Using MyITLab Training in Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint

About Me and My Course Worked as Lab Instructor and part-time faculty at WLU for 9 years Began training others in software in 1994 Started using MyITLab last year Almost 500 students per term, 13 lab sections per week, 2 Lab Instructors, 24+ Instructional assistants (2 per lab, extras to help mark assignments) 90%+ business and economics students WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

About You How many academics in the room? How many techies? How many of you recommend instructional technologies to instructors or professors? WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

Why use MyITLab? Interested in using technology to teach in different ways More students in recent years Wanted less instruction time More “Help” time for those who needed it Students think they know what they are doing, but they don’t WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

What is MyITLab? Product of Pearson Education Competitor: SAM2007 – Wiley / Cengage Web based simulator for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access Like an interactive Camtasia video’ Similar training system can be developed with Flash (Abobe Captivate) but time consuming Why not give a demonstration? My Starting Page WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

What happened? First year: Kept lab material the same, added MyITLab Some frustration over problems with Windows Vista Students needed more training on using MyITLab than I had anticipated When it didn’t work, students complained to me WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

The Second Year (ongoing!) Year 2, Semester 1 now complete… time to start all over again Gave less intro material, told them to jump right into Training and Assessments Students still didn’t have a theoretical grounding, or even basic intro to the new Office 2007 interface Learned quickly we still needed to EXPLAIN features of Word and where to find them Some students were watching the training and memorizing what needed to be done WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

Year 2 Continued… Problems with scheduling in the beginning, overloaded the work while trying to keep labs in line with lecture Give more demo and explanation now before telling them to do the assessments Meant for distance learning, should allow students to complete at home Still need a pedagogical tool for making sure students complete skills on their own (assignments and in lab testing) WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

Lessons Learned Probably eliminate position based questions ( drag the image so its top left corner is at the -3.5 inch mark on the horizontal axis and +3 on the vertical ) Assistants need training in how the software works, and not giving the answers or helping with it Students should get some wrong Start early by showing students how to contact MyITLab Tech support and how to do browser check WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

Support in Vista is “iffy” – some assessments I’ve seen fail, but some students have reported no problems. Fully supported in Windows 7 as of January 2010 with IE 7 WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

New in 2010 – GRADER! Saw it previewed at a Pearson conference in the summer Tested in colleges in the US and Canada Helps detect academic misconduct Detects if files have been shared Can automatically mark assignments from supported textbooks (capstone exercises) WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab

RTFS WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration | December 8, 2009 | Using MyITLab