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Contributed by Michael Gough, Instructional Technologist and Coordinator of START

Microsoft Office 2007, which is now available for faculty and staff, comes with a new program called OneNote. OneNote is a versatile note taking program that integrates with other office programs. While it is most often associated with Tablet PCs, it can also be used on a regular pc. However, you will not be able to use the inking features without a tablet.

OneNote’s versatility and four tiered organizational structure can make the initial experience a little intimidating. With its notebooks and tabbed sections with pages and subpages, it can take a little while to get used to the navigation and structure. For these reasons, new users may have a tendency to use a more familiar program such as Microsoft Journal or Word for note taking. However, OneNote has a handful of features and practical applications that can make the learning curve worth the initial learning investment.

One of the greatest advantages to using OneNote is that anything you type on a page is saved automatically. If your computer restarts before you close down OneNote, your data will not be lost. Second, OneNote can instantly search all your notebook pages for any text that might be contained on a page, including your handwriting if you are using a Tablet PC. This is a huge time saver over having to dig through a file cabinet and is an improvement over most desktop search programs that may not search handwriting or images. OneNote accepts many different sorts of data on its pages. You can create hyperlinks, add pictures, drop documents, add ink, multimedia clips and even take screen shots. Once an image is placed in OneNote, you can augment it by writing or typing over the picture.

OneNote offers some pedagogical advantages over traditional office programs as well. For instance, OneNote’s audio recording function could be used in an S-Course to record student’s presentations. You as the instructor can take notes on the presentation as it unfolds and OneNote automatically places an audio bookmark on the page next to the note. Now if you click on the play button next to the note, the presentation will play back just before you began to write. If students also have OneNote, these pages could be shared with the presenters as feedback on their presentation. OneNote sections can also be shared with others in real time over the network allowing for a collaborative work environment.

If you are interested in trying OneNote, be sure to install Office 2007 if you haven’t already. Then look for it with the other Microsoft Office 2007 programs. A good demonstration of OneNote can be found at the following URL.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101686341033.aspx

Contact Michael Gough michaelgough@depauw.edu or x1093 if you have any questions.

Contributed by Michael Gough, Instructional Technologist and Coordinator of START

During winter term, FITS added two new enhancements to Moodle that faculty members expressed great interest in at the Moodle User Group (MUG) discussion sessions.

Gradebook Plus add-on

The “out of the box” Moodle gradebook proved functional, but was limited in that you could only add an assignment generated outside of Moodle by adding an “offline activity”, which adds an icon to the course site. While these offline activity icons could serve as reminders to students, they also can clutter up the course space. Another limitation was the original gradebook did not allow for easy grade changes. Faculty members wanting to change a grade had to open the submitted assignment to change the grade. This was somewhat unintuitive and an inconvenient step for instructors who naturally would go to the gradebook to make grade changes.

The new gradebook,” Gradebook Plus,” solves both of these problems. First, it has a “Manage Graded Events” tab. This allows instructors to add an assignment to the gradebook without the need for an offline activity. This enhancement did not replace the offline activity option, as some users still use it as a reminder tool for students. Second, the new gradebook has an “Edit Grades” tab. When you click on this tab, the gradebook loads the grades into editable text boxes where you can change a grade quickly and easily without having to leave the gradebook to go to an individual assignment.

If “use advanced options” is turned on, you will see 2 new tabs, Edit Grades and Manage Grade Events.

Finally, the new gradebook came with enhanced statistics as a fringe benefit. You can now view statistics on individual assignments as well as the overall final grades by clicking on the stats button next to the assignment. Students can also view these statistics if they wish.

The Feedback Module

The Feedback Module, our newest enhancement to Moodle, offers you the ability to build customized surveys for your students. You can choose from an assortment of different online question types to build your survey. You can also choose to make your survey anonymous and show or withhold results with the students. This could be a great way to gather quick informal feedback, or even build your own course evaluation survey.

If you have any questions about these new features or Moodle in general, please email moodle@depauw.edu.

Contributed by Michael Gough, Instructional Technologist and Coordinator of START

Wikis and social bookmarking are just two of several Web 2.0 applications that offer potential for improving group collaboration. These tools make the time between meetings more effective for the group as a whole by providing a medium for the exchange of information. This is an improvement over email which often gets messy when used for group communication. These tools subsequently increase the effectiveness of face to face meetings as group members will be more prepared by reviewing the Wiki or social bookmarks.

One benefit of using a Wiki (web page editable by multiple users) is it allows each group member to update the page while preserving the history of the document. You might have encountered this when reading a Wikipedia article. If you wanted to see how many edits have been made to an article within the last few days, you can click on the “history tab” to find this information. Students working on a presentation together could use a wiki to share notes with each other between group meetings. They could review the wiki history and see what each student contributed or removed from the notes. The removal or change in the notes by another student could facilitate a discussion amongst the group during a subsequent meeting or in a discussion forum. Thus, Wikis allow for students to collaborate on a document in a way that might not have been possible before. Often a group discussion results which can further enhance the learning outcomes of the project. Below are some recommended Wiki applications:

Moodle Wikis (contact moodle@depauw.edu for information)

Pbwiki www.pbwiki.com

Wikispaces www.wikispaces.com

Zoho Wiki www.zoho.com

In addition to wikis, social bookmarking offers groups the ability to tag and share online resources quickly. Delicious http://del.icio.us/ is often the tool of choice for social bookmarking. Group members could share resources by deciding on a unique tag for their group. Then each group member can subscribe to this tag in their Delicious account. Now, every time an article is tagged by a group member with the unique identifier, it will automatically be added to the list for the group to review. The resource can then be discussed during a meeting or in a discussion thread. Resources can also be searched by topic tags as a way to gather more information for the project. More on Delicious can be found in the LIS newsletter article by Tiffany Hebb. http://lisnews.wordpress.depauw.edu/2007/11/12/delicious-%e2%80%93-store-your-
bookmarks-online/

Both Wikis and Delicious generate RSS feeds for subscriptions. If you subscribe to a wiki page, you will receive a list of the latest updates to the page and who made the change. With social bookmarking, you can subscribe to a particular tag. For instance, an instructor might designate a unique tag for the class. Students then tag anything they run across that might be useful for class. Then, the instructor could subscribe to the tag in their Moodle course. Now every time a student finds a new article relevant to the course and tags it, the article’s title and possibly a summary will be displayed on the course for the class to see and investigate. If you are interested in using this feature within your course and would like more information, email moodle@depauw.edu.

For more information on how to subscribe to RSS feeds using a feed reader check out:

http://fitsnews.wordpress.depauw.edu/2007/09/17/rss-readers/

More resources on Wikis and Social Bookmarking:

Wiki’s in Plain English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY

Social Bookmarking in Plain English - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU&feature=user

Contributed by Carol L. Smith, Assoc. CIO for Instructional & Learning Services

YouTube. . . Facebook. . . Google Earth. . . Social Bookmarking. . . Blogs and Wikis… Just a sampling of emerging (or once-emerging!) technologies that have offered opportunities for new ways of learning and teaching in higher education.

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s (ELI’s) 7 Things You Should Know About… series helps demystify these digital tools. Each two-page brief focuses on a single technology or practice and describes What it is, How it works, Where it is going, and Why it matters to teaching and learning. The series provides overviews of emerging technologies and related practices that have demonstrated or may demonstrate positive learning impacts.

A recent 7 Things You Should Know About… article focuses on Citizen Journalism, which refers to a wide range of activities in which everyday people contribute information or commentary about news events. As noted in the brief, “Citizen journalism encompasses content ranging from user-submitted reviews on a Web site about movies to wiki-based news. It forces contributors to think objectively, asking probing questions and working to understand the context — the kinds of activities that lead to deeper learning.”

Some of the other topics highlighted in the 7 Things You Should Know About… series include

• Twitter (an online application designed to let people describe what they are doing or thinking at a given moment in 140 characters or less)

• RSS ( a tool that enables you subscribe to online content using a “reader” or “aggregator”)

• Wikipedia You can find the complete list of topics at
  www.educause.edu/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutSeries/7495.

About The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI):

The Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) (http://www.educause.edu/eli) is a community of higher education institutions and organizations committed to advancing learning through information technology innovation.

Contributed by Dave Berque

Background on DePauw’s Tablet PC Grants from Hewlett-Packard

In May, 2006, DePauw received an HP Technology for Teaching grant to encourage the transformation of teaching and learning using HP Tablet PCs (essentially laptops that are augmented with digital pens) and DyKnow software in Computer Science courses taught by Dave Berque. In July, 2007, DePauw University received a follow-up HP Technology for Teaching Leadership grant. This grant recognized the success of the earlier award and provided support to transform Terri Bonebright’s offering of “Cognitive Psychology” and Tom Dickinson’s offering of “Foundations of Education” (see related article in this issue about Tom’s work).

Combined, the two grants are valued at more than $189,000 and have provided more than 60 Tablet PCs and supporting equipment. While the Computer Science, Psychology, and Education Studies courses listed above were the focus of the HP Grant activities, a total of 23 courses enrolling 395 students in 9 disciplines (Biology, Computer Science, Chemistry, Education Studies, Economics, Geosciences, Japanese language, Physics and Psychology) have used the granted equipment to date. We expect students in an additional 11 courses to use the equipment during the spring of 2008.

Convertible Tablets: The Best of Both Worlds

DePauw has been using a Tablet PC form factor known as a “Convertible”. When a convertible Tablet PC is first opened it looks just like a standard laptop, complete with a keyboard. However, the screen can be swiveled and closed over the keyboard so that its display faces up as show below. When converted to this mode the Tablet is easy to draw on with a special stylus. When many standard Windows applications (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) are run on a Tablet PC they expose extra functionality that takes advantage of the pen interface.

Using Tablet PCs to Support Teaching and Learning

Imagine being asked how a traditional laptop or desktop computer can be used to support teaching and learning. The question is hard to answer because the list of potential uses is so long. Students can write papers with Microsoft-Word, classes can share information with Moodle and E-mail, presentations can be given with PowerPoint. Of course many discipline specific applications are also available in specific domains.

The potential uses of Tablet PCs are just as varied. For example, students can submit typed papers in Word and faculty members can use a stylus to make electronic annotations directly on the document (see related article in this issue). Similarly, the electronic pen can be used to annotate PowerPoint slides during a presentation (watch a video that demonstrates this on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeUp38UcbD4 ).

Additionally, using software such as LectureScribe or Camtasia a teacher can record a handwritten answer key to a problem while orally explaining the problems’ solution. The resulting ink and sound video can be posted to a web site for student review. This allows the students to see and hear the process that was used to solve the problem. If students have Tablets (or even laptops) during class DyKnow Vision software will let students and teachers share typed and pen-based notes (each student leave class with a personalized and replayable electronic notebook consisting of the teacher’s content augmented with the student’s personal annotations). This software also supports a variety of classroom interactions ranging from multiple choice polls to sharing of pen-based sketches and problems solutions produced by students in and outside of class. Finally, as is the case for traditional laptops, a variety of discipline specific applications are available.

If you are interested in learning more about how Tablet PCs can support teaching and learning consider attending the Tablet PC track of the FITS workshop on November 17^th(See next article for more information).  Also, a Tablet PC is available in the FITS lab for you to explore.

Contributed by David Diedriech

1. Office 2007 User Interface is dramatically different from previous versions.

The old menus and toolbars (e.g., File, Edit, and View) have been replaced with the “Ribbon” and the “Office Button”. This new interface is designed to give you all the options you would need in an easily navigable tabbed environment. Also new is the Microsoft Office Button in the top left corner. Not unlike the Start button, this is where users may change global options and settings for the program.

2. The default file formats (.docx, .xlsx, .mdbx, and .pptx) for Office 2007 files are incompatible with older versions of Office, including Windows Office 2003 and Office 2004 for Mac[DU1] .

• If you already have Office 2007 installed on your computer, you should use the “Save As” option to save files in the older format (e.g., “Word 97-2003 Document”) to ensure that those who don’t have Office 2007 can read your files. If you are a faculty member, remind your students who have Office 2007 to use the “Save As” option described above when preparing files that they submit to you electronically.
• If you have Windows Office 2003 or Office 2004 for Mac, you should download and install the following compatibility pack or file converter. When you install these, you can open, edit, and save files that were originally saved in the default Office 2007 formats (.docx, .xlsx, .mdbx, and .pptx).
  • ForWindows Office 2003:
    Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats
  • For Office 2004 for Mac
    Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.2
    (Please Note:This Beta version ONLY supports Word and PowerPoint files)

• For additional information on Office 2007 at DePauw, please visit our website at http://www.depauw.edu/it/helpdesk/office2007/.