Are you using Internet Explorer on a Palomar district computer to use the Blackboard Grade Center? Perhaps you have noticed that it isn’t working. That’s right, in the default district settings, Internet Explorer will not play well with the Grade Center in Blackboard. The good news? This problem is specific to Internet Explorer, so the easiest solution is to use Chrome or Firefox instead. (These days I recommend that anyway, so if you haven’t switched… think about doing so now.) The bad news? You’ll have to fix it on your computer, as the problem stems from a configuration...

Tomorrow I will have the opportunity of conducting a workshop I present each semester.  It is titled PowerPoint 1: Creating Basic Presentations with PowerPoint 2010.  This workshop is intended for PowerPoint beginners, so we spend some time discussing how to start a new presentation.  My own advice, which varies from some of the PowerPoint books I have read, is to pick your design theme first, rather than later, and then enter the information on slides as you develop the presentation using the features of the theme to enhance your message.  The reason for this is simple:  When you change themes,...

As covered in today’s webinar (available from the archive page), faculty often ask us what they should tell students about the Blackboard system. Of course the advice I give can vary greatly depending on circumstance; an fully online class should be told more than a traditional on-campus class only using Blackboard to augment classroom activities. However, here is my short list of the most important things faculty should tell students about Blackboard: How to log in to Blackboard. Sure it’s the same login info as students use on eServices, sure we have that information on the...

Tomorrow evening (6PM) you will be able to view the President’s state of the union address in a way it has never been viewed before: technologically enhanced.  Tune in (on your computer, not your TV, unless you use your TV as the monitor for your computer) to http://whitehouse.gov/SOTU to watch the speech enhanced with “…charts, stats and data that helped inform President Obama’s policy decisions…”  Of course, the streaming media will also be available on mobile devices. That’s not all. You can comment during the speech on Twitter, using the #SOTU hashtag. ...

The iPad has been a product in search of a market to revolutionize.  The iPod revolutionized the music market.  The iPhone revolutionized the communications market.  The Mac never revolutionized anything, and gained only a cult following.  Today it is the most popular peripheral to iPods, iPhones and now iPads, which keeps it selling, but it will never break through in a big way in the PC  market as long as its competition persists in putting out more powerful computers at much cheaper prices. But the poor iPad has not found a market to turn around, until, Apple hopes, now. Yesterday Apple made a...