Introduction to Blogging Resource

For those interested in blogging, there is a new OTRP resource available "blogging assignments for instructional purposes to promote student learning" http://goo.gl/IXVfz

APRIL

Hi Everyone!
I started a new post, because I just now saw that an earlier topic had an answer that I missed.
So, Nolan, I like your way of addressing sleeping in class. But how on earth can someone fall asleep during an exam!!! Hahaha! That's beats all.
Anyone done anything with Faculty Advocates? The semester will be over soon!
Marion, I was in your neck of the woods (sort of) last weekend. Went to Lancaster. I've decided that is where I want to live - so I started looking for employment and saw that your university was hiring - are you adding to your department?
I wish you all a lovely weekend.
Mary-Ellen

New to Distributed Cognition

Hi,

I manage Pearson's Faculty Advocate Programs. I am new to our Psychology program (and completely new to blogging) so thank you for letting me participate in this blog. I will look forward to sharing ideas with you! Please let me know if you have any questions about Pearson's Psychology Faculty Advocate program. My goal is to expand this program so I am open to ideas and suggestions you may have as a current FA or an instructor. Thanks!

HELLOOOOOO???

Anybody home? I thought when I signed in there would be tons of posts - is everyone busy or away on spring break? How's it going, Marion, with the website?
Mary-Ellen

Hostage Situation

Okay Bucky -- What's it going to take to get my friends back?

Anybody out there?

Hey gang! I hope all is well. We've finished our first week here -- filled with advertures in MyPsychLab and student response system (clicker) software. I can say that things on my end with MyPsychLab Pegasus are under control (BIG thanks to Paul!). Teresa, Mary Ellen, have you set up your course in Pegasus? How did it go?

I'm starting to wonder if you've all been kidnapped by Bucky Christmas.

Newbie Observations at the end of the day

Well, I must say that on the whole, setting up MyPsychLab in Pegasus was pretty easy. We'll see how good I did once students actually starting working with it (which starts later this week). I cutsomized the Study Plan for each chapter and assigned them using the calendar.

Most of my frustrations centered on all the left-overs from Ciccarelli 1e that are still in the 2e template. For a few examples:

The full ebook listed at the bottom of the My Course in Course Content is still the first edition. I couldn't figure out how to open the ebook chapters in chapter folders -- so not sure about that one. Many of my students use the ebook exclusively, so I need to get that resolved.

The Pre Test and Post Test questions still have the old chapter numbers (which do not match the 2e). They use old headings and skip headings -- makes customizing more time consuming because I needed to check the questions to be sure of the topics.
For the record - Pre and Post Test items for Chapter 7 are still marked as chapter 8.
Pre and Post Test items for Chapter 8 are still marked as chapter 7.
Pre and Post Test items for chapter 12 are still marked as chapter 13.
Pre and Post Test items for chapter 13 are still marked as chapter 12.

Finally, I was very disappointed to find that many of the Post Tests covered only a small portion of the chapter. The Pre Tests did a much better job covering the entire chapter (with some of the 1e leftovers as exceptions). The Post Tests in some cases covered maybe three sections out of ten. Certainly that will help students, but their score really doesn't reflect what they've learned across the whole chapter.

So, that's it for now. My regional tech specialist has been a great help today. I'm sure we'll get all this straightened out soon.

ADVICE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Peace to all,
Marion

Help - Newbie Questions

Hey gang -- Today is "customize MyPsychLab" day at the Mason household. I'm sure I'll have questions as I go along. I'm also keeping a list of misspellings. Anyway, I'd like to customize the pre-test and post-test questions. Is the Post-Test the same thing as the Chapter Exam?

Take and Edit Screenshots with FastStone Capture

A review of a FREE program from a favorite technology blog, Lifehacker.

Too often students e-mail with technology related questions/problems I often ask them to send a screen shot to show me what is giving them heartburn or I will send to them one to resolve the issue. There are two things I really like about this tool: 1) I can add a caption easily with instructions within the image and 2) the program is FREE. It is also very easy to use and did I mention it was F R E E!

Select the link below to read more about this F R E E program. (Sorry Noland, this F R E E program appears to be Windows based program

FastStone Capture

(Did I mention it was free?)

Greetings of the Season

Hope all is well with everyone and here is to only the best in the New Year!

Excellent!

Excellent, I will bring my sense of humor with my only suggestion that we make Bucky an honorary member of the blog site--busky

Differences in Student and Instructor MPL Scores

I'll start off with a question that has been challenging me: Too often students produce scores that I can't see. I have my students take each of the section Diagnostic and Exit Tests within a chapter. I have set MPL to record only their highest section Exit Test scores and then use the average Chapter Exit Test scores in the calculation of their total grade. I found this encourages students take take an Exit Test as many times as they need too in order to better master the material.

The problem is that there are times when a student has obtained a score of 100% but it only shows 88% in my MPL Gradebook. While it only happens an estimate 5-10% of the time it is frustrating. Right now I make corrections for students which can add up to a considerable amount of time. So I am wondering what could be causing this to happen for some but not all students. I only started having this problem this fall semester. Anyone have any ideas?

We Come in Peace

Here we go, our space in the ether to share ideas, get assistance, and praise and rage at will. The only requirement (other than bringing a broad and flexible sense of humor) is that we try to contribute on a somewhat regular basis.