| August 2003 |
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Where did the summer go? It was wet, warm, wild. In the TLC, the summer was spent on several new projects. Five new high tech classrooms will make their debut the fall - Ewing 323, Nursing 101, Caylor 105, Art 125, Keener 115 and Holcomb 115. Each of these classrooms are equipped with a permanently mounted data projector, presentation console with a SMART Sympodium, VCR, Computer with DVD and CDR-W drives, audio amplifier, and speaker system. The rooms are also equipped with electric screens. The lighting system has been zoned and most have been spruced up with a new coat of paint and cleaning of ducts and fixtures. In addition, the College of Arts and Sciences has taken delivery on four mobile presentation carts. Each of these are equipped with permanent mounted data projector, computer, VCR, amplifier, and wireless keyboard and mouse. These systems are ready to roll into any room, connect to the power source and the data outlet, align with the screen and start up. The new presentation carts are a single source for AV resources in the classroom. My guess is that we will see more of them. In addition to the two big hardware projects, ten student workers camped out in the Faculty Training Lab this summer and undertook the task of updating 76 splash pages and 14 websites for academic and administrative units on campus. The student workers logged 1,008 hours and did an excellent job. Their efforts helped to create a sense of continuity and standardization for those sites that are most accessible to the public. Working with us this summer were Eddie Butler, Jennifer Edwards, Detra Foster, Megan Gardner, Cozette Guyton, Jamie Harper, Katherine Menhard, Shannon Moore, Sheryl Parker and Emile Swindol. If you are looking for a work study in your area who is well trained in web work, these would be really good workers. Joan Stiles deserves special recognition for the time and effort spent training and supervising these student workers As usual, we had steady flow of on campus events Boys State, Whole Schools Initiative, Summer Arts in addition to the everyday loan of AV, set up and strike of equipment. We also expanded our AV inventory adding additional Mini DV video camcorders, digital still cameras, data projectors, boom boxes, and other items. We provide support for 132 WebCT courses both online and web-enhanced. 1,332 students enrolled in courses using WebCT. We support 49 faculty and staff course designers. We were also involved training. We learned how to use HEAT - a help-desk software that will help us make our scheduling of AV loan and other services more effective and web accessible. We learned how to use Crystal Reports - an application for abstracting data from the Banner system. Finally, we made a presentation at the 5th Annual WebCT Users Conference in San Diego, CA. Faculty and staff involved in online and web-enhanced instruction heard about what we are doing in Cleveland and had the opportunity to get copies of our faculty training programs. We came away from the conference with new ideas about the use of games, alternative forms of evaluation and the use of video and audio components in WebCT courses. We will be sharing more about those things in training sessions that will be announced for the fall. Please take time to complete your preference survey. A link is in the right hand column. Anyway, we had a busy time. We are glad you are back for a new school year, and we hope you will come by and visit with us in the next few months. Have a productive school year.
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