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faculty resources


The are numerous resources for support and inspiration available for teaching distance education courses, both here at UF and through sites on the Web. Here are a couple of sources to help make your distance ed process easier and more effective.

Faculty Talking Points

If your students are interested in knowing more about which programs UF EDGE offers, or you would like to include slides about UF EDGE in a class presentation to tell students about the classes UF offers, download the faculty talking points. These are pre-created slides in Powerpoint format you can include in your presentation.

Class Roster

Faculty can access a class roster from the UF EDGE database by logging in with your GatorLink username and password. You will be given a list of options to view, some of which cannot be retrieved from your roster found in your class roster in MyUFL. The options include, but are not limited to, employer, alternate email address, and physical location.

Common Forms for Faculty

  1. Exam cover sheet : for print out, to accompany completed exams or quizzes.

Elluminate

Elluminate is a real-time virtual classroom environment designed for distance education and collaboration in academic institutions. Use Elluminate to extend the physical boundaries of your traditional classroom or to add live discussion and dynamic interaction to your asynchronous distance learning. The result-engaged students, enhanced learning, and improved comprehension.

Some of the tools built into Elluminate are interactive voice and video capabilities as well as text chat, shared whiteboard, polling, shared desktop, document distribution and session recording.

At beginning of the Fall 2007 semester the College of Engineering through the UFEDGE program along with several other colleges at the University of Florida purchased multiple seats in Elluminate. After close analysis of similar services the UF committee assigned to this task chose Elluminate because of price and the capability of this software to work internal and/or external to the Blackboard's Vista program, a course management software, supported by Academic Technology.

This tool is now available for the College of Engineering faculty and staff through UFEDGE.

If you are interested in applying this tool to your course or to meetings, contact: Ronnie Wisener (rwise@eng.ufl.edu) 352 392-9671

A half hour meeting will be set up to demonstrate the capabilities. If you agree that it could be a useful tool for you, you will be set up as a moderator at which time you can schedule your own meetings.

If you want voice interaction (multiple people speaking), it is recommended that you have a headset with microphone. You can use speakers and a separate microphone input but that can cause echoing while voice conferencing. A web camera on your computer will allow one person at a time to transmit their image.

The following links will give you an opportunity to read instructions on how to operate in different roles such as a moderator:

  1. Conducting Elluminate Live Sessions
  2. Elluminate Live Moderator Quick Reference Guide
  3. Elluminate Live Participant Quick Reference Guide
  4. Elluminate Live Moderator Guide
  5. Elluminate Live Participant Guide

UF Library Services

The University of Florida's Libraries strive to provide support for distance learning students and faculty that is equivalent to that provided on campus in Gainesville. Resources and services include:

  1. Access from your home to electronic library resources, including full text of many articles and books
  2. Access from your home to electronic indexes, reference tools, and many databases
  3. Access to electronic course reserve materials
  4. Delivery to your home or class location of books from UF campus libraries
  5. Delivery to your home or class location of copies of articles from journals not available at UF
  6. On-site borrowing and assistance at the University of Florida and at libraries of other Florida public universities and colleges
  7. Information and reference assistance via email, online chat, or telephone
  8. Access to online library tutorials

You can learn more about all these services at the Services for Distance Learners page maintained by the UF Library staff.

Useful Distance Education Websites