Untitled
Spent the evening or May 7th at a recognition event for donors to the college.  The Innovation Center has been a direct recipient of Falcon Grant monies – that’s how we got the Printrbot – and an indirect recipient in partnership with Geosciences, enabling us to upgrade to a better quadcopter for dolookdown.org.  I had the opportunity to explain the various projects, and to talk to Foundation members and donors about our plans to remake the IC as a makerspace.  Several seem very excited about the idea!

Presentation slides from Beyond the LMS: Tools for Increasing Student Engagement & Success

Notes:

Using Google Hangouts through Los Rios Google Apps

https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/apps.losrios.edu/wxxxxxxx?authuser=1

Replace the x’s with your id number, and it’s always best to be logged in to apps.losrios.edu prior to clicking the link. Personally, I use Chrome for apps.losrios.edu and Firefox for all Google things linked to other GMail accounts.  Once you start the Hangout, you will be able to invite individual users, or share the link in D2L. Students won’t need to use a private Gmail and you will be under the umbrella of Los Rios.

Accessibility and VoiceThread

http://voicethread.com/about/features/accessibility/

1.  New Dean – Molly Senecal – Hurray!

2.  Distance Education Strategic Plan – Spring 2016?
Revisit SWOT analysis from 2012?

3.  Crash Course – May 21 and 22

4.  Library Lyna
Our Mission – To host the largest collection of high quality educational 3D models to foster learning of the blind and visually impaired.

5.  Full-time Adaptive Media Design Specialist

6.  Amara.org for subtitles

7.  Email from D2L – Summer 2015

Gearing up for a field day
Kite? Check. Helium? Check. It takes quite a bit of gear to execute a proper field day. Professor Jason Pittman arranged a KAP/BAP field day, and we headed up to the wetlands on the north end of campus to meet students around noon. Following a brief safety talk and protocol orientation, one team set out to launch the balloon, while the other team assembled and attempted to launch the kite.

Filling balloon Number 1
Half-full, balloon #1 revealed some pinhole leaks, so we tried to move the gas to a second balloon, which didn’t work at all, and we popped the first one in the process. Fortunately, we were able to get one of the spares filled and in the air.

IMG_0273
The kite team struggled with inconsistent wind. After many heroic attempts, they eventually scrapped the launch and joined the balloon team to walk the wetlands.

IMG_0267
We flew for ~40 minutes, with the camera (iPhone on the picavet, running Timelapse at 10 second intervals), and captured some really good shots.  (Link:  The full set images from 04.24.15 BAP field day.)

BAP!
At 2 o’clock, we headed back to the cars to stow the gear and head out. A few students hung around and had a chance to fly our newest quad.

IMG_0281
All things considered, a successful field day.