May 23, 2013

Posts Comments

Accessibility and the Classroom

April 11, 2013 by

In a December 2012 post to the TechNews blog, Deetra Wiley wrote about web accessibility and the importance of insuring that university websites and web services are available to everyone, but the requirements of accessibility are not restricted only to the administrative side of the university.  We also have an obligation to insure that academic resources are accessible.

The university’s course management system, Blackboard Learn+,  is fully compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act issued by the US federal government and with the a Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) issued by the international World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  Unfortunately that compliance does not eliminate the need for instructors to post compliant and accessible instructional materials to their Blackboard courses, particularly if that resource is only available via the web.

What does that mean for Instructors?

entrance to Fulton Chapel

Front Door of Fulton Chapel with sign pointing to Wheelchair entrance. The University of Mississippi.

Accessibility in the classroom, whether traditional or online, is recommended regardless of whether a student has reported a disability to the instructor or not.  Often students will not report their disability to their instructor because of social pressure or personal concerns.  To provide access for those students, or to insure that your course is already accessible when a future student with a disability enrolls, instructors should integrate the three principles of Universal Design for Learning when creating instructional materials and assignments.  Allow for a variety of ways for students to access the course content and to communicate their understanding of the content, consider differences in learning styles and be aware of accessibility issues from the outset when designing your course. Incorporating these principles will result in a classroom environment that allows students with a variety of abilities and differing strengths to participate and gain knowledge and skills equally, while eliminating barriers. The expectation for equal access to classroom resources applies to every course no matter the mode of instruction.  Instructors who utilize web-resources to supplement their live class or to teach a fully online course have an increased burden to provide accessible resources, particularly if the resource is only available on the web.

 

Recommendations for Accessibility in the Classroom

  1. When considering new textbooks or instructional materials ask the publisher for information about the accessibility of the materials and if they are available electronically.
  2. When photocopying articles for use in the classroom avoid black edges and make the quality as high as possible.
  3. When showing videos in the classroom turn on closed captioning, or if listening to audio files have a transcript available.
  4. If you post your syllabus or an article in Blackboard, be sure that it is available as text, or link to the digital version of the article through the library’s website.
  5. When linking to videos through Blackboard that are required viewing for students, be sure that the video has closed captioning.  The text in the captioning should be the same as, or very similar to what is being said and heard in the video.
  6. Any required links to audio files should also include a transcript file.

Conclusion

We all share responsibility for insuring equal access to resources for our students, whether in the classroom, on the web or in other less formal educational settings.  Whenever we’re deciding which resources to use in our courses, accessibility should always be part of the process.  Over the next year the Offices of Student Disability Services, Information Technology, and Online Learning will be working together to provide opportunities for the faculty and the university community to learn more about best practices for incorporating accessibility requirements into our classrooms and our institution.

Filed Under: Classroom Technology, Web Accessibility Tagged With: , ,

Box Storage and Collaboration Service Goes Live

December 1, 2012 by

The Office of Information Technology (IT) is pleased to announce the availability of Box storage and collaboration service to University of Mississippi (UM) facultyBox, staff and students. As a member of Internet2, UM is able to take advantage of the Box storage service and special pricing offered through the Internet2 NET+ partnership program. The Net+ Box offering has been customized for university environments.  For example, it is FERPA compliant, it offers collaboration tools valuable in an educational setting, it supports single sign-on through federated identity, and it is accessible from a variety of mobile devices and platforms.  The UM Box disk quota is set to 10 GB, whereas the default Box disk quota is 5 GB.

Get Started

To access your UM Box account the first time, use a web browser on your computer and visit http://olemiss.box.com. Once there, select Continue to be redirected to a login page. Finally, connect using your UM WebID and password credentials.

Once you sign in the first time, you can use UM Box from any computer using your UM WebID. You may prefer using Box with your Android phone, iPhone, iPad or Android tablet.

More Information

The IT Helpdesk has put together answers for common Box questions. You can also review the best practices guides and online training videos made available by Box or browse through the list of Box applications. Just remember that while there are no individual charges to use your UM Box account, some of the Box applications require payment.

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact the IT Helpdesk at 662-915-5222 or helpdesk@olemiss.edu. Thank you and have a great holiday season.

 

Filed Under: Academic Technology, Classroom Technology, Technological Advances Tagged With:

Product Review: Solid-State Drives

August 9, 2012 by

Hard disk drive technology has matured over the years, with drives spinning faster, achieving greater data transfer rates, improving at error checking, and attaining tremendous storage capacities.  Those gains, however, have come at the cost of increasing disk fragility. Older SCSI and ATA drives could pretty much be counted on to safely store data for up to a dozen years whereas modern drives have a life of five to seven years.

In recent years, a new technology called flash technology has the speed and reliability of RAM, married to the permanent storage capability of a hard drive. We first saw these appearing in the form of flash cards for cameras, or “thumb drives” for computers.  This same technology, scaled way up, is used to produce solid-state drives (SSD), which can finally serve as a replacement for hard disk drives (HDD).

SSDs operate at many times the speed of conventional HDDs – speeds approaching that of RAM and microprocessors. They have no moving parts at all. So, there are no friction or the vibration failures one sees in HDDs.

Detailed Review

Daniel Cerveny and I were supplied with a 120 GB 2.5″ Kingston SSD.  I conducted tests on it using my MacBook Pro as a test-bed, and then handed it over to Daniel for testing using a PC laptop of similar speed.  The results of the tests turned out to be comparable between the two platforms, as we will illustrate below.

Operating System Installation

After I installed the SSD in my laptop, I formatted it, and installed MacOS 10.7 on it, a task that takes 21 minutes on a standard HDD.  It took 21 Minutes on the SSD, also. Windows performed similarly, completing the installation in 26 minutes with both drives. In both cases, the limiting factor was probably not the speed of the drive, but rather the installation media.

Drive Encryption

Many of our senior administrators have sensitive material on their computers and are required to encrypt their drives using Apple’s FileVault, Microsoft Bit-Locker, or the TrueCrypt freeware. This applies a 128-bit AES Encryption to the entire drive – a one-time only, hugely time-consuming task that typically takes almost a minute per GB on a standard HDD.  In the Mac test, a 160 GB drive required 3 hours and 9 minutes to be fully encrypted.  The SSD managed it in just 18.5 minutes. The results seemed a little too good to be true.  When I looked into why this was, I found it was because an SSD only encrypts the portion of itself that’s in use while storing the encryption key to apply to new sectors as they’re activated for storage.  That doesn’t detract from the impressive performance, though!

The PC tests were performed using TrueCrypt, with the HDD clocking in at 3 hours and 26 minutes, and the SSD coming in at just over 29 minutes. An important thing to note about the way TrueCrypt encrypts SSD drives, is that when performing a full drive encryption, it is recommended that the drive is encrypted before any sensitive data is moved to it. Because of the way wear leveling works on an SSD, it is possible that files already on the drive will not be encrypted.

Large Data Block Transfer

This is the meat and potatoes in my line of work – moving data to and from a server or external drive, using USB 2, or Firewire 800.  I connected my laptop to a server via a Firewire 800 cable, started it up in target-disk mode, and moved a folder containing about 61 GB of data.  Using a standard HDD, this transfer took 21.5 minutes – the SSD performed better at 17.5 minutes, but I was still disappointed, given the SSD’s reputation for speed. Again, however, the speed of the Firewire interface, the internal buffers, and the server itself, limited how quickly the operation could be performed.

The PC test involved moving 66 GB of data from a folder shared on the network. The HDD performed the transfer in 26 minutes, while the SSD did it in 17 minutes. While 9 minutes may not be impressive, it is noticeable, and a welcome improvement.

Time to Boot

Finally, a small task that annoys everyone is the time it takes to boot the computer!   On the Mac, the SSD made it from cold shutdown to the desktop in 16 seconds; a standard HDD did the same in 42 seconds. The PC results were more dramatic. While the HDD booted into Windows in a frustrating 3 ½ minutes, the SSD accomplished the same task in only 40 seconds. Here, where we are performing a task limited only by the capability of the drive, the RAM, and the processor, the SSD really comes into its own. Booting the computer, however, is not the only time the SSD would be able to run free:  we could expect the same performance during photoshop or video renders, or other tasks not dependent on an external component.

Costs

Perhaps the most serious drawback to SSD technology is the cost.  In a survey of currently available drives from different vendors (Newegg.com, and Tigerdirect.com, among others), I found the price per GB of SSDs was roughly double the price for standard hard disk drives.  Fortunately for all, this drawback is a fleeting one:  as this technology matures, the price can be expected to trend sharply downward, very quickly.  Among other things, manufacturing an SSD requires far less human intervention, and far fewer steps than does manufacturing a standard drive with platters and read-write heads!

Capacity

The only other serious draw-back to SSDs involves their capacity:  currently, the highest capacity SSD one can find is about 500 GB, while conventional drives of several terabytes are available.  As with cost, however, this drawback will only be a temporary one:  as the technology matures, higher capacities will be available.  Given the compact size of the drives, even when the capacity of the chips is reached, it will  be a simple matter to combine a number of small drives into a single unit of very high capacity.  At this point,  we’ll also have the option of using RAID formatting for situations where the safety of the data is more important than capacity of storage.

Conclusion

For those on a tight budget or those in need of high storage capacity, the drawbacks of SSD technology outweigh the speed benefits.  We expect this to quickly change.  I predict, as early as next year, we’ll begin to see drives of high capacity and blinding speed available at comparable prices of conventional drives.

Filed Under: Academic Technology, Equipment, Technological Advances Tagged With: , , ,

Official Ole Miss App: Announcement of Survey Winners

May 21, 2012 by


In April, the University of Mississippi (UM) conducted a survey on the Official Ole Miss App ~ iPad Edition to gauge initial reactions and to gather input for future enhancements to the app. The survey was open to students, parents, employees, alumni, fans and other interested individuals who were age 18 or older. To be eligible to win, survey participants were required to provide their email addresses. A total of 881 responses were received. UM gave away ten $100 Apple Gift certificates as incentives for completing the survey. The ten winners were selected randomly. Information Technology and University Communications employees were not eligible to win.

Congratulations to the following survey winners:

  • Margaret Strudwick , Baltimore, MD,  Parent of UM Student
  • Spencer Harpe , Richmond, VA, UM Alumnus
  • Vanessa Alsobrooks, Oxford, MS,  UM Student
  • Elizabeth Milner,  Bay Saint Louis, MS, UM Student
  • David Ferguson, Pontotoc, MS , UM Employee
  • Brad Solomon, Lucedale, MS, UM Alumnus
  • Whitney Thomas, Greenville, MS, UM Student
  • Neville S. Vanderburg, Olive Branch, MS, UM Alumnus
  • Patrick Carr, Oxford, MS, UM Student
  • Ian M. Whalen, O’Fallon, MO, UM Student

We extend a sincere thank you to all of the survey participants.  The responses have been very, very helpful in planning next steps for the app.

If you have any questions regarding this survey or the Official Ole Miss App ~ iPad Edition, please contact the Office of Information Technology at (662) 915-7206 or it@olemiss.edu.

Filed Under: iPad, iPad 2, Mobile Tagged With: , ,

Standing Desks in the Workplace

April 15, 2012 by

Pub Table

In recent years, we have seen continued publicity about the health benefits of a standing desk environment. Health web sites such as WebMD cover the possible problems of sitting too long. If you and your doctor think a standing desk configuration is right for you, below are some alternatives to consider.

Choices to Consider

The adjustable aluminum laptop desk is a cheap solution that allows the use of an existing desk, where individuals can switch between a standing and a sitting position. While designed primarily for a laptop, this desk can be used for writing or reading tasks as well.  For those with a desktop computer or if space is a concern, several alternative models can be found at Ergodesktop. Like the laptop desk, these sit on top of an existing desk.

A pub table is an additional desk worth considering. Various retailers carry pub tables in a variety of shapes and sizes. Heights for these pub tables are typically fixed, so be sure to shop around in person. Another option is the Safco Alphabetter. Unlike most pub tables, the height on the Alphabetter desk is manually adjustable in some Safco models. For individuals that need to keep moving, an added feature is a footrest bar that swings. While targeted at school children, the Alphabetter standing desk can be used to hold up computer equipment.

Finally, there are alternative office desks. GeekDesk carries adjustable desks products. GeekDesk models are motorized to raise and lower at the touch of a button. If walking is what the doctor ordered, Lifespan carries a treadmill desk. A walk at a casual one mph pace may not sound like much. However, a one mph pace for four hours translates to a four mile walk!

Final Comments

The standing desk options are just a few alternatives. When deciding on a standing desk solution, remember to buy proper support shoes. Running shoes with cushion soles are great.  Also, you can shop at Shoes for Crews or similar retailers for formal, business or outdoor shoes that provide slip resistance and support.

Filed Under: Equipment, Technological Advances

Making the Web Work for Everyone

December 13, 2011 by

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) magnifies a physical document and includes color contrast options for those with low vision/color blindness.

 ”Advancing technology is systematically changing the way universities approach education, but we must be sure that emerging technologies offer individuals with disabilities the same opportunities as other students.” (Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, United States Department of Justice)

 

What is Web Accessibility?

The goal of Web accessibility is to make websites usable by all people, including individuals with disabilities.  Disabilities may include but are not limited to blindness/low vision, deafness/difficulty hearing, orthopedic/mobility issues, traumatic brain injuries, learning disorders, chronic illnesses,  says Stacey Reycraft, Director of Student Disability Services.  “According to the 2009 US General Accounting Office report on the status of students with disabilities in post secondary institutions, 11% of college students have a disability and 35.6% of those students have a disability that may directly impact their ability to access technology.”    “More and more post secondary services and resources are provided in an electronic format, either through websites, course management systems, clickers, videos, etc.,” Reycraft adds.  “Students do everything from applying to the University to arranging financial aid, checking grades, paying bills, taking tests, submitting homework, registering for classes and communicating with faculty.  All of these services and resources have to be accessible to students with disabilities.”

Accessibility of Technology Services Policy

According to the UM Accessibility of Technology Services Policy,   approximately 75% of legacy Web pages must be compliant by September 1, 2012—sooner if a specific request is made by an individual with a disability.   The remainder must be made compliant by September 1, 2013.   “The UM Accessibility Policy is a great first step,” says Reycraft.   “The administration at UM has been very supportive of students with disabilities and making the various campus environments accessible.  Now, we need to come together as a campus community and figure out how to get it done.  Many universities are creating task forces to audit technology access and develop a plan of action because it’s such an enormous undertaking.”

Making Websites Accessible

“There are many techniques webmasters can use to make their sites more accessible,” states Campus Webmaster Robby Seitz. “Some examples are to use ‘alt’ attributes for images for screen readers, to write code that helps a visitor navigate without requiring a mouse, to caption video or sound clips, just to name a few.” UM departments that deploy information technology services must become familiar with these standards and make reasonable efforts to adhere to them.  At the same time, department heads must make sure that information technology services deployed by their departments are accessible.

The  UM Accessibility of Technology Services Policy states that official UM Web pages must pass all checks in the Wave Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool in order to be minimally compliant.  Also,  the Official Web Pages Policy requires that the Accessibility link be included on the primary home page of each UM unit.  For more information on making Websites accessible, view Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.  To view additional resources,  refer to the  UM Accessibility of Technology Services Policy.

“The law is very clear that we cannot provide accommodations in a segregated environment,” Reycraft concludes.   “Therefore, students must be integrated into all campus environments, including the online environment.”

For questions and more information regarding student disabilities, contact the Office of Student Disability Services at (662) 915-7128 (office phone), (662) 915-7907 (TTY), or sds@olemiss.edu.   For questions and assistance related to making websites accessible, send email to it@olemiss.edu.

Filed Under: Technological Advances, Web Accessibility Tagged With: , , , ,

Blackboard Mobile Learn

October 6, 2011 by

Would you like to access Blackboard from anywhere?
Now there’s an App for that.

Blackboard Mobile LearnIntroducing Blackboard Mobile Learn
at The University of Mississippi

The Office of Information Technology is pleased to announce the launch of Blackboard Mobile Learn, a free mobile application that brings interactive teaching and learning to mobile devices and gives students full access to their Blackboard course information directly from their smartphones. This intuitive application, designed specifically for each of the major mobile platforms, allows students to check grades and assignments, view documents, create threaded discussion posts and comment on blogs and journals, upload content, and more. Instructors can use the app to post announcements, create blog and discussion posts, comment on their students’ blogs, discussions, and journals, and upload media files.

Blackboard Mobile Learn is available on the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android devices, BlackBerry smartphone devices, and HP web OS devices, and works over Wi-Fi, as well as all cellular networks.  The Mobile Learn app may be downloaded for free at the appropriate device App Store.

QR Codes to Download Apps

For more information on how to download the Blackboard Mobile Learn application for your device, visit the Blackboard Mobile Learn Help Page.

For additional support or questions, contact the Faculty Technology Development Center at 662-915-7918 or blackboard@olemiss.edu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: FTDC, Helpdesk, Mobile, Technological Advances

The iPad 2: The Next Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

July 13, 2011 by

by Matthew Herring, Guest Writer

Matthew Herring: Senior, Electrical Engineering

Okay, so it might not be “the” best thing since sliced bread.  But I have to admit, it is pretty close.  Most of you have probably already seen the various iPad 2 commercials on TV.  The sibling of the original iPad, the iPad 2 boasts a smaller form factor than the original iPad, a front and rear camera, and face-chat capabilities.  The iPad 2 is also Wifi and/or 3G capable on the AT&T network.  But any Apple user knows, the applications, or “apps” as they are well known, are what make this gadget a must have.  From HD games like Angry Birds that use every inch of the screen to a mobile office app for the business person on the go, this thing has some serious power under the hood. For students, it is an optimal computer-on-the-go.  With its slim body and frame, the iPad 2 can easily fit in any backpack, bag, or even some purses. Besides being a great way to pass the time, the iPad 2 has many other apps that make it worth its price.

The Basics: The standard apps and functions of the iPad 2

The iPad 2 comes right out of the box with some of the well-known applications.  These include the Safari Internet browser, the App Store, and Apple iTunes.  The iPad 2 comes with the Safari Internet browser.  You can buy or download another browser if Safari doesn’t suit your needs.  As you may have seen and heard from some of the other tablets available on the market, the iPad 2 does not support Adobe Flash.  Using the iPad 2 and the Safari Internet browser, I have not yet run into any issues thus far.  I know that many of the competitors have used this as a bargaining chip to get you to buy their tablets, but I personally do not think that is a good platform to stand on.

UPAD: A simple note-taking app with some serious fire-power

UPAD is a very neat note-taking app that I use in my classes along with a specialized stylus for the iPad that I bought.  UPAD mimics having a limit-less notepad at your fingertips.  One can even change the background to match different types of documents like graph paper for doing calculations or even a blackboard for those of you who are “old-school” teachers.  Along with taking notes, you can actually upload a PDF document through the app store and write your own notes on the PDF document.  This app also saves the note files in a PDF format.  This makes it easier to print out and save using other apps.

*Dropbox*: The go anywhere app

Ever forget that important document at home?  Well, Dropbox makes this a thing of the past!  Dropbox is a very nice cloud computing app.  Like Google Docs, it allows a person to carry any document anywhere, anytime.  You can even load Dropbox on your home computer and bring up a file that you made on your IPad 2 on your home computer with ease.  Dropbox is free up to a certain limit.  Then you can pay a monthly fee for more space.

Textastic: A Programmer’s Dream

For those of you who program, whether you do web page development or any other type of programming, Textastic is the app for you. Textastic is an easy to use text editor with a set of FTP protocols that allow a user to copy and write files to/from a secure server. Textastic supports various languages and one would be hard pressed to find a format that doesn’t work. One cool feature about this app is that it allows you to actually see the code in action before you load it back on to the server. So you can make any necessary changes and then preview the page to make sure the change you have made does exactly what you want.

Games, Games, Games!

One predominate reason why people have gotten an iPad, and now the iPad 2, is the games. With a wide HD screen, games on the iPad 2 let the user reach a whole new level of gaming experience. The iPad 2 has built-in accelerometers that tell the iPad its position in three dimensions.  This allows many games to use the tilt of the iPad as a controller. Many games like Metalstorm make use of this. Other games make use of the iPad’s touch screen.  A very popular game that uses this is Angry Birds.  The user is given a structure filled with pigs.  The pigs have stolen the bird’s eggs and the birds are out for revenge. The user must sling-shot the birds at the given structure and take out all of the pigs while doing the most damage. Different birds have different abilities once the birds are in flight and a user can tap the screen once the bird is in mid-air to activate that bird’s abilities.

One game that would give World of Warcraft a run for its money is called Infinity Blade.  It too is in HD and is a touch screen type game.  The game starts at a castle in a middle-earth type setting.  The user starts a “blood-line” that the user must play through until the final boss is reached.  The user may take various paths to get to the final boss.  Each path gives different monsters and demons that the user must vanquish in order to move to the next point.  Once the final boss is reached, the user must battle the evil king equipped with the Infinity Blade.  If the user is vanquished by the king, the king absorbs the user’s character through the Infinity Blade and the character’s son supersedes the father character in the blood line and the game starts over.

Another very fun game for the iPad 2 is Trade Nations.  This is a Farmville-type game in which the user must start a small village.  The small village grows by adding more people and placing different buildings like shops and markets.  The user collects money from the village and its villagers in order to buy bigger and better things.

Is the iPad 2 worth its price?

Matthew using his iPad 2 to upload lab results

Although all of these apps and features are just a small fraction of what is available, the price of a 16 GB Wifi only iPad 2 is $500 plus tax.  This is the smallest internal memory available for the iPad 2.  Also, by adding 3G and a data plan, this adds about $100 – $150 plus the cost per month to the price of the iPad 2.  One would also need some sort of protection plan which many stores like Wal-mart offer.  You would also need a case for the iPad 2 in order to protect its large screen.  Many stores have various types of cases, but the predominantly used case is the Otterbox.  The Otterbox for the iPad 2 just recently became available with a moderate price of about $90 plus tax.  So,  if you were keeping count, that’s roughly $800-$900.  Many of the apps in the iPad 2 app market must also be bought, along with songs, movies, and games.

For those of you who are die-hard PC users,  I strongly recommend taking some time to at least check out the iPad 2.  I have to admit that the price was a little off-putting to say the least. But after owning the iPad 2 and using it for a while, it has almost completely replaced my old laptop.  I can do so much on this little device that my computer can’t.  I can save my notes electronically in a PDF format that I have handwritten.  I can edit and make office documents just like I could on my computer.  I can surf the Internet, check my email, and even listen to my favorite artists all at the same time.  The only thing that hinders the iPad 2 is its internal memory size.  Granted, that the smallest memory value that you can get is only 16 GB.  It can easily be seen that this is not a “small” value.  You can also allocate data on any of the various cloud platforms for documents which will conserve some of the memory on your iPad 2.  You can also move most of your PDF files onto your computer once you do not need them anymore or simply delete them, if needed.

*Note:  Look for an upcoming article on safety guidelines for uploading documents to Dropbox.*

Filed Under: iPad 2, Technological Advances, Technology Procurements Tagged With: