Whatever type of research you may be called upon to execute,
it's imperative to correctly reference your sources. This video demonstrate how
you can add citations, bibliographies and cross references to your Microsoft
Word 2010 documents.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Adobe Creative Cloud/Creative Studio 6.0
We now have a
contract for Adobe Creative Studio, Version 6.0 which includes most of the
Adobe Titles. This software is only available on campus. Home use
of this software is not available at this time. You can contact our
College Help Desk (210) 486-5777 to request an install of the software.
The software is available for MAC or Windows workstations. Titles that
are available: Photoshop, Encore, After Effects, Pagemaker Pro, InDesign,
Flash, Flash Builder, Illustrator, Bridge, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Prelude, and
Light Screen. Please note that a full install (all of the titles)
takes about 4 hours.
Contributed by Leslie Germer
Contributed by Leslie Germer
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Microsoft Office 2013
Microsoft Office,
Version 2013 is available for installation. The We have received and
posted some (Free) Microsoft Office 2013 Quickstarts and Help Guides. They
are available on our Alamo Share Site under Help Guides and Quickstarts
and Microsoft Office 2013. Here is the URL:
http://share.alamo.edu/nlc/it/Help%20Guides%20and%20Quick%20Starts/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2Fnlc%2Fit%2FHelp%20Guides%20and%20Quick%20Starts%2FMicrosoft%20Office%202013&FolderCTID=0x012000DDF7B8F3DBB396459464127DB7B1C933&View={0D31A35C-BAAC-4519-921F-FF6ABF8BBA2F}Contributed by Leslie Germer
Connect to Complete
The Alamo Colleges is working with Connect2Complete, a
national nonprofit, to provide students and employees low-cost computers and
free or low cost Internet service, along with the hardware and the digital
skills to effectively and safely use the Internet. Depending on home location,
you may qualify for fast free service or a discounted high-speed Internet data
plan. Low-cost computers are also being offered. For additional information,
please visit http://www.alamo.edu/c2c
Contributed by Leslie Germer
Contributed by Leslie Germer
Friday, February 28, 2014
Want a (free) Alternative to PowerPoint? Try Prezi
This tutorial demonstrates a free online presentation tool
called Prezi. It can be used as an
alternative to PowerPoint in many academic settings and can make presentations
much more interactive and interesting. Here is the URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7OsdIlmjm4
Contributed by Matt Helinski
Create, Manage and Share Learning Content... in the Cloud!
Attention all Texas Community and Technical College
faculty and staff,
You have free access to SoftChalk Cloud courtesy of a
state license provided by the Texas Association of Community Colleges and the
Virtual College of Texas.
The SoftChalk in Cloud Code can be found here:
SoftChalk is a fun and easy way to enhance
learning with engaging and interactive lessons. Lessons created in SoftChalk
can be easily integrated into Canvas. Find more information about SoftChalk at http://softchalk.com/
Contact Julie Nichols or Laura Tull if you have
questions.
Contributed by Julie Nichols
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
BioSIG-ID - Coming to an Online Course near You!
What is BioSIG? It is the multifactor
authentication tool that the district has selected to make it more difficult
for unauthorized users to access secure data or to commit fraud by posing as
another individual. Its intended focus will be to minimize academic
dishonesty in online courses. BioSIG-ID is fully integrated with our
CANVAS LMS. All fully-online and hybrid courses will be using BIOSIG-ID
starting in Summer 2014. We had a training on 2/12 @ 2:00 in Academic 101.
If you missed the training, you can find a curriculum that can be accessed through
AlamoLEARN that includes the recording of this training which shows best
practices using BioSIG.
Contributed by Tracey Mendoza
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
How to Create a Podcast for Teachers
We all know that students have earphones on all the time listening to music. How about making them listen to us through podcast? The following tutorial walks through the steps for creating an audio
podcast and offers some resources for creating podcast. It also explains how to
create an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feed for a podcast.
Creating a Lecture Video using Screen Cast O Matic
If you are looking
for an inexpensive, comprehensive application for screencasting consider
exploring screencast-o-matic.com. This web application has everything you
need for computer screen recordings and screenshots. There are lots
of options with the free version, but even more with the pro version (by the
way, the pro version costs only $15.00 a year and allows you unlimited
recording time).
Host your videos on screencast-o-matic, or upload to popular social media sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. You can also download your videos to your computer.
Click on the following link for a tutorial that demonstrates how you can use Screencast-o-matic to create screen capture videos that you can
use for lectures.
Contributed by Matt Helinski and Denise Menchaca
Friday, February 7, 2014
Guess What? Adobe is Coming to Town!
The
TLTR Committee would like to share the following exciting and useful
information:
The
district has bought Adobe Creative Suite CS6 for both Mac and Windows. All
faculty machines at NLC will be installed with Adobe Pro, if not yet. The
next step is to push the installation onto Staff machines. Photoshop,
Illustrator, Dreamweaver, After Effects, etc, are all available. If
installation is needed, a request should be made to NLC IT.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Distance Education: What Do MOOCs Have To Do With It?
The MOOC phenomenon has exploded. What is a MOOC, you ask? MOOC (pronounced “mook” is an acronym for Massive Open Online Course.
MOOCs are courses that are being offered through a partnership between a
learning entity and a business on a Cloud-based platform. MOOCs are also classes that are taught online
to large numbers of students, with minimal involvement by professors.[i]
Most of the courses can be taken at no
tuition cost to participants. In some
cases, there are fees for such things as certificate of completion, books,
etc. Some of the major universities
involved in MOOCs include Harvard, MIT, UC-Berkeley, Stanford, and University
of Texas just to name a few. Major
players in the MOOC space include Coursera, Khan Academy, Udacity, and edX.
The enrollment figures in some MOOC courses are
staggering. Harvard’s CS50x,”Introduction to Computer Programming” course
has an enrollment of nearly 160,000 since it was introduced in 2009. ER22x, "Justice," follows at nearly 70,000.[ii] Sebastian Thrun’s Stanford course entitled “CS221: Artificial
Intelligence: Principles and Techniques” has attracted 160,000 students
from 190 countries.[iii] According to statistics gather by EducationDive.com, edX has enrollment of
1 million registered users for 60 courses as of June 2013, while Coursera has
more than 4 million students for about 400 courses.[iv]
The appeal of MOOCs cannot be measured only by the
enrollment numbers. Participants are using MOOCs to gain educational advantages
including:
·
Personal Learning (Gaining personal knowledge
and skills on subject they want to learn)
·
Precursory learning (Prep work for an upcoming
course)
·
Self-determining learning (For the participant
who wants to gain knowledge on his/her own terms)
·
Accelerated Learning (Some MOOCS have no time
limit and allow participants to accelerate learning)
·
Refresher Learning (When was the last time you
took a Math or English course)
·
Gateway courses (Courses that serve as a bridge
to college courses that is required for a degree or certification)
MOOCs can be a viable tool for institutions of higher
learning, particularly for community colleges in placement and prework. According to Dr. Barbara Illowsky, at De Anza
College in California, MOOCs could help students prepare for and pass basic
assessment exams in English math, and writing.
Dr. Illowsky explains that setting up a system that allows community
college students to take basic subjects MOOCs prior to their enrollment would
likely result in thousands of them being able to place into higher level
courses.[v]
Broward College (through the Canvas
Network) provides the College Foundations:
Reading, Writing, and Math course that serves as a primer for
college-level work.[vi]
MOOCs can also be made available to faculty members to use
as supplementary contents and high quality learning objects that are created
collaboratively with faculty.[vii]The Canvas Network provides
instructors and institutions an open platform to share their expertise and
institutional experience with the world.
It claims to have 4.5 million users.[viii]
MOOCs are distance learning on steroids. They are
enabling anyone who wanted to learn anything in any field to have access to (in
some cases) the best teachers in that field. They provide excellent instruction for the
masses at an affordable price. In part 2
of this blog we will examine concerns and downsides associated with MOOCs.
[i] http://chronicle.com/article/What-You-Need-to-Know-About/133475/
[ii] http://harvardx.harvard.edu/news/harvardx-course-enrollments-break-500k-mark
[iii] http://chronicle.com/blogs/next/2012/05/19/as-elite-colleges-open-to-the-world-online-questions-remain-on-business-plan/
[iv] http://www.educationdive.com/news/moocs-by-the-numbers-how-do-edx-coursera-and-udacity-stack-up/161100/
[v] http://diverseeducation.com/article/53565/#
[vi] https://www.canvas.net/courses/college-foundations-reading-writing-and-math-2
[vii] http://diverseeducation.com/article/53565/
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Creating Forms - Zoho Creator
Zoho Creator is a web based
application that allows you to create forms and link them to an online
database. The forms are drag and drop and very easy to use. You can export the
database into various formats like Excel and PDF. Free to use for up to 3
databases. Here is a youtube video:
Contributed by Wes Adams
Make Your Grading On-the-Go: Instagrade
Instagrade
Instagrade is an app for Iphones, Ipads, and Ipad mini. It allows
you to grade multiple choice tests using your phones camera. You can also print
off a score report to see how each student did for each question. Here is a link to a tutorial
Contributed by Wes Adams
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