Prep

I don't have "theme specific" images for today's topic, so I'll just sprinkle in a few photos I captured on my way in to campus this morning.

The term approacheth.  Add to that, we're about to travel to "The Summit".  It will be a team-building weekend involving raft-building, wall-climbing, and spelunking.  Those of us on this side of 50 have expressed some hesitation about one or two activities, but we're all game enough to see what it entails before making a final decision as to whether or not to participate in any particular adventure.  Fortunately, our task is to facilitate. 

Back to class prep, I faced a little frustration today.  I'm using a class management system (Moodle) which has recently undergone a new iteration.  I worked with colleagues from our Information Technology and the library over the summer to put my classes online.  They were tremendously helpful and I found I learned what I needed to know under their tutelage.

Moodle allows the instructor to post PowerPoint slideshows, articles, film links, classroom notes, discussion forums, instructional pages, etc., etc.  There were a few bumps along the way this summer, but I felt confident when I left Duluth that the courses were good to go.

Over the last two days, I've been reviewing the Moodle sites to make sure the links work and that the order of items is as it needs to be.  Things were going along quite well and then I hit a snag. 

There is a wonderful film I have used for about five years as a cornerpiece of my News course, but we encountered difficulties linking it to the site.  Thanks to the assistance of campus librarians, the production company agreed to let us link under particular conditions.  It took a number of weeks to reach that agreement, but once we did it seemed good to go--until I attempted to link to it today via the Moodle site. 

Finally, thanks to my wise and tech-savvy colleagues, I used VPN (Virtual Private Network) and was able to make the connection.  Unfortunately, that doesn't take care of all my concerns.  Our UMD students will be able to connect to the link as long as they authenticate using the UMD x.500 identification (their UMD logon id and password).  The trouble is, there will be British students in my modules (the term used to describe our courses).  They won't have an x.500 id.  Fortunately, we have some time before students will need to watch this film, so there are abundant opportunities to generate solutions.

I'm sure this won't be the last challenge.  It will be interesting to see what comes next.  I think it's a testament to the quality of our IT, library and programme colleagues that this system works and can be adjusted when things go wrong.

And now...for the sign of the day:

It makes sense, doesn't it?  Don't drink alcohol and ride a bike whilst cyling by the river, and for pity's sake, don't drink alcohol publicly in front of children.