.

Information, Information and More Information...

I found the Academic Senate conference very useful. One of the useful tools that I learned about and I can not stop playing with is the Data Mart. This site is operated by the State Chancellor's office, and has all the information that are hard to find on campus.

What kind of information?

Student Demographics, FTES, FTES by Distance Education, Retention, Success rates,Student Services Programs, and Staffing Reports.

Another report to look for on this site is the ARCC (Accountability Reporting for Community Colleges). I found these reports interesting because they have placed colleges in groups of cohorts based on Demography of students. For example I have heard many of our staff compare Rio Hondo to Mt. Sac. However, Rio Hondo and Mt. Sac. are not in the same group of Cohorts. Here is Rio Hondo's cohort group:
Alameda; Bakersfield; Cerritos; Chabot; Chaffey; Compton; Contra Costa; Desert; East L.A.; Fresno City; Gavilan; Hartnell; Imperial Valley; L.A. City; L.A. Harbor; L.A. Mission; L.A. Trade- Tech; L.A. Valley; Long Beach City; Merced; Oxnard; Porterville; Reedley; Rio Hondo; Riverside; San Bernardino; San Joaquin Delta; Santa Ana; Sequoias; Southwest L.A.; Southwestern; West Hills; West L.A.; and Yuba.

I will post more on this issue later.

Finally, if you want to learn about our school's budget you can find it here. If you want other schools' budgets click here. Talking of money and budgets the budget person from CCA who was explaining how to read these budgets commented that Rio Hondo and Mendicino have the most honest budget in the State. Now this guy was a CTA union analyst invited to teach us how to read these forms and sometimes correctly sees a conspiracy behind every budget. The next time you see Teresa give her a hug for being one of the best budget persons in the State of California.

Day 2 and Powerpoints

I am too tired to write about day 2 of the conference but I saw this video, and thought you would enjoy it as much as I did:

Day One of Leadership Institute

Today was the first day of Leadership Institute. I have to say it was one of the few conferences I have attended that was educational. We learned about 10+1 and the difference between education code and regulations better known as Title 5.

I am on information overload and will post the 10 responsibility of the Academic Senate as soon as my brain recovers. 

Leadership Institute

Tomorrow I will attend the Academic Senate Leadership Institute. It will take place in Newport Beach. I will pay $350 out of my own pocket and will share any bits of wisdom learned at this conference with all of you. I hope my upfront $350  will buy lots of bits, and I hope that the school will reimburse me the cost of attendance. 

The Video

There are rummors that I have videos of people dancing. I do NOT! These are the only videos on my little camera. If anyone has videos of people dancing send it to me and I will post it for you.

All Tied Up Was...

Today we (social science) had another training session. We covered Email vs. Course Email. Also we covered how to make pictures in Blackboard 508 compliant for Visually impaired students. There were other things too but I forget now.

Below I will post some of the main points for making your pictures in Blackboard 508 compliant.

1. click on the add picture icon

2. find the picture you wish to upload and write a breif description of the picture in the Alt Tex box.

The final product should look like something like this:

Dr. Shin Liu's Workshop

Yesterday, I attended Dr. Shin Liu's workshop. Unlike me she understands both Blackboard and Web CT. Also she knows how the system is operating in the background. All I know was learned through trial and error.
She has created an interesting website based on her lectures and it may be a good starting point.
She explained how to upload publisher cartridges on blackboard. I am not a fan of cartridges but it does make one's life easier, and provides a rich environment for students. There are some draw backs to publisher cartridges.

1. Some of their material is not accessible (Not 508 Compliant).
2. Some of their material cost the students money, if the student buys a used book.

After her workshop she explained to me how one could transfer HTML files from Web CT to Blackboard. It was not fun. I think it is easier to create new material in Blackboard than downloading HTML files from Web CT and moving them over to blackboard.
She also said that tests can be downloaded from Web CT as Text Files and using Respondus converted to Blackboard exam files.
By this point I was burned out so I do not remember the steps.
You can find Dr. Shin Liu providing in dept Blackboard training next Thursday.

Pushing Buttons! Watching Faculty Get Excited

I was completely caught off-guard yesterday when the faculty got excited about buttons. These are no nonsense faculty, but their eyes were similar to a kid in a candy store trying to make a choice. They were deciding among such choices as Alligator, Amethyst, Coffee, Feather, Fur, and my favorite Fury Dog.

They got lots of practice as they kept changing their button style. In case you wish to get excited about Blackboard Buttons, her is the how to:

First in control panel click on course design.

Next,

Finaly,

At our next Social Science Blackboard workshop we will serve Thai food and it will be called "All Tied Up".

Going Into It Raw

On Wednesday our division will have a discussion on how to set up a course in Blackboard. This workshop should be called "going into it raw". Since most of us have never used blackboard we will have to build and organize our online courses all over again. Some see this as a burden, we have to cook up our courses again. 

However, I think of this as an opportunity to come up with something better. I like to think of this similar to Sashimi. 

What is sashimi but a raw piece of fish. We got the fish. All we have to do now is to slice it up in an attractive way and serve it up with Wasabi and Soy sauce. 

Of-course, one can get sick from raw fish too, but that can be a learning experience too!

Skill To Focus and Summarize

Yesterday during the workshop they introduced various games to play and cooperative learning activities to conduct with the students. In one of the activities we were given 7 questions regarding globalization. Next we were divided into 7 groups. Each group was to become an expert on a question. After 20 minutes we were asked to mingle and find experts to answer each of these questions. It was an interesting experiment and I may use this technique with some topics to get my classes moving. After one teacher asked "what is the objective of this exercise?'
Our facilitator Dr. Chiara Gratton Lavoie an economist replied to this question with "They get the skill to focus and summarize".
She did not talk about the economics of the exercise but about students needing the skill to focus and summarize. She complained about students who write 2 or 3 pages of nothing and expecting a good grade.
She likes short precise answers. Later talking to her at lunch I learned that her speciality is in Microeconomics.
This is something that I knew instinctively but had not verbalized it. This is an important skill for our students.

Extra Credit Crazy

I attended the workshop on Globalization at Cal State Fullerton. It was all High School teachers and I was the only one from community college. These were a dedicated group of teachers and I was impressed by their interest and enthusiasm for the dismal science. I met some teachers from the school districts that feed into Rio Hondo. I targeted these teachers and during the breaks I would speak and listen to them. One of them complained about economics not being tested by the state and Economics being taught to seniors making this class prime target for teachers with seniority who sees this class as easy to teach.
These are the teachers who play the stock market game over and over again.
Another teacher complained about administrators wanting teachers to make these classes easy so their students can graduate with higher GPA. They accomplish this by assigning extra credit which explains why our students are extra credit crazy!

Globalization Workshop

This weekend I will attend a workshop on Globalization. This workshop is sponsored by Center for Economics Education. Their goal is to educated high school economics teachers. I am curious as to who are these guys? Is economics still being taught by the guy called "Coach"?

The workshop is supposed to discuss how the globalization can be integrated more into principles of economics class.