Presentations

Friday, April 4, 9:15 - 10:15 a.m.

H041: MERC IR Meeting

Spring 2008 MERC Institutional Representatives (IR) meeting. All MERC IR’s are encouraged to attend. Nominations of MERC Board of Directors candidates for the FY09 slate will be held.

H042: Wearing Two Different Hats: Reflections of Teaching With and the Support of Live Classroom

Presenter(s): Marcel Bechtoldt, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Level: Beginner

Track: Administration and Leadership

One of the greatest challenges in IT administration is the selection of instructional technology solutions that balances the needs of the faculty and at the same time fits with other adopted instructional support technology models currently used on a university campus. Hear the experiences of an IT administrator and faculty member in Media Studies as he supported Live Classroom for the last two years. 

H043: Network Load Balancing and Implementing a Content Switch

Presenter(s): Michael Percival, Missouri State University

Level: Intermediate

Track: Security, Networking and Infrastructure

Reaching the maximum performance of your Web servers? Wanting to find a way to get more life out of old servers, or needing to find a solution to keep a website up in case of disaster, hardware failure, etc.? Have you looked into network load balancing? In this session I'll share with you the problems Missouri State University faces, how we are working to solve them and the problems we've encountered along the way. The focus will be on Microsoft IIS servers behind a Cisco content switch and Microsoft's Network Load Balancing, but will be general enough to apply to other environments.

H044: Painless Web Design via Usability Tests and Blogs

Presenter(s): Todd Kuhns and Greg Marshall, Truman State University

Level: Beginner

Track: Web Design and Development

Are you tired of complaints about your site's design? Is the feedback you receive all over the map? Is your "design by committee" process a nightmare? Learn how to use a unique combination of usability testing and blogging to guide your design process—scientifically improving your user experience, making the criticism you receive more productive and overcoming political obstacles. These techniques gave Truman State University the most successful, painless and well-received redesign we ever had, and we'd like to share them with you.

H045: Check This Out! Practical Uses of Technology to Enhance the Learning Experience

Presenter(s): Michelle Kilburn, Martha Henckell and James Stapleton, Southeast Missouri State University

Level: Intermediate

Track: Teaching and Learning with Technology

Have you often thought you would like to include instructional video or other cool stuff in your courses but have been intimidated by technology? Have you found yourself wondering, "Sure it's neat, but is there any research out there indicating this is going to help my students learn?" Join Martha, James and Michelle, three non-techies as they share their experiences incorporating the use of discussion boards, creating interactive instructional video, video streaming and more to enhance their students' learning experiences in face-to-face classes. Working from Moore's (1989) communication framework, we’ll provide insight on how technology can enhance the learning experience in face-to-face, blended and online learning formats.

H046: Security Tools for Single Machine Malware Investigation (2 HOURS)

Presenter(s): Beth Young and Randy Raw, MOREnet

Level: Intermediate

Track: Security, Networking and Infrastructure

Explore a variety of tools that will enable the technician to investigate problems with an individual machine. We will approach this mainly from a malware/spyware perspective but the tools can be used for a variety of tasks. NOTE: This session is in conjunction with the Security Tools for Network Investigation session.

H047: Optimizing Images for Online Use (2 HOURS)

Presenter(s): Bob Martin, MOREnet

Level: Beginner

Track: Teaching and Learning with Technology

If you have a website, blog or wiki, you will at some point want to put images on it. But working with images can be tricky. This two-hour, hands-on session will cover the things you need to know to optimize images for the Web. We will cover proper formats, sizing, resolution and saving your images. We will also cover some quick techniques for enhancing your images and fixing common problems such as crooked images (from the scanner) or images that are too light or too dark.

H048: Virtualization and You, Helping Troubleshooting and Test

Presenter(s): Travis Reddick, MOREnet

Level: Intermediate

Track: Security, Networking and Infrastructure

Learn about using VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server and Innotek VirtualBox to help troubleshoot and test computer and Active Directory/NDS issues. Also learn about saving on time, space and hardware costs.