Friday, August 29, 2008

CCCOnline Fall Faculty Conference

Happy Friday, everyone. This is just a reminder that the CCCOnline Fall Faculty Conference is quickly approaching, as is the due date for your fall conference proposals! If you are interested in presenting at the conference, please submit your proposals as soon as possible, and no later than September 12. We look forward to hearing from you.

The direct link to the proposal page is http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Faculty_Conference_Proposals . You can also email Karen Kaemmerling at karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu with questions about the Conference or the Call for Proposals.

Conference registration will be available shortly after September 12.

Monday, August 25, 2008

From Dr. Nancy McCallin, System President

Welcome to a New Year!

Hello all and welcome to a new academic year. As we begin this new year, I want to thank you for the accomplishments of the past year. I look forward to building upon the great progress we have made in the year to come!

We have much to be proud of:

Student enrollment is on track to increase significantly this fall. Last academic year we had enrollment increases each term: up 2.8% in the fall, 3% in the spring, and 2.2% this past summer. The Colorado Community College System tied with Metropolitan State College of Denver to have the highest growth rate in student enrollment among all of Colorado’s public higher education institutions!

Student Success: Another significant achievement for our colleges is our increased graduation rate statewide. The Colorado community colleges’ graduation rate increased from 20.1% to 25.9%, helping Colorado to rank 8th in the nation among two-year colleges in graduation rates. Retention and graduation of students are two critical indicators of success at our colleges. Every faculty member and staff member has a contribution to make toward these goals. Keep up the great work!

92% of our students said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the community colleges and more than 70% have already or were very likely to recommend the community college system to a friend.

Funding: There is good news concerning funding for our colleges. For this fiscal year we secured $10 million in new operating funds and potentially an additional $1.5 million for renewable energy programs. Also, through intensive work on a bill that reallocated federal mineral lease funds, we received $48 million in new capital construction funds for the colleges.

Banner: As many of you are aware, there is good news on the Banner front. The Banner Finance and HR/Payroll modules successfully went live July 1. Employees and vendors were paid using the new system. In total, 7,300 payroll checks were processed, totaling $15.5 million in July and an additional 6,400 non-payroll checks totaling $14.5 million were processed! The Student and Financial Aid modules have been stabilized. Thanks to all of you for your hard work and patience as we have implemented this legislatively-mandated ERP system.

I also want to let you know that in July the State Board for Community Colleges and Occupational Education met with the college presidents and senior staff and articulated a new vision statement for the community college system. Our vision is:

Colorado community colleges are unsurpassed at providing quality educational opportunities for all who aspire to enrich their lives.
The words in this statement were chosen with considerable thought. The words “unsurpassed” and “enrich” were chosen to convey the notion that the community colleges currently do the best job of serving students with a wide range of goals, from attainment of degrees and certificates to tuning up job skills and personal enrichment. These words also express a vision for the future, as our community colleges continue to respond to a dynamic labor market, changing workforce needs, and demographic shifts in Colorado’s population. The Board also sought to encompass the varied constituencies served by community colleges, including high school students in dual enrollment programs, traditional college-age students, and adult learners of all ages.

The word “all” was chosen to convey our open access mission. For community colleges, excellence does not come from being overly selective and keeping students out. Excellence comes from letting students in and then providing them with the best learning environment to enable them to succeed. Our open access mission signifies this excellence.

The word “quality” was deliberately chosen to assure that the education we provide our students is top notch. We know that our students who transfer to other public colleges in Colorado do as well or better than students who start at those institutions. Our students deserve this quality education so that they can be successful in their lives.

You, the employees of the community colleges, are the key to serving our students. You do a superb job with limited resources. Thank you for all you do and best wishes for a successful year. I want to close with one quote from Jim Collins, author of Good to Great: “We don’t remain good, if we don’t always strive to become better.”

Dr. Nancy McCallin
Colorado Community College System President

Friday, August 22, 2008

Fall Rosters Available

Your Fall session 1 class rosters are now available.

Please go here,
https://at.ccconline.org/roster/

Login using your SID and Vista Password.

You can find student e-mail addresses on the roster. Please remember that most colleges have moved to the system e-mail address for students, so we are dependent on students remembering to check their system e-mail account or forward that account to another external e-mail address.

Please contact myself or Frank Vazquez, frank.vazquez@cccs.edu, if you have any trouble accessing your roster.

Thanks!
John

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Summer Student Survey results

Hi Everyone-

Your summer student survey results are available at https://at.CCCOnline.org/survey/faculty/. To log in use your S nuber and PIN.

Questions concerning technical issues should go to Frank.Vazquez@cccs.edu. Questions about results should go to your chair.

Please don't forget to check your fall course shells out today and let your chair know if there are any problems.

best,
Lisa

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Just in Time

Hi Everyone,
We have some NEW resources for you on the Wiki! First, we have a Mentor Guide Book. If you are new to CCCOnline or if you've volunteered to mentor a fellow faculty, this is a must see at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Mentoring_Guidebook . Chairs, if you haven't had a chance to see this one, I encourage you to visit it too. Lisa Marie, Michael, and several wonderful new faculty collaborated to make this a great addition to our resources.

Also, while you are working on getting classes ready for fall, Lisa Marie also developed some Just In Time tutorials on various Vista Tools like File Manager and the Gradebook. Check out these resources at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Vista_Tool_Demos and other teaching resources at http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Vista_Tool_Guides.

Please share your feedback with me about these resources and any others that we haven't included yet but might be helpful to you at karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu.

Have a great start to your Fall semester!
Karen Kaemmerling

Friday, August 15, 2008

New Look



Check out our new look! www.CCCOnline.org

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Another happy student

I am going to stop posting these because I do see lots and lots of them, so I could completely fill up the blog with stories of amazing CCCOnline instructors, but..... this is from ENG 090, Pam Gordon.

You are only the second teacher in my lifetime of many, many moons that
has shown faith in me. I would be honored to add your name to the list
that has actually made a huge impact in my life. Your dedication,
passion, and drive for excellence have definitely shown us that we can
make a difference in whatever path we decide to take in life.
I know that teachers try to reach one student through their instruction.
Some of the seeds you plant you may never know about. I would truly like
you to know that I am one of those students that walk away from this
class totally embracing a new outlook.

Thanks for handing me another shiny quarter for my pocket full of
treasures. I hope you feel the inner smile also. You deserve to know
that your teaching does matter. My hope is that others will see what a
gold nugget they have in this class.
Have an amazing rest of the summer!


Lisa Cheney-Steen

Monday, August 11, 2008

Getting Personal! Letting Students See The Real You!

On Friday, please join us at the Getting Personal! Letting Students See The Real You! facilitated by CCCOnline's very own Dian VanOs.

The session's focus is about bringing "you" into the online courseroom and letting your personality shine for learners without having the courseroom cross the line of being too informal. This session will answer the question of whether an instructor's passion for teaching can be transferred to the online courseroom! Participants will also discuss and explore strategies for being approachable and likable as an instructor without inviting students to cross "the line".

No need to RSVP, just follow this link to earn your training credit on

FRIDAY, August 15, 2008 from 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (Mountain)Access from this link (opens Elluminate): http://elm.elluminate.com:80/FRONTRANGE/join_meeting.html?meetingId=1213020208834

Study Mate Workshop

Hi Everyone-

Here is an invitation to a webinar by Respondus on the new version of Studymate. Remember that CCCOnline purchases a site license for Respondus and Studymate that allows you to install those programs on your home computers. Talk to your chair for details.

Lisa

Dear Faculty:

You are invited to attend a webinar with Respondus.

Name: StudyMate Class Server Webinar for the Colorado Community College System
Starts: August 15, 2008 at 10:00am (Mountain)
Ends: August 15, 2008 at 11:00am (Mountain)
Moderator: Shea Ramquist

To join the Session, please click on the link below within 15 minutes of the specified time.

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.598D9BE3066987561916964D6DF207

When you log in, you may be prompted to download Sun Microsystem's Java Web Start (or OpenJNLP for Mac), a pre-requisite to Elluminate Live!. You only need to do this the first time you use Elluminate Live!.

Before the Session, you can confirm that your computer is ready to run Elluminate Live! by completing Steps 1 and 2 for First Time Users listed at http://www.elluminate.com/support/ .


Finally, to join the teleconference, please dial 1-866-305-2467 and enter the following passcode: 145120.

I would suggest allowing for about 10 minutes of setup time for Elluminate prior to the start of the session.

Best regards,
Shea Ramquist

Respondus, Inc.

Direct: 425-497-0389, x127

sramquist@respondus.com

www.respondus.com


Sunday, August 10, 2008

Student Appreciation

Hi Everyone-

I wanted to share a comment a student posted in Erica Hastert's MAT 121 course. I see quite a few of these every term, but this one was especially nice:

“The things that I think worked well in this course were the interaction
between the class members and the instructor. There were many areas
where the text is not clear or did not expound on an area enough to
provide a clear understanding, but through other class members
experiencing the same thing and providing additional resources, together
I believe that all were able to understand the concepts. Also, whenever
there was a specific question about a process, the instructor was always
available to answer it, but would always allow time for another student
to provide guidance first. Rather than just give out "answers," the
instructor would give us the "first three notes" and once we had a feel
for the tune, let us figure it out ourselves. By the instructor
encouraging the students to show their work and site specific examples,
a lot of times, simple mistakes were caught that were not evident before
showing all steps. I loved this course and hope that my future math
courses are just as full-filling.”

(Hope I didn't embarrass you Erica!)

Lisa Cheney-Steen

Friday, August 08, 2008

Auraria and CCD early start

Just an FYI, due to the Democratic National Convention, CCD and the Auraria campus will be starting fall courses on Monday, August 11. If you have any students who need to get grades posted early in order to register for courses with pre-reqs, please send the grades to me at john.schmahL@cccs.edu. I'll manually post the grade right away so the student will be able to register in time.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Summer Grades Due Aug 14

Dear Faculty;

Please follow the directions below to enter grades for your courses. If you have any questions regarding grades, please contact me (john.schmahl@cccs.edu)

All grades are due no later than Thursday, August 14, 2008.

Once you have submitted your grades, we will pull a daily report listing the grades and they will be manually entered into Banner for the students. Grades will not be viewable by the students until the day after they are manually entered.

If you have any students needing their grades earlier, please contact John Schmahl, john.schmahl@cccs.edu or Roxanne Manske, roxanne.manske@cccs.edu.

To submit final grades:

go to the online Grade Book here, https://at.ccconline.org/gradebook/input/

Login using your Blackboard Vista login credentials

Select the appropriate section

If you are missing any section(s) or have extra section(s) listed, please contact Frank Vazquez, frank.vazquez@cccs.edu

Enter the appropriate grade for each student, accepted grades are listed below

Remember, developmental courses (those with course numbers under 100) must use the developmental grades, see below

**All students must be given a grade, even if they have not participated in the section**

Enter a Last Date of Attendance for any students receiving a grade of “F”

Click “Update” and return to the menu to select the next section if needed

Approved grades

Standard courses (course numbers 100 and above, e.g., PSY 101)
A
B
C
D
F (must include last day of attendance)
I (must include incomplete contract)

Developmental courses (course number less than 100, e.g., MAT 060)
S/A
S/B
S/C
U/D
U/F (must include last day of attendance)
I (must include incomplete contract)

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Update from Blackboard World

Here is a great video of Karen and LisaMarie at the Blackboard World conference in Las Vegas last month (courtesy of LisaMarie of course):












Lisa

Monday, August 04, 2008

Call For Proposals for the CCCOnline Faculty Conference

The CCCOnline Faculty Conference is October 17th at Arapahoe Community College.

CCCOnline is celebrating its tenth year as a growing part of the Colorado Community College System. If you would like to present at our faculty conference, please submit the proposal form by September 12, 2008.

Some topics of interest but are not limited to are:

  • Multi-Media Components (pod casting, video, Second Life)
  • Advanced Vista skills (selective release, grading forms, Elluminate, panel discussions)
  • Students behavioral issues (authentication, testing, plagiarism)
  • Faculty development (mentoring)
  • Digital and textbook alternatives
  • E-Portfolios
  • Authentic Assessments
  • Web 2.0 uses for Online Learning

The direct link to the proposal page is http://faculty.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Faculty_Conference_Proposals . You can also email Karen Kaemmerling at karen.kaemmerling@cccs.edu with questions about the Conference or the Call for Proposals.