EtudesYou are invited to an excellent training opportunity scheduled to take place NEXT Wednesday, February 12, Noon - 2:00 pm, in Library 3523, at Foothill. Instructional Designer Heidi King will give a workshop on the threaded discussion forum software that many of you use within ETUDES.
The title of the session is "Enhancing Your Courses With Online Discussion" and it will go BEYOND covering the basic functions of the forum software. Heidi will also address on-line discussion/communication strategies, grading ideas for discussion, and discussion management.
To register, complete this form: http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/main/events/form_feb12.htm.
Both Foothill & De Anza faculty are invited.
A follow-up session on advanced forum features, management of group work, and collaboration strategies is scheduled for May 21. For a review of the courses, workshops, and events offered via FGA for the rest of this year, see: http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/main/calendar_events.htm.
ETUDES2 preliminary baseline features (focus on "preliminary"). This is all I can share with you at this time. My Chief Software Architect, Cliff Ritchie, and I are meeting daily to develop the use cases (specific requirements and behavior) per feature. Once all of that is determined over the next few months, we will have a clearer idea as to how much we can include in the first release. We hope to give a couple of presentations on the project later in the spring.
For the ones of you who had technical questions on the modular architecture of ETUDES2, back-end technology, standards, and so on, I posted a Frequently Asked Questions section on the ETUDES2 project site: http://foothillglobalaccess.org/etudes2/faq.htm.
Request a new ETUDES shell
Note: Hosting of ETUDES courses or sites on our dedicated servers is available to colleges, non-profit organizations, and individual faculty with prior licensing, hosting, and support agreements with Foothill Global Access and through our agreement with the CVC for California Community Colleges. To find out if your college is a licensed user of ETUDES, please contact us.
http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/etudes/etudes_new_shells.htm
Etudes Resources
http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/etudes/user_resources.htm
Template
http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/etudes/ETUDES_Design_KPTemplate1.doc
http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/etudes/
Training (hands-on session) of ETUDES
Overview of software and hands-on session entering content in an ETUDES "shell."
December 7 -- 9:00 am - Noon: Overview of software; 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm, hands-on.
Room 4002 at Krause Center for Innovation, Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA
Presenters: Dave Megill and Don Megill
Limited to 20 -- Free Admission
Sign up for the ETUDES Training/Hands-On Session
http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/etudes/signup_etudes_training.htm
Web Course Management Comparison
http://cougar.deanza.fhda.edu/users/vtaylor/cmsCompare4.html
Blackboard, Etudes, Manhattan Virtual Classroom, WebCT Campus Edition 3.8
Course management comparison spreadsheet
http://cougar.deanza.fhda.edu/users/vtaylor/cmsCompareSS.pdf
EduTools
http://www.edutools.info/course/index.jsp
Manhattan Virtual Classroom
Manhattan Virtual Classroom
http://www2.truman.edu/~cpoyner/gridcomparingproducts2.html
http://courses.uiowa.edu/comparison/rubric.html
Open Source
Business Model
Apache Software Foundation
http://www.apache.org/foundation/
Apache HTTP Server
http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html
ISSUES AND CONCERNS
- Need to hedge bets, not rely on single CMS when there are so many unknowns in online teaching and learning - size of market, consolidation of vendors, costs - direct, indirect, return on investment
- support for multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux)
- choices for faculty, choices for students
- workload for developers and instructors (content vs. delivery)
- reliability of delivery infrastructure
- ability to to meet rapid changes in needs and requirements
- scalability
Current Etudes
- lack of robustnesss, polish - presents "bush-league" image - theme graphics don't refresh properly when window resized - acceptable in beta version, not in 3.x
- support - not available to students
- some problems with support for Macintosh ? vs said fixed but still get yellow text on white background sometimes
- business of software development - appropriate use of community college funds
- ? online help - developer, student
- ? developer support - instruction, community (like Ask Dr.C.), articles, best practice guidelines
- control/access to content ? instructor-directed backups, reliance on central services
Etudes 2
- Dot Net development environment - very Microsoft-centric - corporate mission to reduce/eliminate choices for consumer/students
- some problems with support for Macintosh, even in current version - expect get worse with E2 because of reliance on Microsoft
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