10.27.2006

WebCT Extra Credit

Sometimes the easiest things are the most difficult. An instructor wanted to add extra credit for the completion of a course evaluation in her course. But wouldn't it be great if it was not necessary to manually search the submissions and award points for each and every course? What do we want?! Automaticity! When do we want it?! Now!

First we changed the anonymous survey to a quiz since surveys cannot have point values in WebCT 4.1. Then the quiz column total points -- which always works out to 4 points as long as every question is answered -- is added to the total. Well, WebCT, being the smarty that it is, naturally includes the 4 points as part of the new total. It's no longer extra points it's just become part of the possible points.

Turns out the instructor had another assignment that is a manually graded numeric column, so she might just lower that by 4 points. Not ideal since it will need to be explained to students that the total isn't really the total on that assignment. Still, it works.

10.24.2006

WebCT backup size

Just received word from our IT gurus. Turns out WebCT CE 4.1 backup files larger than 2GB have serious troubles if it's ever necessary to reinstall. Thankfully, not too many ever reach this size. But these limits are certainly nice to know. And, from what I understand (which may not be much) the limit has something to do with the zip format.

10.17.2006

Open Source -- Innovate

A whole issue on the Open Source movement. I feel a little funny calling it a movement. Maybe it should be called trend or direction. This is a nice summary of Open Source technologies and how they might be useful and where they might be headed.


Welcome to the October/November issue of Innovate. Among the range of technological developments that hold significance for educators, one of the most far-reaching in its future implications is the rapid growth of open source software. In this special issue of Innovate, our contributors explore, assess, and illustrate the potential of open source software and related trends to transform educational practice.

Innovate - October/November 2006 Volume 3, Issue 1

10.06.2006

Gaming video

This might be a little old, but the content is good. Except for the department of education guys. They really need to loosen up a bit, and they need to look less like sports reporters.