If Mary and Joseph had Facebook

Merry Christmas Everyone!

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/25 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

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5 Things Students Want their Teachers to Know about Online Learning

I found the blog post, 5 Things Students Want their Teachers to Know about Online Learning, by Lisa Nielsen in her blog, The Innovative Educator, to be a worthy reminder. According the students and teachers at the iNacol Virtual Schools Symposium:

1. Socialization is important
2. Students want to see their teacher and
3. to see each other.
4. They want you to get to know them and 
5. want you to keep the course relevant. 

Although none of this is terribly new, several ideas and useful sites to accomplish all of this are included. Check this out as you refresh your courses for the spring semester.

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2011 Sharing Trends

This info-graphic about sharing trends for 2011 contains some incredible information. Take a look at the decline in Internet Explorer users and the increase in Google Chrome, for instance.

View the entire info-graphic

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Vivideo Video Editor - free

If you need to edit some Christmas-party videos, you might want something a little more powerful than Windows Movie Maker. Get Wondershare's Vivideo Video Editor for free when you enter the code: Monday, Dec. 19th - too hard to say goodbye Tuesday, Dec. 20th - if i were a boy Click "Get It Free", and supply your name and e-mail address. (Be sure to click Get Keycode after that.) The program is available for Windows and Mac! (Originally posted on CNet Marketplace). Features include the ability to easily add captions, filters, transitions and optimize for playback on your portable devices like iPhone, iPad, PSP, iPod, Wii, Zune, etc. You can also capture a graphic of any scene in your video. Merry Christmas!

Note: Evidently the pass code changes daily.You must rescue Santa to get the current code but the software might be worth it.

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Butler Online's Gift to You!

This calendar was originally posted on Dec. 1!! Since the calendar is not searchable, our team will repost all of the content to this blog, but for now, help us countdown to the big holiday with a new technology idea each day!

We have created a Technology Advent Calendar to share new ideas and information in a fun way. You will be able to open one new technology idea each day until Christmas. We hope you enjoy and find the Advent Calendar useful.

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ScanMarker

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/24 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

This little tool allows one to scan hardcopy text and immediately paste it into Word, Excel or any other application. View it in use here. The portable, hand-held scanning device also functions as a personal reading guide, enhancing text comprehension, pronunciation, and reading autonomy for students and adults with reading difficulties. Scanmarker comes with a wide variety of functions such as: Data Entry (Scan & Paste), Multiple Language Translation, Text-To-Speech, Dictionary, Thesaurus, Image Reader, etc.

Note: Thanks to Mark Jarvis for letting us know about Scanmarker. According to Mark, "It's about $80, but I think it could change the way we read, study, and research".

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34 FREE Productivity Tools

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/23 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Whether you have been naughty or nice, we still want to give you this list of 34 Free Productivity Tools. Some we have mentioned before and some are new to us. This is a great compilation of very useful tools to make your life easier without spending any money. We hope you find something useful here. You just might want to bookmark this site.

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Project Gutenberg Free eBooks

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/22 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Project Gutenberg offers over 36,000 free ebooks to download to your PC, Kindle, Android, iOS or other portable device. Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.These ebooks are digitized version of previously published books whose copyright has expired in the United States.

Downloads are free and no registration is required although you can make a donation to help fund the project You can search titles by a simple book search or browse bookshelves by topic, top downloads, or recently added. This is a great resource.

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5 Free Graph Making Sites

(This was originally posted by Beth Cunningham on 12/21 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Just the other day someone was asking about a site to create and/or have students create graphs. This post at I Love Free Software summarizes 5 graph making sites and the tools available at each.

These websites will help you with various chart tools such as chart making, online graphing, and more. You can create Pie Charts, Bar Charts, Line Charts or Area Charts, etc.

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Performance Tools

(This was originally posted by Tara Canfield on 12/20 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Would you like a list of over 2000 tools for learning? Created by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, this directory has tools listed for everything from group interaction to podcasting!

What an excellent resource for online instructors!

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Video Resources

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/19 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Visitors to Documentary Tube can select from twenty-two categories of documentaries including art, health, science, travel, history, and several others. The menu includes a cover picture as well as a brief blurb describing the content of the movie. Each week, the website features the top 100 documentaries being viewed. Some are basically entertaining while others present emotionally-charged issues. There is also a search feature.World News Presents: This Day in History is presented by ABC News and, as the title suggests, provides a short video about what happened on a given day in history. For instance, on December 10 the video is "Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. accepts the Nobel Peace Prize".

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Students' Expectations

(This was originally posted by Tara Canfield on 12/18 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Have you ever wondered what your students' expectations are for you as their instructor? Sometimes we concentrate so much on what WE need from them, but wouldn't it help us be better instructors if we focused on our actions as well?? To learn more about this subject, read the article by Sabrina Ely at eLearn Magazine.

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Make a Gingerbread House!

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/17 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

OK, OK, I know some of you will have no interest in this but if you need something creative, simple, and relaxing try your hand at creating your own gingerbread house. You can add candy, frosting, eyes!, etc. You cannot enter text but you can "write" with the frosting. There is no save function but you could Jing your project.

This is a fun site your children or grandchildren will enjoy. I know mine will spend time here!

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Feeling GLIFFY?

(This was originally posted by Beth Cunningham on 12/16 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Over the weekend, my son created a Venn diagram for school and used the jazzy new SmartArt tools in Word 2010. However, what do you (or your students) use when you need a Venn diagram, Flowchart, SWOT Chart or any other diagram that may fall outside the scope of Microsoft Word? Try Gliffy! Sign up for a 30 day trial and see if it will add value to your class ($5/month if you love it).

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Open Culture

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/15 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Do you sometimes wish you could have a guest speaker in your online course? Well, Open Culture just might be the answer. Open Culture boasts content from "290 Cultural Icons: Great Artists, Writers & Thinkers in Their Own Words". Included, for example is a video interview in which Isaac Asminov, shares insights on science, computing, etc.

Also accessible here are "435 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc." Freely viewable are films such as A Farewell to Arms, Great Expectations, Moulin Rouge, etc. You can also downolad free audio books here.

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Get Organized

(This was originally posted by Beth Cunningham on 12/14 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

If you've popped into our Butler Online offices lately (and if you haven't, why not?), you know we're all about QR Codes! We just love 'em! We're even making gift tags containing video greetings with them!

All that scanning creates an organizing dilemma...until now. Download QRganize from the App Store and arrange, revisit or share your scans over the holidays!

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Job Search

(This was originally posted by Tara Canfield on 12/12 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

The Ghost of Christmas Present visited me last night! I told him to "GET LOST--I have had enough of you and your wacky friends!" He wouldn't leave though, and he just kept yelling (drama queen!) something about how I need to get my "head right" and start spreading the word about present day job search tools.

I agree with him though. The job market IS harder to navigate these days, so what are people doing to highlight their skills and stand out from the rest of the crowd. One way is to create a visual resume. A great example of this is Heidi Lilly's visual resume on Slideshare. If you conduct an interviewing module in your class, as I do, then this would make a great project for your students!

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QR Code Ideas

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/13 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Undoubtedly you have seen, and possibly used, QR Codes. They are quite popular now. Meg shared a site that explains how to create QR codes labels for your Christmas gifts. Very clever! QR Voice is a site that allows you to type your message and create a QR code that will play an audio of the message to the recipient. J. C. Penney is offering shoppers the opportunity to record and print a QR message to add to their gift.This QR Code wrapping paper suggests gift giving ideas and links you to the site to purchase them. Very commercial but a clever marketing tool.

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5 Sites of Recipes

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/11 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

It is time to begin the holiday cooking and baking. And, here just in time, are five sites that offer traditional and not so traditional recipes. Included are Epicurious, Pioneer Woman, She Knows, Martha Stewart, and Taste of Home. And remember, Butler Online loves food!!

You might also want to check out blog hops. "This Christmas, many food blogs are holding a 12 weeks of Christmas cookies blog hop. This means that when you enter one food blog, you can find links to recipes from numerous other food blogs, all about Christmas cookies." ( from the Make Use Of website)

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Snowline Game

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/10 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Santa's reindeer had a sneezing fit and all of the Christmas gifts were scattered over the Northern Slopes. Draw "snow lines" in this fun logic game to help Santa recover the presents in time for Christmas. Enjoy!

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Add a Little SPICE to Your Holiday!

(This was originally posted by Beth Cunningham on 12/9 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

There's nutmeg, pumpkin spice, and now...SPICY NODES!

What a great way to add a little *kick* to your classes! Spend a few minutes with Spicy Nodes (www.spicynodes.org) and you're sure to be hooked! They're a great way to visually demonstrate an idea or concept in an interactive and interesting way! Here's a picture of my Node on "The Seven Principles of Undergraduate Education" but it's more fun to go to their site and give it a try.

We promise, you'll love it, and it has less calories than a pumpkin pie!

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Microsoft 2010 Ultimate Tips

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/8 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

MAke Use Of has prepared a free guide to help you get the most out of the new features in Office 2010. The guide is a free PDF download and will show you how to:

* Get the most out of 2010s cloud capabilities.

* Turn off the annoying file block feature.

* Speed up document creation in Word with building blocks.

* Present data at a glance with Excels new Sparklines.

* Edit video from within PowerPoint.

* Broadcast a PowerPoint presentation over the web, live.

* Add social functionality to Outlook.

* and much more!

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Future of Engineering

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come visited me last night (these ghosts have no respect for the sleeping!) and told me that I need to pay more attention to the future. He was rambling on and on about death and so forth, but then he mentioned something about the future of engineering and how it is my duty to pass on the word. So, here it goes.

eGFI is a great site that focuses on the field of engineering. This site is primarily devoted to K-12 students, but it explores many topics that would be of interest to college age students. There is a link to the eGFI magazine, and the site has a lot of detailed information about topics such as how to choose a college or how to be a successful engineering student.I want to thank the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come for passing on this valuable resource, but next time I want him to call before popping in!

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Christmas Flash Mob

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/5 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

"The Carlson School of Management received a surprise visit from a saxophonist and nearly 300 of his friends from the University of Minnesotas School of Music this November." Enjoy this rendition of Deck the Halls, performed at the University of Minnesota in the Carlson School of Management building on Nov. 7, 2011.

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Faculty Focus

(This was originally posted by Tara Canfield on 12/4 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Faculty Focus recently highlighted a 2011 study on online education, conducted by the Sloan Consortium and the Babson Survey Research Group. The study, Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011, found that more than six million students are now taking online classes. For more detailed findings, you can obtain the full report from The Sloan Consortium.

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Online Convert.com

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/3 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Online Convert is a site that does just what its title indicates - converts files to another file type.

We have previously suggested using zamzar.com to convert files but Online Convert is much more user friendly and faster. The file is converted and immediately downloaded to your computer. You can convert documents, audio, video, graphics, etc. When you convert a grapic you have the option to change the size, make it monochrome, negative, etc. An added feature is the site blog that includes topics such as "Extract Still Image from Video" and "Rip Audio from a Video Clip".

This is definitely a site to bookmark (or add to your Symbaloo).

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Web Notes

(This was originally posted by Tara Canfield on 12/2 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

The Ghost of Christmas Past visited me last night and told me that I need to learn from my past!!! So, for today we are all going to learn from a past blog entry made by Linda Wapelhorst on September 13, 2010.

"I have discovered that the Awesome Highlighter site is not operating right now. I'm not sure if this is permanent but it caused me to search for a replacement. This turned out to be good because I found Web Notes. Web Notes is easier to use and has more options.The demo below shows all that you can do with Web Notes.This would be a great tool to share with your students who are required to write a research paper or for you, as an instructor, to highlight the pertinent information on a web page. You can highlight, add notes and share in a number of ways. Web Notes also provides storage for your annotated pages. These can be private or public. You might find the Web Notes Tutorial valuable."

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Themeefly

(This was originally posted by Linda Wapelhorst on 12/1 in Butler Online's Advent Calendar)

Themeefly is a free web tool that allows you to easily create your own interactive magazine.

You can add text, graphics, video, audio, web links, and social media from Facebook and twitter. You can link to your magazine (or one from the library) or embed the magazine in your ANGEL page or a web site. Easily create a collection of important links, images and notes to use as in-class resources or study guides for students.

Check out this sample QR Code Themeefly.

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Email and the angry student

Angry, frustrated, upset students. We have all had them both in the classroom and online. It is SO tempting for both parties to respond emotionally in this anonymous setting. Here are a few thoughts provided by Victoria S. Brown of Florida Atlantic University in the January 2011 edition of Online Classroom together with the collective personal experiences from our Butler Online staff.

• Do not respond immediately. This is the online equivalent of taking a deep breath and thinking before you speak.
  
• Wait at least an hour or two before crafting your response. But by all means, do respond. Write your email, and then pause and reread it carefully, maybe out loud, before sending.
• Use a professional tone. While email seems impersonal, the person reading it will react very personally. Be careful that your language is neutral and free of sarcasm, condescension, and other unintentional but negative undertones. While students may get upset no matter what you say, it is better to err on the side of caution.
• Address the student by name. Beyond the positive defusing power of using a person’s name, it will help to remind the student that this is not an anonymous situation, that a real person is listening and responding.
• Limit your response to only the issues at hand. Be as brief as necessary.
• Close “Respectfully, [your name]
• Finally, make sure you keep a copy of the original message and your response(s)

Do you have any thoughts or additions? Let us know.

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Butler Online's Gift to you!

We have created a Technology Advent Calendar to share new ideas and information in a fun way. You will be able to open one new technology idea each day until Christmas. We hope you enjoy and find the Advent Calendar useful.

 

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